"Right now, there's a mismatch between our imperial missions and our constricted forces. Either we have to expand our forces or cut back on our missions."

That sums up the problem. Our military has been supplied and trained to fight an enemy, not to occupy a hostile country. It takes more men than we have available, even with our Iraqi stooges helping. In some posts people have referred to the doctrine of Total War used in World War II where everyone, including especially civilian populations, was the target. This argument is that, in order to win the war on terror, we must become the most violent and feared terrorists. And there is a significant portion of our population who would say, "Boo-Yahh!" But that is not why we began either war and not how we could win. First we have to define victory. And to do that we must set a mission. If the mission is to fight terrorists, then let's do that and quit bombing villages and hospitals. We just sow the dragon's teeth every time we kill innocent people. In this country it's called manslaughter, in combat it's called collateral damage. They are the same thing except that with manslaughter there can be a balance achieved by justice. In war there is no balance, but there is reciprocity. We need to fight smarter, not harder.

And reviving the draft is another step down the road to fascism. It's saying that the rights of the individual must be subordinated by the needs of the state. Only in the most dire emergencies should a nation take such a step, and then only as temporarily as possible. If we enact a draft to fight a bunch of cave-squatting losers who are really nothing more than a middle eastern version of the mafia, we'll keep it forever. After all, the Mexican and South American drug cartels are just as dangerous. There would always be another threat to scare us out of our freedoms. Once we reverse course in the long painful march this country has been making toward a more enlightened, just society, I doubt we will be able to stop before enduring a long, and very nasty considering modern technology, dictatorship. The real front lines of this struggle are in our courts and in our politics. When we win there, we can find the winning strategies for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest. Otherwise, a five million man army would not be enough.