Commitment to total war...

We've all agreed that the half-assed planning and half-baked attitude towards both Afghanistan and Iraq early on in the efforts cost the US a lot of blood and treasure... but we've also discussed the ability and desire of this nation to wage the necessary "total war" effort that would have won the wars far sooner.

Does anyone still think this nation is ready and/or willing to do what is necessary to "win" in Afghanistan right now? We'd all love to see the same commitment and support given to the troops in WWII to the efforts now being made in Afghanistan, but I still question whether the nation is capable of that kind of "national sacrifice".

Even if Obama grew the kind of gonads needed to revamp the effort tomorrow... would America cut its domestic (meaning "in the house") fuel consumption by 25% to ensure a viable strategic reserve for the troops? Would the people invest in victory by spending hard-earned income on government bonds and bills to ensure that the troops had all they needed to win? In 1943, 18% of everything that was being spent on the war against fascism was coming from the sale of war bonds... nearly 1/5 of the whole bill. I'd bet its less then 1% now (I can't find ANY figures on bond sales now... and yes, I know they aren't called "war bonds" anymore).

I'm adamantly opposed to a draft, so some means of making recruitment easier and more appealing must be found... and that is almost impossible without vast amounts of money that simply doesn't exist right now. Military and defense spending must go up, and there's no more money to take from the taxpayer (without breaking the economy again), so very real and very deep cuts will need to be made in the current and future budgets BEYOND what is already determined to be needed... and as your last post states quite clearly, we can't even balance what we're spending NOW.

I am more and more convinced that we have weakened ourselves (fiscally, that is) to a point where we couldn't wage the sort of war that we all agree needs to be fought, even if we, as a nation, wanted to... and I am in no way convinced that we, as a nation, want to do this.