Seriously?

I've just finished reading Fred Kaplan's Daydream Believers. It's a good book, one that works better as a series of essays on Bush foreign policy rather than as a sustained argument about a new direction. Weirdly, for a book advertised as a study of Iraq, it has the best account that I've seen of the Bush Administration's bungling of North Korea negotiations.

In a broader sense, reading books like these always reminds me of the fundamental hypocrisy of this administration and of Bush McCain. From 9/11 forward, nearly every Republican has argued repeatedly and ferociously that the fight against radical Islam or al-Qaeda or Saddam or whatever is the defining moment of this generation. It is our World War II. The future of civilization is at stake. In his recent foreign policy speech, Senator Bush McCain calls it "the central threat of our time," "the transcendent challenge of our time," and cites Harry Truman and the creation of containment. McCain believes: "Any president who does not regard this threat as transcending all others does not deserve to sit in the White House, for he or she does not take seriously enough the first and most basic duty a president has--to protect the lives of the American people."

Ahem. Who takes what seriously, one may ask? After seven years of continuing apocalyptic scenarios, we have yet to see actions that match the assessments. I hate arguments that use the rhetoric/reality dichotomy, but my goodness. Seriously enough? The Bush Administration and Senator McCain have claimed this is the war of the next century or even the next millenium. Yet they refuse any measures that might affect the lives of any American not in or connected to the military, leaving that small segment of the population to bear the entire burden.

No new taxes to finance this transcendent challenge. In fact, tax cuts with more to follow if President Bush McCain has his way. No 21st century version of the Liberty bond. No new alliances or international structures as Truman, Acheson, and Marshall built. No restructuring of the American economy to face the challenge. No serious crash energy program to deprive the terrorists of western oil money. No draft.

Take that last point as an example. We know what the occupation of Iraq requires. Study after study of peacekeeping or occupation forces reveals a per capita ratio between troops and population that works. As General Eric Shinseki said before the war, it would take several hundred thousand troops to maintain stabiliuty and order. The Kosovo experience, as Kaplan notes, suggests something on the order of a half million soldiers. They fired Shinseki and dismissed Kosovo as a Clinton operation. Even now, the vaunted surge hasn't taken us anywhere close to what is needed--not that I'm advocating that! In short, we don't have anywhere near enough troops and the volunteer army cannot get us there. So, Senator Bush McCain, if this is the "transcendent challenge," what do you propose to do about that?

The simple fact? If Bush and Bush McCain believe this war will set the course for the future of western civilization, then why do they wish to fight it on the cheap? Why no nationwide mobilization? Why are capital gains tax cuts more important than soldiers' lives? Explain that to me, Senator Bush McCain, and then I'll start taking your position "seriously enough." Until then, I think you've got what we used to call "a credibility gap."