Originally posted by: BMW540I6speed
A number of conservative commentators, like Jonah Goldberg among others, have characterized the current GWOT as the Clash of Civilizations, and have stated again and again that defeat is unacceptable.
Other commentators point out that the President?s call for sacrifice in the face of this grand clash consists, to date, of tax cuts and a request to go shopping. [Meanwhile, despite a very low unemployment rate we?re running a staggering deficit.]
Now, while recruiting rates are OK, there has been a fair bit of press about falling recruiting standards. Meanwhile, the same group of conservative commentators have not made a big push to call for their community of young, smart, college-educated / college-bound conservatives to put their lives on the line by joining the Army.
So, what?s really going on? Is the conservative claim of Clash of Civilizations just BS to bash the Democrats? Is Goldberg?s failure to enlist and failure to call for others like him to enlist:
(a) personal cowardice, which if established publicly might lead to a reduction in his speaking engagements;
(b) professional cowardice ? the fear that actually calling on his constituents to do something other than rail against Democrats might lead to loss of employment / speaking engagements;
(c) rank hypocrisy ? "a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not" according to Merriam?s online dictionary;
(d) a combination of the foregoing;
(e) something else?
Seriously, why wouldn't the Administration, if indeed this is the battle for Western Civilization as we know it, just institute the draft, and deploy 500,000 plus troops to Iraq to secure the country and really get serious about this adventure?
Uh...I know why. The Administration isn't serious. It's all about legacy protection and politics now, as if it weren't right from the beginning of this nonsensical incursion for no reason, save for the chimera of doing "something" after 9/11.
Of course our nation will never initiate a Manhattan Project-style dedication to the elimination of the "insurgency" in Iraq, which of course, is really nationalism against a occupier, not "Islamo-fascism".
The reason? No parent in their right mind would ever tolerate their child being drafted to participate in this inanity, and, to truly achieve "victory" in Iraq, that's where you would have to begin: A draft, and raising taxes dedicated to fighting the war.
So, all of this puffery and pontificating about a "surge" is little more than window dressing and empty rhetoric. As if...20,000 more US troops will ensure "victory". Even those dedicated to this Administration's war folly aren't taking this war seriously. They're not going to, nor will they ever, sacrifice their own blood and treasure to flesh out this neocon hallucination of a pacified and democratized Iraq.
The real point of wingnut hand-wringing over troop shortages:
1) To leave themselves some intellectual (sic) space in the future to escape the continued failure of their favored policies without having to admit that said policies were just wrong.
2) To leave room to blame American's who did not in fact support the war for that failure.
Which is to say, regardless of how long it takes the war to fail at any of its putative objectives, it'll still be your fault, you filthly "lib".
The sad part of all of this, is that many American's who are served up "marketing & demonization" of the chicken-hawks, and have served in the military during this time (as well as their familiies and friends) will also believe that their sacrifices are the fault of people who didn't "support" the war.
Bleating from chicken-hawks serves to encourage that sense of victimization, since it shores up support in what little is left of their base.
