Sixty years ago today, the fourth anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by Shinto extremists, the war (or at least America’s entry into it) that was set off by that event had been over for months. We had just celebrated our first Thanksgiving at (what we perceived to be–the Cold War still lay ahead) peace. The nation was looking forward to the first Christmas in four years in which many men (and women) who had been fighting and dying overseas would finally get to spend it at home with their families.

But today, over four years after the events of September 11, as we approach another holiday season here, the war between democracy, and Islamic fanaticism and totalitarianism continues, with no clear end in sight. This is not a criticism of the administration (though there is much to criticize) so much as a recognition of the reality that this is a much different, and in some ways, more difficult conflict than was that one.

One of the crucial differences is the lack of clarity about the identity, and nature of the enemy, at least to many. While I think that the parallels to the fascists that we fought then are in many ways valid, clearly others do not, and do not take our enemy seriously, preferring instead to treat this war as a criminal prosecution (the lack of efficacy of which was just demonstrated yesterday, to the dismay of many, including me).

But the other difference is not just the nature of our enemy, but the nebulous nature of our so-called allies, compounded by the tendency of State Department diplomats to confuse the interests of the governments with which they deal with those of the people that they (often, too often, illegitimately) represent. Moreover, based on the behavior of the opposition party over the past few years, we apparently no longer live in a polity in which politics “stops at the waters’ edge.”

There may have been some Republicans who publicly declared that “Roosevelt’s war” was “unwinnable,” but I’m not aware of any Republican leaders who did so. In fact, neither Wendell Wilkie or Tom Dewey ever used the war as one of their presidential campaign planks, though it might have been politically advantageous for them to do so, because they saw themselves as Americans first, and Republicans second.

How long will this war go on? There’s no way to know, of course, but surely when one of the major parties is in political denial that it even exists or that it can be won, and when some (too many) in that party seem almost concerned that, unlike Vietnam (their template for all wars) we might win it, it can’t accelerate the victory.

In another context, when asked when a technological achievement would be accomplished, Arthur Clarke responded, “five years after people stop laughing at it.” I can’t put a number on how long it will take to victory, and I’m confident that it will be longer than five years (at least from September 11, 2001), but I’d say that however long it is, it will be that long from the point at which the whole nation, and not just the half that voted for George Bush, starts to take the war seriously.

[Late morning update]

Michelle Malkin and LaShawn Barber have link roundups on the anniversary.

[Update after noon]

Jay Dyson has an appropriate cartoon.