A friend sent me an article about a parent who attended his 13-year-old son's baseball game. His son's team was winning 24-7 as the game entered the last inning. When he looked up at the scoreboard, he noticed that the score read 0-0. Naturally, he inquired as to what happened – was the scoreboard perhaps broken? – and was told that the winning team's coach asked the scoreboard keeper to change the score. He and some of the parents were concerned that the boys on the losing team felt humiliated. In order to ensure that the boys losing by a lopsided score would not feel too bad, the score was changed. What this parent witnessed exemplifies the reason many fear for the future of America and traditional Western values.

This is also one reason why we have not fought a war to win it since World War Two. Americans no longer know how to win and do not understand the consequences of losing. So we fight every war with ridiculous rules of engagement, limited firepower, and negotiation with the enemy rather than defeat of the enemy. In Vietnam, we were not allowed to bomb North Vietnamese targets. We could not attack the enemy supply routes coming through Laos and Cambodia. And we could not eliminate enemy artillery if it were located outside of South Vietnam. In 1968, I was deployed in Khe Sahn, South Vietnam. We were bombarded every day with artillery fire but we were not permitted to attack and destroy the enemy guns because they were located just outside the South Vietnam border in the Laotian mountains. Thousands of young Americans died during that war because we fought by ridiculous rules made up and imposed upon us by cowardly, politically-correct politicians in congress. And when too many soldiers died for Americans to stomach, then the politicians, the press, and traitors like Jane Fonda and John Kerry forced us to withdraw ignominiously. Sound familiar? Today's politicians want to set a deadline for America's involvement in Iraq, thereby telling the enemy what date we will be leaving and giving them a period of time that they need to hold on to achieve victory. What happened when we retreated from Vietnam? In case you have forgotten, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were either executed or thrown into “reeducation camps”. Millions of refugees fled the country for the US and other western countries. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, inspired by Mao’s collectivization in China, massacred 25% of the country’s population. America’s withdrawal from Vietnam emboldened the USSR to send “military advisors” to many countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. By the 1980’s, pro-Communist regimes had control of more than a dozen African and Middle East countries as well as Nicaragua and, of course, Cuba. America had become a weak country in the eyes of the world. Democracy was in retreat and the Soviet empire was advancing. Iran brazenly challenged America when Islamic militants stormed the American embassy, seized hostages, and President Jimmy Carter did nothing. History does repeat itself.

The same pattern is appearing today in the Middle East. For example, American military intelligence located a couple dozen Taliban leaders attending a funeral in Afghanistan a few months ago but the rules of engagement would not allow our military to kill the enemy at a funeral site. How compassionate! So we had to let them escape to, no doubt, kill some of our soldiers at a later date. And now, Iran takes 15 British Navy personnel hostage and there are no consequences - just as there were no consequences when Iran held Americans hostage for 444 days. American troops were withdrawn from Beirut in 1984 after the Marine barracks bombing. American troops were withdrawn from Somalia after the Black Hawk Down incident. Coalition forces were withdrawn from Iraq during the Gulf War rather than finishing the job of removing Saddam Hussein from power. So we are right back there again today trying to fix what we did not finish in 1991. Israeli troops were pressured to evacuate from Lebanon last summer rather than eliminating Iran's proxy military force, Hezbollah - an organization responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans. The UN and American politicians would not tolerate the eradication of Hezbollah by our ally, Israel, despite the fact that Israeli soldiers had been captured and held hostage (and continue to be held hostage) and Israeli towns were under unprovoked rocket attack every day. Instead, Israel was blamed for being overly aggressive, just as they are blamed every day for the violence in the Palestinian territories, caused primarily by suicide bombers and rocket attacks against Israel.

Our enemies know that we have become a soft nation and they exploit it as much as they can. We have become a nation of wimps and we are teaching our children to be even bigger wimps. Whatever happened to "Give me Liberty or give me death"? Where is "the land of the Free and the home of the Brave"? Our founding fathers would be ashamed. All Americans should be ashamed!