<p>The American public has never been asked to sacrifice materially or financially for the War on Terror. This has been our government’s greatest blunder. We spend billions of extra dollars without asking anyone but our children and their future to fund it. The biggest difference between the two major political partys is that one wants to over spend and over tax, and one just wants to overspend and not worry about paying the bill. I have said this before, had President Bush asked Congress to pass a 1 or 2 % national sales tax to fund the War on Terror he would have met with resounding affirmation from the American people. If he had openly asked for volunteers to join the armed forces to fight the war on terror he would have had even more recruits than we got with little need for persuasion. Amercians were eager to do something material after 9/11. Now we face our 5th year of deployment in Iraq with no gurantee of it ending any time soon, an under-deployment situation in Afganisistan, and the potential for other issues to have to deal with in the future. Compulsary service to boost the size of the ground forces available to meet these challenges makes sense. Pretending everything is ok with the troop levels we have all the while asking those brave men and women to endure 4, 5 or 6 deployments is absurd and not intellectually honest.
The biggest difference between WW2 and today is the level of mis-management and lack of competence for the first 3 and a half years of the war in Iraq. This was plain to see once we began to see the effectiveness of the “Surge” and the extra troops it brought to bear on the situation. Unfortunately troop levels are still not enough to maintain it. </p>
<p>The biggest challenges of the future are the one’s we don’t see coming. We need to be ready.</p>