It worked for Eisenhower

Seems Barack Obama is making a fact-finding tour of Iraq and Afghanistan. Let's hope he gets an earful from the generals, and starts to understand what we're up against.
As Eisenhower put it (merely substitute al-Qaeda for Korea, and note the number of dead): "In this anxious time for America, one fact looms above all others in our people's mind. One tragedy challenges all men dedicated to the work of peace. One word shouts denial to those who foolishly pretend that ours is not a nation at war. This fact, this tragedy, this word is: Korea. A small country, Korea has been, for more than two years, the battleground for the costliest foreign war our nation has fought, excepting the two world wars. It shall been the burial ground for 20,000 America dead. It has been another historic field of honor for the valor and skill and tenacity of American soldiers. All these things it has been-and yet one thing more. It has been a symbol-a telling symbol-of the foreign policy of our nation. It has been a sign-a warning sign-of the way the Administration has conducted our world affairs. It has been a measure-a damning measure-of the quality of leadership we have been given. Tonight I am going to talk about our foreign policy and of its supreme symbol-the Korean war. I am not going to give you elaborate generalizations-but hard, tough facts. I am going to state the unvarnished truth. What, then, are the plain facts? The biggest fact about the Korean war is this: It was never inevitable, it was never inescapable, no fantastic fiat of history decreed that little South Korea-in the summer of 1950-would fatally tempt Communist aggressors as their easiest victim. No demonic destiny decreed that America had to be bled this way in order to keep South Korea free and to keep freedom itself-self-respecting. We are not mute prisoners of history. That is a doctrine for totalitarians, it is no creed for free men. There is a Korean war-and we are fighting it-for the simplest of reasons: because free leadership failed to check and to turn back Communist ambition before it savagely attacked us. The Korean war-more perhaps than any other war in history-simply and swiftly followed the collapse of our political defenses. There is no other reason than this: We failed to read and to outwit the totalitarian mind... World War II should have taught us all one lesson. The lesson is this: To vacillate, to hesitate-to appease even by merely betraying unsteady purpose-is to feed a dictator's appetite for conquest and to invite war itself."