Our military is certainly waging combat operations on a demanding and worldwide basis. But the rest of the country and particularly the American people have not been asked to do much for the war effort. Except, that is, to go shopping.
If we are serious about winning this war and, given the determination of our enemies (most immediately, the totalitarian political ideologues we call Islamofascists) to destroy us, we had better be the nation as a whole is going to have to be mobilized far more comprehensively. In War Footing, we have laid out ten ways in which that should be undertaken.
I like Gaffney but this is just plain wrong. What are we supposed to do? Start Victory Gardens? Turn in old pots and pans?
This is not to deny we are in a major struggle. We are. But this is a long war and our will to wage it is our weak point. Does anybody seriously believe we need more weapons? Is anybody calling for more than marginal troop strength increases? And what would we do with them if we had twice as many? We clearly have a military capable of waging the long war.
What would sacrifice by our civilian population do other than to sap our will to continue the fight? I mean, is the staff of The Nation going to come out for the war if we have to sacrifice more? Shoot, they already think we are a fascist state. If that isn't sacrifice enough to get their support what will do it?
Look at our jihadi enemies. As long as the murdering jihadis could carry out there evil work away from Moslemsand in Western countries, those Moslems could cheer on "their" guys sticking it to the West--the very West their rulers assured them is at fault for all their woes. The jihadis had active and passive support sufficient to wage war and prepare for bigger and better attacks.
But once the war was brought to them and jihadis started to routinely kill Moslems and blow up targets in their own cities--imposing a sacrifice for waging the war--Moslem active and passive support began to fall.
Let me rephrase Patton: Nobody ever won a war by unnecessarily sacrificing for their country. You win it by making the enemy sacrifice for their war.
Talk to me about sacrifice when our war efforts are insufficient. Until then, let the enemy sacrifice. Let them grow tired of war. We'll outlast them this way.
And let me note for the benefit of the Easily Offended that for the purposes of this illustration I call the Moslem world "the enemy." I do not think they are as a group, in fact, the enemy. But the Moslem world's acceptance (however passive) or rejection of our actual murdering jihadi enemies is crucial to the outcome of this war.
