Take the Long View

Take the Long View

This Thanksgiving, I'm tuning out the 'gloom-and-doom' crowd who think America is going to pot and the war in Iraq is a failure.

Gimme a break! Consumer confidence is at an all-time high, unemployment is down, and the economy is growing. That's not spin. Anyone on Wall Street will tell you the numbers don't lie. And Iraq is not a disaster.

Are there problems? Yes. Are there things the Coalition Provisional Authority needs to do better? Absolutely.

But this Thanksgiving holiday, I hope we all take time to remember that we liberated more than 20 million people from tyranny. I oughta know ... I was in Iraq while Saddam was still running his reign of terror. I returned home heartbroken — Saddam was killing his people's souls. That's not hyperbole — I saw it every day in the eyes of everyone I met. That "dead" look when your spirit is so broken that you are just subsisting.

But now Iraqis see some hope for their collective future. The process of rebuilding Iraq will be rocky for some time. But it's going to take time. I hope we can all stomach the bad days, celebrate the good days, and remember to take the long view. You can't rebuild a broken country in a few months.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Send me an e-mail at dayside@foxnews.com and tell me what you think.

Linda