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.

>> 

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