Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
What I am blaming the leadership today for is the same thing that I blamed the leadership for in Vietnam - the leadership's concept that you can have a serious long-term war while everyone at home goes on with life as though no war exists ("guns and butter" in my dads's words).
I don't even buy that. Our economy has been large and dynamic enough that it could support the "guns and butter" approach (fighting a war and maintaining a relatively unchanged standard of living, in economic terms). But this type of war required other changes on the homefront - primarily those pertaining to security. The leadership did implement changes at home and those changes were met with outrage, resistance, and protest.

I think the civilian leaders expected that civilians would understand that removing one's shoes at the airport was just an inconvenience that would need to be tolerated, given the events of 9/11 and suspected plots afterwards. If one's international call from Las Vegas to cousin Ahmed in Lahore is listened in on, then they thought we could grin and bear it. If a suspected terrorist and/or al-Qaeda operative in Gitmo had his thermostat set to 66 instead of 68 and his Halal meal was served 5 minutes late, then they didn't think that people would get their panties in a twist. Instead, people complain about airport security as though they were being told to walk instead of fly. Foreign surveillance is cast as some Big Brother attempt by Dick Cheney to personally listen in on your social life. And handling detainees at Gitmo in a fashion probably more humane than any prisoners of war have ever been treated in human history is regarded as a war crime that destroys our moral fiber as a nation. They complained that this war was being fought by the underclass (a false accusation to begin with), but their solution was not to sign up and join the fight - instead they mocked the CinC, the military, and the war.

The most minor of inconveniences and slightest of intrusions have been met with outrage. Our civilian leaders asked people to rise to the occasion. Some did. For the others, only the slightest of inconveniences were foisted upon them and they rebelled. The war became an occasion for people who are normally content to simply be parasites to morph into carnivores. Pathetic.