To the Editor:
Re “The Surge is Only Beginning” [May 7]: Those now wringing their hands over the sacrifices necessary to defend against Islamist terrorism owe us a clear explanation of just how they would meet the threat. Or do they imagine their naïveté and partisan fault-finding alone will suffice?
And wherever did leading Democrats get the idea that an evil which conceived the hurling of innocents to their deaths against skyscrapers could ever be expected to casually fold in the face of our first determined resistance? Certainly not from President Bush, who has been clear from the start that the struggle against terrorism we are now engaged in can only be a long and difficult one.
The Cold War years likewise knew many who would have walked away from confronting communism, leaving Eastern Europe to the grimmest of fates. Those who now refuse to fully value this threat of Islamist extremism bring these others to mind.
This time, the victims of shortsightedness will not be nearly so distant.
Ron Goodden
Atlanta, Ga.
