"The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation."
I do not agree with that statement, but if I were president and I sincerely believed that, then I would consider closing down the entire auto industry for six months or year to be a reasonable and appropriate response.
Also, I am quite sure that people who have family members in the army in Iraq would consider this entirely reasonable and appropriate, and way better than getting blown up. Compared to sacrificing 2,000 or 3,000 or who-knows-how-many more people in a losing war, a temporary shut down the U.S. auto industry for a year or so is a trivial price to pay, and unlike the present methods, it would quickly & permanently put the terrorists out of business. (However much they hate us, they cannot fight without money.)
I am quite serious about that, and in a frame of mind to point it out because yesterday a friend of a friend was killed in Iraq, leaving two small daughters and a widow.
During WWII someone said it is better to send a thousand tanks too many than one not enough. No sane person questioned whether every available resource should be poured into the war effort; the only debate was how to allocate resources most effectively, i.e., whether to use limited supplies of steel to build more ships or more tanks. After the war a Roosevelt administration member remarked that although it had cost vast sums of money, that did not matter; people only cared whether their sons and husbands came back alive. Money is the least important thing you can sacrifice in war.
If this truly is a war, and we really want to win it, we should go all out, institute a draft, institute 90% income taxes and a $5 emergency gasoline tax, and take whatever other steps are needed to win. If we do not care enough to do these things, we should not sacrifice even one more life in vain. It seems obvious to me that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are both being lost. The Taliban is taken over most of Afghanistan and will soon have the rest, and we might as well give Iraq back to Saddam Hussein for all the good we are doing there. I was not in favor of the latter war, but I am even less in favor of losing it, for crying out loud!
- Jed
