Playing WWII

We've all heard the rhetoric for years now. "Axis of evil." The "totalitarian" Enemy, worse than Hitler, or just as bad as Hitler, etc. The "great ideological battle of the 21st century." The Enemy we face--as Frances points out, the Enemy is never really identified--wants to destroy us. That's what makes this an "existential" threat and an existential war, that justifies illegal wiretapping. Indefinite detention of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals. The Baby Boomers running the show at the present time have a real jones for the WWII. They dream of fighting "the Good War," what some have called the last good war. (That's wrong, of course. There really is no such thing as a "good" war, which doesn't mean that some wars aren't necessary.)

Today, however, we read again a story that points out just how silly this WWII play-acting by the Boomers in charge really is. In today's Post, we read that the new troops being sent to Iraq as part of the new escalation lack basic equipment. Like some third-rate regional wannabe power, the U.S. is now deploying troops without arms, armor, and transportation. We read, for example, that:

Trucks are in particularly short supply. For example, the Army would need 1,500 specially outfitted -- known as "up-armored" -- 2 1/2 -ton and five-ton trucks in Iraq for the incoming units, said Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the Army's deputy chief of staff for force development.

"We don't have the [armor] kits, and we don't have the trucks," Speakes said in an interview. He said it will take the Army months, probably until summer, to supply and outfit the additional trucks. As a result, he said, combat units flowing into Iraq would have to share the trucks assigned to units now there, leading to increased use and maintenance.

Now, if you're play-acting WWII, . . . I seem to remember that the U.S. transformed its economy into an "arsenal of democracy" (a term from the Great War, I believe), converting domestic production to military production to meet the needs presented in fighting an existential war against an evil Enemy. The Government called on Americans to sacrifice so that the men and women in the field would have the arms, armor, and transportation needed to win. There was a draft. There was rationing, and tax increases.

Not this time. The Enemy may hate our freedom, and dream totalitarian dreams. We are told that failure in Iraq would have catastrophic results for the United States. Cataclysmic.

And yet. And yet, we can't manufacture enough deuce-and-a-half trucks to supply the relatively small number of troops we have in Iraq.

Is it because the U.S. can't manufacture the trucks? Don't we have idle manufacturing plants that could be converted to military uses? I'm sure the good folks in the Rust Belt would welcome the work.

Is it because we can't afford the trucks? Don't make me laugh. The U.S. economy is huge. We could afford something much closer to total war than what we have now.

Is it because the military doesn't tell the powers that be that they need the trucks? There it is, in the Post.

I'm left with only one conclusion. The boys (and a few girls) dressed-up in khaki and dreaming Glenn Miller big band songs and V-I Day celebrations don't really mean the shit they say. Their actions belie that this is not an existential war. Their choices illustrate how little, strategically, is at stake.

I'm assuming, of course, that if these folks really believed that this was an existential threat, they would know what to do. So maybe I'm wrong there. But since they talk about WWII so much . . . .