Saddam’s regime continues to underestimate and miscalculate in his dealings with us. He (or whoever is now in charge, if anyone) still focus on the Beirut Marine barracks and Mogadishu, and the mistaken perception that Americans have no staying power–they are cowards who will turn and run when they encounter adversity. Thus, they hope that by criminally brutalizing our POWs and equally criminally advertising the act on television, they will break our morale.

They apparently don’t follow any military history outside of the region. Otherwise, they’d have realized how we treated the Japanese after Pearl Harbor, and Bataan. They didn’t frighten us–they angered us. We shed shiploads of blood, and lost many thousands of brave men, over a period of years, to see that the regime that did that was ground into the dust of history.

The same will happen with this one, and the sooner they realize it, the better off the Iraqi people will be.

And now, in retrospect, we should have been much tougher when the Iranians took our hostages, even if it cost them their lives. It might have saved many more in the future.

We cannot and should not expect tyrants to like us, but after this, they had better start fearing us.