RE: comments by U509 and Tom.

I fear the hyper-politicization spoken of is the result of a political leadership class increasing marked by a fundemental lack of character. This lack leads to actions marked by immaturity, intolerance, impatience, arrogance, etc.. It is exacerbated by a lack of experience outside the university or government.

One of the results is that these people, at their core, don't trust the Americans. They don't trust John Q. (civilian me) to understand complex issues and they don't trust us to be willing to make the sacrifices needed to win. Thus we are presented with incomplete, simplistic arguements because we can't understand anything else. They want to fight a major war while conducting all other business as usual because we can't be trusted to do more. We have never really been asked to do more. I for one have never heard of a high govenment official going to a high school or college to help with recruiting; to my knowledge no attempt has been made to enlist the help of the entertainment or sporting community to help with recruiting, as was done in the past.

We are a great people, as our history proves, and we deserve better than to be insulted in deed by our own leaders.

Another result is a mulish refusal to face facts: the Army and USMC have to be bigger, no we will manage smarter...we need more troops in Iraq, no my generals don't tell me that, as they stand up, we will stand down...if we shut down C-17 production (my own pet peeve) we won't be able to meet our airlift needs, it is simple arithmetic...no my spreadsheet doesn't tell me that and besides we have a new program on the line. And on and on and on.

Oddly, this is similar to the conduct of the Nazi gov. in Germany during WW II.
They really didn't trust their people to make the required sacrifices and didn't fully mobilize the economy until it was too late. Hitler was infamous for refusing to acknowledge facts and thinking he could bend the world to his "will".

This leads to Tom's point. How did people who act like this get to the point where they dominate the upper levels of both parties and the MSM. I don't know. I wish I did and knew what to do about it. But as U509 implied, no matter how good the professional military is, we are in trouble with the leadership class we have now.

We need to win this and we deserve leadership that thinks we can.