[url]http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/2/10/212903/url]

Yup.
[url]www.opinionjournal.com/best/[/url]

They Shoulda Shot
The New York Times (link requires registration) has a timely reminder of what it was like when America was too timid to defend its interests. The paper interviews Rodney Sickman, who was a Marine guard at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran when terrorists took it over in 1979:

On orders from his superiors, Sergeant Sickmann did not so much as lob a tear gas grenade at the mob coming to occupy the embassy. Now he thinks he and his fellow guards should have started shooting.

"Had we opened fire on them, maybe we would only have lasted an hour," he said. But if he and 51 others had died there, rather than becoming hostages for the next 444 days, "we could have changed history," he said, by sending the message that Americans could not be attacked without cost. Instead, he said, the surrender sent the message that there was no penalty for attacking the United States.

"If you look back, it started in 1979; it's just escalated," he said in an interview.