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 ===



 
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