While doing a search for something else, I found this blog from a few years ago. While not 100% in agreement, some of the statements ring very true in my ears.
view link (partial paste)
"The war in Iraq is like all the wars since 1945. The burden is being borne entirely by members of the military and their families. The rest of us go right on with the good life as if no war was even taking place.
This is wrong, though I'm not exactly sure how to fix it. It has always seemed to me that when soldiers go to war, the whole country ought to go to war. In other words, each of us should do something to contribute. Instead of cutting taxes, Congress ought to levy a war tax. That would be a novel idea — to actually pay for a war as we fight it, instead of adding the cost to the already-unpayable public debt.
That would also disconcert the chicken hawks and other neoconservatives who want tax cuts and a war, too.
Years ago, an old Marine general by the name of Smedley Butler suggested that the minute war breaks out, all of the defense and armaments industries should be nationalized and all of their owners and workers drafted and paid the same wages that are paid the military. There is a great deal of merit in that idea, because it's repulsive to think that some Americans are making big profits out of a war that is killing young men who, even if they lived, could never hope to be rich as the CEOs of the war industries.
I've always had to part company with my libertarian brothers and sisters on this issue, because I think we made a big mistake in going to an all-volunteer Army. Granted, the old system — with plenty of outs for rich kids and those with influential parents — was no good. What I've always advocated is universal military training, with no exceptions for anybody. In other words, I prefer the good old citizen Army." (more at link)
