Losing Heart

Bryan Preston at JunkYardBlog is starting to doubt that we have what it takes to win this war:

Abu Ghraib is that wound, or threatens to be. It will lead to exposure of other "atrocities," real and imagined. It will draw a line from a prison in Iraq to prisons here in America, and will lead to an airing of our worst side in the middle of a war in which our moral authority is indispensible to victory. The world already hates and fears us; seeing us as a truly abusive power, in living color, will dash whatever sympathy the world may have still held for us. Abu Ghraib will also paint us into a corner in which we will no longer be able to use serious methods to interrogate dangerous terrorists who may have information on future attacks. It will give a hostile press and our political opposition something to exploit, and will give the anti-war movement renewed energy. As the war has heated up, fringe leftist rhetoric has gone mainstream, with Democrats spouting "Bush knew!" and accusing him of plotting the war for purely political purposes. There is even a returned US soldier from Iraq playing Kerry's latter day mini-me. The Vietnam-era anti-war movement is back in force, ready to turn America once again from sure victory to catastrophic defeat.

Is the cultural rot too deep? Are Americans still strong and decent enough to see this thing through? Or are we weak and decadent like our enemies say we are?