I wanted to briefly bring up an op-ed I recently read from Frank Rich of the NY Times that appeared in the December 6th edition. Now, normally I would find it very difficult to find common group with the overtly liberal columnist. But there was a passage in it where he talks about the disconnect that is inherent in the President's war plans and it ties right in with what I've been talking about on this blog.
First, read this passage....
"It’s not just that Obama is fielding somewhat fewer troops than the maximum Gen. Stanley McChrystal requested. McChrystal himself didn’t ask for enough troops to fight a proper counterinsurgency in Afghanistan in the first place. Using the metrics outlined in the sacred text on the subject, Gen. David Petraeus’s field manual, we’d need a minimal force of 568,000 for Afghanistan’s population of 28.4 million. After the escalation, allied forces will reach barely a quarter of that number.
If the enemy in Afghanistan today threatens the American homeland as the Viet Cong never did, we should be all in, according to Obama’s logic. So why aren’t we? The answer is not merely that Afghans don’t want us as occupiers. It’s that such a mission would require a commensurate national sacrifice. One big difference between the war in Vietnam and the war in Afghanistan that the president conspicuously left unmentioned on Tuesday is the draft. Given that conscription is not about to be revived, we’d have to spend money, lots more money, to recruit the troops needed for the full effort Obama’s own argument calls for."
The bold part is mine. Reread the passage - this is the exact point I have been making - if these conflicts - whether you call it the Global War on Terror, or the conflict in Iraq, or Afghanistan - if these battles are vital to the security and national interests of American than all of America needs to be mobilized and galvanized to prevail.
THAT IS NOT HAPPENING. This is not what both former President Bush or now President Obama is asking of Americans. They both gave speeches talking about the importance of the battles but then failed to require any sacrifices by anyone other than those of us that serve in the military.
Why did President Bush deliver a speech from an aircraft carrier and Why was Obama up in West Point to deliver his speech (other than the political theater of the setting) ? Because those are the people that will bear the burden of there decisions. It will not be the vast majority of the people who watched either man from the comfort of their own couches.
And why isn't this great mobilization happening? Because there is no draft. Because the majority of Americans are not required to do their part.
When the burden of defending so many falls on the shoulders of so few, a nation will fall. And we are well on our way to testing this axiom.
Here is the link for the whole article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06rich.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
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