What we want, and what we can do, are two different things. 150,000 or so U.S. soldiers in Iraq aren't adequate, as commentators across the political spectrum are now admitting. The rest of the world is consistently saying "you made your bed, you sleep in it" to our ever-more-desperate appeals for more troops. A draft in the U.S. will cause mass demonstrations and civil disobedience (which I will help all I can, in my home town). Our leaders have rejected the idea of hiring Saddam's army and security apparatus, to do our dirty work for us. So where, exactly, are the troops going to come from? How are we going to avoid defeat?
We are now, at the stage where, in the Vietnam war, the soldiers said to the politicians: "500,000 isn't enough, we need another 200,000 troops just to maintain a stalemate", and the politicians reply, "Can't do it.". |
