I don’t have time to get into it all right now, but my logic is basically this. Al Qaida’s September 11 attack was an attack on our economy and way of life. It was intended to scare people, which would have the effect of dampening economic activity, thereby causing job cuts and lowering our standard of living.

Would not asking us to “share the sacrifice” by rationing and the like amount to the same thing?

I am sure that GWB would have loved concentrating on the GWOT to the exclusion of all other issues. But who will allow that? I believe that he has preserved the war effort - denying the false either/or choice postulated by his opponents - by keeping things stirred up on the domestic front. And who was going to let him off on those pesky issues like campaigning, replacing supreme court justices, tax reform, and illegal immigration, to name a few? We just have to get on with it all.

My families legacy of service convinced my brother and I to read a bit about it and realize “Man! I got it cushy, I should do something!” so we enlisted. We CHOSE to participate in the discussion, and in the result, for the very reason that we were compelled to learn about the history of our family, and a portion of neglected history that isn’t covered in basic public education. Too many ignore the legacy, the heritage, the discussion, the sollution and the history, and instead seek out an ineffectual argument of selfish political interest.

The American education “system” (ha!) is dysfunctional and students do not learn geography or economics or any real history. Today’s media, with incredible technology that would have been pure science fiction sixty years ago, falls far short in comparison with WWII vintage newspapers. Both Congress and the Bush administration have fallen into the LBJ trap of “guns and butter” and, except when debating the war, try to pretend it doesn’t exist.

However, I must disagree with you regarding the draft. As a previous commenter noted, the military (for very good reasons) does not want a draft. In addition to those very good and sufficient reasons, just imagine the field day that Michael Moore and the rabid left and the Cowardly News Network could have with that.

And Bush, giving credit where it is due, was smart enough to realize this. That’s why he never forced the ‘guns or butter’ issue to the forefront of debate. That’s why, to the chagrin on many anti-war types, Bush never demanded we ’sacrifice’ anything… no revoking the tax cuts, no cutting domestic spending to pay for the war, no draft.

The (sad?) fact is that the public didn’t and doesn’t buy into the premise that Iraq (with Hussein in charge) was either in cahoots with the terrorists or that much of a threat to us. They were willing to let Bush go off and play cowboy just so long as it was volunteers who got themselves killed and so long as it didn’t cause the folks at home a whole lot of problems.

No one in the military wants draftees. No soldier wants some draftee watching his six in combat. How would we pay for the millions of draftee’s when we are already cutting personnel to pay for recapitalization. Besides, conscript armies are very very bad at fighting insurgencies.

As for the larger issue, I don’t know how to solve it. 9/11 seems a distant memory to most in America and I feel a large part of the populace has gone back to their self-centered views and lives.