Imagine, if you will, the following scenario. The United States is engaged in a naval war with Islandia in the Gulf of Halliburton. U.S. efforts to secure the Gulf and its precious oil reserves have been hampered by an unrelenting tempest that began not long after the onset of hostilities. (Although experts had previously warned of the region’s volatile climate, the White House blamed faulty meteorological intelligence.) With each passing year, the tempest has seemed to intensify, and U.S. forces—caught betwixt the raging seas and the fierce winds—have suffered growing casualties. At home, discontent for the war is also growing, with both public and expert opinion significantly favoring a withdrawal of troops. Despite such circumstances, the President concludes that the best course of action is to send more troops into the tempest!

Perhaps the President has put aside the works of Camus in favor of Cervantes. However, the irony has seemingly escaped him:

At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain.

“Fortune,” said Don Quixote to his squire, as soon as he had seen them, “is arranging matters for us better than we could have hoped. Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God’s good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth.”

“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.

“Those you see there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.”

“Look, your worship,” said Sancho. “What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go.”

“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat.”

So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rocinante, heedless of the cries his squire Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly they were windmills and not giants he was going to attack. He, however, was so positive they were giants that he neither heard the cries of Sancho, nor perceived, near as he was, what they were. [full text]

The President is tilting at windmills. He is tilting at the raging seas and the fierce winds. Does he seriously believe that he will fare any better than Don Quixote? Should he send a surge of troops into the tempest (as he appears intent on doing), he can in all likelihood expect a surge of casualties. And a surge of opposition. And little more. He honors neither those who have fallen nor those who bravely fight on by such action. Indeed, he dishonors their sacrifice and struggles by ignoring the evidence before him, the lessons of history (and literature), and the counsel of those with more wisdom and experience. Tragically, this President remains quixotically intent on feeding his wounded ego and, in so doing, feeding the ravening tempest.