Playing At War
I went with my wife to see the U505 exhibit down at the Museum of Science and Industry today. It was a really moving experience, not for the submarine, but rather the displays of what the country was going through at the time. There was a war, and everyone was involved. We decided that it was a war that we had to win and we placed the entire might of the USA behind winning it.
I remember bush saying something about not fighting a war with one arm tied behind our back, and letting our military do its job, but I see a war that has now gone on longer than the US involvement in World War II. I look around and I see more SUVs on the road, I see people going through their lives not even thinking about the fact that we are at war. I see the face of a military being pushed to the breaking point. And I see no request for sacrifice from the top. Where is the rationing? Where is the Marshall Plan? Where is the draft? I don’t see this nation doing it’s fullest to win this war.
So which is it George, are we at war or aren’t we? It is my personal opinion that if we decide as a country to fight a war, we should throw everything we have into that effort. If it isn’t worth throwing all of our might into it, it probably isn’t worth going into into. And what is worst, if we aren’t throwing everything into it, the people who are in a position to make money off of the war (and there is always room for someone to make money off of a war) they won’t even have the patriotic motivation not to skim all they can.
And then after thinking all these thoughts, I read a story about how contractors swindle millions of dollars that are supposed to be being used for the war effort (or reconstruction, which really is the most important part of the war effort). This type of swindling goes beyond the mere greed of your normal war profiteers, and into the realm of doing your enemies work for them. War profiteers have always existed. Putting the actual work of war in private hands in order to lessen the burden of that war on the general populace, seems the fastest route to failure. Not to mention the fastest route to failing our men and women in uniform who actually are doing their jobs for love of their country, and not much more.