At that time, there was a perception in the country by most people that to lose the war meant to lose America. Right or wrong, the people were predominantly behind the war.

We geared up, we sent the troops, we fought the war, and we showed the enemy that we were not afraid to totally annihilate him if it came to that. Two atomic bombs showed, Japan directly and Germany indirectly, it was surrender or be decimated.

We won.

What has changed since then that keeps bogging our soldiers down in distant lands where they sit as targets for "insurgents?"

In World War II, Americans felt the crush of having been attacked directly.

We didn't feel that in Korea, Vietnam, or the first war in Iraq, and it translated into a lack of popular support for those wars. Korea remains un-ended in an armistice, Vietnam was lost, and the first Iraq war was ended short of Baghdad.

But that isn't the answer, because on 9-11 there was most assuredly a direct attack on the United States prior to our current war, and still polls show that the majority of Americans want out of Iraq.

Either we didn't feel the attack came from the country with which we went to war, (sort of if when Japan attacked us, we went to war with Turkey.) or there is some other answer. The other answer is that our country no longer has an "end game" in war.

The end game in wars that have succeeded has always had to do with proving you are willing to annihilate the other side.

In order for Americans to allow that, there has to be a clear and present danger.

We live in a society which will not allow that end game because

as Americans we feel it is wrong unless it is in self-defense.
That is why we continue to fight half-way wars and continue to falter after the initial assault even though we are a superior military force.

To make matters worse, when the other side doesn't believe we will actually win it, it does what has been done in all wars since WWII.

In Korea, Vietnam, Iraq-one, the enemy has always known if it holds out long enough we will go away, and we have. They say the same thing now of the insurgent war in Iraq.

They are right. The United States, for all its military might, as a country, feels that to annihilate another country is wrong, unless the clear and present danger is that they will annihilate us if we don't.

The government hasn't proven that lately.

If we go to war we must fight to win; if we don't, we will lose.

The answer seems evident. There is never a time for war unless you must win it at all costs. War doesn't work part way.

Most of us believe that somewhere high in government there is information they don't share with us. If this is true, they should make it much clearer to us now than they have.

If some major terror war, beginning somewhere in the 1940s is culminating in the likes of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri and is bent on the total destruction of the United States and our way of life, show us the proof. Make it clear, and it will be a time for war.

If not, we as a society that is truly different from any other that has ever existed, will not allow the necessary end game of war.

We will fight with half our strength and half our weapons and will take care not to hurt civilians and places of culture and religion. And we will lose.

If history has taught us anything, if religion has taught us anything, if the ideal of America has taught us anything, it is that there is a time for peace and a time for war.

We have also, obviously, been taught that if the situation doesn't merit an end game, it is not a time for war.