Tom Friedman has a feisty op/ed piece in today’s New York Times. It’s in the TimesSelect section online, so you can’t access it without a paid subscription, but here’s a taste:
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’s leader in conservation.
Full column (paid registration needed)
2 Comments
Now THAt would be a surge… Unlike the current policy which is trying to remain “just a little bit pregnant”
It is obvious that this so-called Surge is nothing more than a political maneuver aimed at maintaining a tenable US military presence in Iraq. What really concerns me is the enormous war debt that is accumulating. EJ Dionne wrote a recent essay reflecting on the adverse military situation in Iraq and the need for a tax hike. Don’t look for the current US administration to address this problem.
And what of US military strategy in Iraq? Its obvious that a US presence of one million boots on the ground is required to effect a conquest of Iraq, and an occupational presence is required for at least ten years. The American people will not go for such.
What about US military personnel? Well Professor Grimsley, there is a mercenary overtone to any volunteer fighting force. This is ’showtime’ for US military personnel. They signed up for this, and by far most voted for GW Bush. To paraphrase a favorite American saying: “You get what you’re paid for”.
I come from a US military family. My great-great uncle was drafted off the family homestead in Colorado and was injured by a German gas attack in WWI. My great uncle came ashore at Normandy and was KIA during the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. My other great uncle served aboard a USN warship and sustained a combat injury in the Pacific Theater. My uncle served in Korea in the US Army, and my cousin was USMC in VietNam. There are three Purple Hearts in my family.We don’t use that expression “Freedom isn’t cheap” in our family. We humbly served to honor a national commitment or to escape a prevailing condition of poverty.