Fighting the War On Terror With 3 Guys Named Joe

Even if you buy the existential threat that is Al Qaeda, even if you believe as the President does that this is a battle for civilization, you can't help but ask this question:

If the war on terror is really a "struggle for civilization" itself, as President Bush claimed last night, why do we have just 130,000 troops in Iraq?

You would think that if America were really engaged in such an epic battle -- "for all the marbles," as one friend paraphrased it -- we would put up a bigger fight.

In fact, Michael Ware again reports, as he did yesterday on CNN, that the chief refuge for Al Qaeda in Iraq, a region the size of New Hampshire, is patrolled by 300 US troops. He also said that US commanders feel three times as many troops are needed to complete the mission. In a way, as Attaturk says, this is generals covering their ass and shifting the blame. But clearly we're fighting the enemy with hopes and sticks. But it's curious that this "battle for civilization to the death" is being staffed by three guys named Joe. Maybe the 101st Fighting Keyboardists will have to get into the fight after all if they want to make the world safe for their parents' basements.

I don't agree with this, by the way, as I don't believe there's any more that can be done militarily that will stop what is really a civil war. I don't believe that military power can do anything simply with proper force of will. And I don't think this level of forces are even available. But that doesn't stop Rich Lowry of the National Review from writing this very thing today, calling for increased troops, despite saying something completely different 5 months earlier:

All along, over the past several years, Lowry has been insisting that troop levels don't matter, that we have a sufficient force to get the job done in Iraq, and that we are winning, winning, winning. This is the same Foreign Policy Expert Rich Lowry who, following the example of the Commander-in-Chief's aircraft carrier victory dance, boldly announced in the May 9, 2005 issue of National Review: "It is time to say it unequivocally: We are winning in Iraq" [...]

To Lowry, we're always on the cusp of winning. It's always -- as he announced today -- the "crucial moment." The "decisive battle at a decisive moment." Everything is always going really swell in Iraq. And all we need for it to get even better, to get to the finish line, is some more Churchillian "stirring rhetoric about the need for victory and for stalwartness in the face of setbacks." Anyone serious can see that that's all we need [...]

Just go read a few Rich Lowry columns about Iraq over the last few years -- just pick some randomly -- and then ask yourself if there is anyone you would trust less on national security; ask whether, short of being Bill Kristol, it would be possible to have been more wrong about everything. Virtually every one of his Iraq columns are filled with bitter mockery of those who were right, along with pompous predictions about what would happen which were plainly grounded in a world composed in equal parts of adolescent fantasy and rank ignorance.

But as always with Iraq and terrorism debates, being endlessly wrong is a sign of profound seriousness, and cheering on wars -- no matter how misguided and misinformed the cheering is -- renders one a serious foreign policy expert who recognizes the serious threats we face in these very serious times. That's why, when The Washington Post wants to find someone to counsel us on its Op-Ed page as to what to do in Iraq, it turns to two of the Wrongest People in America.

Anyone focusing on troop levels in Iraq instead of the real problems facing the country borders on total irrelevance. Making them perfect for editorial pages around the country.

UPDATE: Some things that are different between the War on Terror and WWII, like tax increases and shared sacrifice and the bracero program and war bonds and a unity of purpose.