Interesting piece from the Christian Science Monitor on the war.....

 *Few Americans share Iraq war's sacrifices*

*By Gordon Lubold* | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor



*WASHINGTON***

Ask Navy corpsman Adam Shepherd what he wants Americans to know about his
service in Iraq and he says it boils down to one thing. "Just don't forget
that we sacrificed a lot to be out here," says the medic, stationed at Camp
Taqaddum, Iraq.

It's a sentiment that many servicemen and women express. Five years after
President Bush declared war on Islamic extremism, the military has lost
3,599 troops and spent $503 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet unlike past
wars, even unpopular ones, most Americans have contributed little directly.
Tire and paper drives of World War II are a dim memory. An increasingly
narrow slice of the population serves in the military.

Now, a growing number of observers question whether Americans should make
some kind of sacrifice for what Bush himself calls the "decisive ideological
struggle of our time." Despite the billions spent on defense, which
represents 4 percent of the gross domestic product, many inside the
administration and conservatives outside it believe it's time to spend more.
But raising defense spending at a time when Americans are frustrated with
the Iraq war is problematic. It also raises questions for the growing number
of Americans who don't support the president's war strategy. So what should
citizens do – if anything – to support US troops?

Aside from sending care packages or volunteering to help those in uniform,
Americans seem to have no ready answers.

All this comes at a time when lawmakers, analysts, and many current and
former military officials blame Bush for failing to mobilize the nation by
calling on Americans to join the military or creating national service
programs or even raising additional resources to help pay for the war
effort. Instead, he has doled out tax cuts and suggested Americans can be
true patriots by keeping the economy going strong.

Says one retired general: "Marines are at war, America is at the mall."

The president has also asked for patience as challenges to the war effort
have mounted – a different kind of sacrifice that the public and Congress
seems increasingly unwilling to make.

Americans would be willing to sacrifice in real ways if they were asked,
says Fred Kagan, a senior analyst at American Enterprise Institute, a
conservative think tank in Washington. "It's one of the worst failures of
the administration, the weakness of its efforts to make it possible for the
American people to support its troops."

Soon, Mr. Kagan and other strong supporters of going the distance in Iraq
will release a report that among other things will explain why mobilizing
the nation in support of the war on terrorism has become so critical – and
offer practical ways on how to do it.

Military recruiters have their own solution – enlist. Since the military
became an all-volunteer force in 1973, an increasing number of servicemen
and women have come from lower-income households.

With few exceptions, the conspicuous absence of the social elite – including
celebrities, the upper class, and children of politicians – in the military
creates the impression that this war isn't worth fighting, says Charles
Moskos, noted military sociologist at Northwestern University in Evanston,
Ill. "This is the no-sacrifice war."

But if it's not possible to enlist, some say the next best thing is money.

Enter Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the independent from Connecticut, who last
Thursday proposed a new tax to raise money for troops. The "Support Our
Troops Tax" would raise $50 billion per year over the next five years to pay
for defense and veterans benefits and services. The proposal, coming in the
form of an amendment to the fiscal 2008 budget, is what Senator Lieberman
calls the need for a "shared sacrifice."

"It's my way of making a larger point that our military went to war but our
nation didn't go to war," he says. "And as long as that is true, we are not
going to have the success and the victory we need."

The senator concedes that taxes are unpopular and that levying one on an
already unpopular war may not go over well with the American public or
fellow lawmakers. "There may be other ways to do this, but we haven't been
creative about it," he says.

Other observers say the problem is not that Americans haven't been asked to
sacrifice, it's that they're indifferent to sacrifice.

The burden of the war on terrorism has fallen exclusively on the nation's
young – the current generation known as the Millennials, born beginning in
the 1990s and known for their penchant for conformity, public service, and
duty, says William Strauss, a prominent generational historian and author of
10 books.

He says it's difficult to convince other Americans to sacrifice because so
many of them are baby boomers, who grew up during Vietnam and typically
don't trust institutions like the military. Thus, they are less inclined to
want to make a sacrifice in the same way their parents did during World War
II or their sons and daughters are doing now, Mr. Strauss says.

Political calculations aside, that generational mind-set may make it
difficult for the nation's leaders to ask for people to make a sacrifice –
especially during an unpopular war, he adds. Still, the war on terrorism
presents baby boomers with a dilemma.

"It's one of the questions for boomers; as a generation, they need to
reflect on whether they are looking for a free pass through history," says
Strauss, "and to see what their legacy will be as elders."

The memory of 9/11 is "a little distant now," says Strauss, who believes it
may take another dramatic event before the country is truly galvanized and
therefore capable of true sacrifice. "If we have that, the nature of our
nation's response could surprise us."

•*Tom Peter contributed to this story.*
-- 

Kendall

An unreasonable man (but my wife says that's redundant!)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.

-George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950

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