[. . .]
As of this writing, 1,827 Americans have been killed in Iraq -- 1,686 of those deaths have occurred since President George W. Bush landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln under a banner proclaiming, "Mission Accomplished."
Military service in wartime is not a "job." Recruitment in peacetime mostly emphasizes the benefits of valuable training, college tuition, self-improvement, pay and adventure. Combat and casualties are not part of the pitch.
Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of enlistees come from the lower-middle-class and blue-collar families. The affluent stand above and apart from military service, especially from the enlisted ranks -- the privates and the sergeants, from whose ranks have come more than 90 percent of the casualties and fatalities. This class exemption from service and from sacrifice produces an ethical failure that a democratic and moral people cannot tolerate.
Moral logic tells us that when the nation legally goes to war, it is everybody's war and it must be everybody's risk. But the elite of the country seeks to make war little more than a spectator sport.
Citizens on the home front who do not have loved ones in the service are asked to pay no price, to bear no burden. The Bush administration does not even ask us to pick up the cost of the war, already in the hundreds of billions. That burden will be borne instead by our children. We, patriots, will keep our tax cuts. Do our leaders think so little of us that they are afraid to ask us to make any real sacrifice? [my emphasis]
[. . .]
They know support for the war would evaporate if the Chimp asked Jesuslanders to sacrifice. Their sons and daughters are one thing, because they're all going to Valhalla after they are killed in combat, but by golly, don't take their SUVs away from them.
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