Conversation: On War

The article that ignited this exchange is here. The conversation follows first me, then the other guy...

yeah ol pat buchanan makes a lot of sense to me these
days.  I like Newt too. 

Not sure about the troop surge idea.  It would seem
the only reason to do that would be if we were gonna
surge 50 or 60 thousand for several months--and it
seems that in order to do that we would need to
institute a military draft.  The National Guard was
not built for the types of deployments they've
received over the years.  I guess the Rumsfeldian view
of smaller and faster has proven to be disastrous--at
least in the short term. 

That being said, I'm not sure what the best option is.
I saw a headline on Drudge that we were thinking
about building up in the Persian Gulf as a warning to
Iran.... probably just speculation.

I think we need a leader who will call for real
sacrifice.  Let's move forward with real alternative
engery plans--within the next decade kinda stuff.
Remove our dependence completely from the Muslims and
then withdraw.  Then if they remain belligerent we
will have the political will to truly wage war. 

I still believe that going in was the thing to do, but
it has been horribly mismanaged.  I'm afraid it may
end up being the "worst strategic mistake in the
history of the United States."  The only thing that
comes to my mind that rivals is the decision to give
Stalin all he wanted at Yalta and not dealing with the
Soviet threat early on.... 

Anyway, just some ramblings from a measly high school
civics teacher.