Remember Pearl Harbor

64 years ago today, the Japanese drug America, kicking and screaming in protest, into World War II by attacking Pearl Harbor. Despite the protestations of the "America Firsters" the oceans weren't big enough to protect us from the real world. To our shock and sorrow, we learned that lesson then...to our shame, we've had to learn it again and again, most recently on 9/11.

The rhetoric of withdrawal and isolation sounds appealing, but it ignores the reality of the modern day world. There are no longer any front lines, safe havens or ways to avoid those who wish to kill us. The fanatical Islamists cannot be negotiatied with, appeased, bought off, or bargained with. We cannot bring them to the table to sign a peace treaty. By their own choice, the only way they can be stopped is permanently. If we insist on forgetting this fact (again), they will certainly remind us (again). But the cost of such folly is too high.

How many times will we have to relearn the lesson of Pearl Harbor? As many times as we forget it.