I agree that some form of civil service should be mandatory for all citizens.
---- OrI agree iginal message ----
>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:32:17 -0700
>From: ken barber <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Some say US citizens need a war tax or a call to national service.
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>this is interesting. do you agree or disagree?
>
>--- "Kendall D. Corbett" <[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>=== message truncated ===
>
>
>
>
>____________________________________________________________________________________
>TV dinner still cooling?
>Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV.
>http://tv.yahoo.com/
>
>-----------------------
>
>To change your mail settings or leave the C-PALSY list, go here:
>
>http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?SUBED1=c-palsy
|