Ah Nuts, He's Still on about the War

I'm the odd man out among most of my friends when it comes to the war. I marched against it and fiercely opposed it right up until the moment we took Baghdad. At that point, believing what Powell said to be true, I assumed we owned the state that we had broken.

Now I've had that line shoved back down my throat by hawks who'd retort, "it was broken before we got there" (as if that settled the matter in any practical way), but I still earnestly believe we're morally obligated to ensure as many Iraqis as possible survive this fiasco. To me, that's always meant not leaving until the country was secure and stable. Actually, more than that, to me it's meant delivering on the promise to leave them better off, with an Iraqi-sensible government that's fair and just in place.

After Baghdad fell, I continued to criticize the decision to enter the war (I believe it's important not to let huge mistakes like that go unpunished, lest they be repeated [read:"Iran"]), but I've tried as best I can in my rehtoric to give Bush the elbow room needed to beat back the insurgency and install some workable government. I've understood that meant supporting the continued presence of US troops in Iraq until that could happen. I've taken it on the chin from a few friends for doing so as well, but the President's not the only stubborn fool in the US, so I cling to what I believe is right.

Where I differ, and most vehemently, from the President about how this difficult transition is best made is in what the people of the US should be doing to support the effort. Bush tells us ad nauseum that Iraq is part of the overall "war on terror," and that it's the central conflict of our era, and that we cannot afford not to win that conflict, etc., etc., but for something so momumental, he never tells us what our role in it all should be. Leading up to the speech, pundits were reporting that he was going to make "sacrifice" a central them of his appeal to the nation. He mentioned it, but only in an nonspecific sense:

Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve. It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom. Yet times of testing reveal the character of a nation. And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed. Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century. We can and we will prevail.

During WWII, non-military Americans were brought into the war effort with a nationally promoted set of very specific sacrifices: from war bonds, to rationing, to Victory Gardens, to women entering factories, to civilian defense efforts, there were clearcut things the average American could do to help win the war.

In my snarkier moments, I'll sneer that Bush has asked for sacrifices in the War on Terror: he's continually asked us to sacrifice our civil liberties...oh, and to shop more...but as Thomas Friedman notes in his column in the NYTimes today, there are very real and actually crucial sacrifices he should be demanding, and now [this is behind the Times ridiculous Times Select access control system, so I'm retyping it...all typos mine]:

Mr. President, you want a surge? I'll surge. I'll surge on the condition that you once and for all enlist the entire American people in this war effort, and stop putting it all on the shoulders of 130,000 military families, and now 20,000 more. I'll surge on the condition that you make them fight all of us--and that means a real energy policy, with a real gasoline tax, that ends our addiction to oil, shrinks the flow of petro-dollars to bad actors and makes America the world leader in conservation.

Friedman goes on to hand the President his Commander-in-Chief balls on a platter, but that's for another day. I agree with Friedman that it's morally bankrupt of a President to expect the military families of the US to endure this seemingly endless agony on their own, without their neighbors having to interrupt their lives in the slightest. If his rhetoric about how important all this is is even half true, then he should be asking much, much more of his fellow Americans than just their patience as he fumbles his way from one sure-fire failure of a plan to the next one. Actually, at this point, if he was really serious about winning the war on terror, he'd resign (and I mean that), but then we'd have Dick Cheney as President, openly I mean, and, well, ... out of the pot, into the fire...and all that.

So the speech on Wednesday was essentially a "stay on course" speech, regardless of how many poll-tested buzz words Rove managed to wedge in there. We're marching forward, sending more troops and spending more money, but still not involving the entire nation in what we're being told is the "decisive ideological struggle of our time." In other words, Bush is still not serious about winning. So the question is, what the hell is he really doing?