I'm feeling sorry for a Winger. To make matters worse, that Winger is
Tacitus. Now, I generally have more contempt for Tacitus than any other Winger in the righty blogosphere, mostly because he is so damn arrogant and so damn hypocritical. He's also incredibly self-righteous and generally he's screwed up his own sense of right/wrong sooooo bad. However, I'm feeling sorry for him because he says this:
The volunteer soldiers have proven themselves fine warriors. But the volunteer Army has failed. This is its first war of any meaningful length, and its lessons are clear: it cannot sustain this effort, through no fault of its own, because, in the end, its discrete parts are rational actors. It is impossible to externally incentivize war. The choice is therefore between that Army's continuance and a draft. If the choice is for its continuance, then the subsequent choice will probably be between losing Iraq and losing the Army. Losing Iraq will be a strategic disaster for the United States. But losing the Army would be the end.
And then later in the comments we have him predicting civil war in Iraq as the only outcome:
But I think that politically, their society doesn't have what it takes to hold things together. Basically, the Shi'a are going to have to simply resolve to conquer the Sunnis -- and the Kurds are going to have to figure out what role to play thence.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Tacitus in the heady days just before and during the war was triumphant. When Sadr rose up and Fallujah happended he was crestfallen, but still believed the Neocon dream. He's been through his peaks and valleys ever since. But, I feel for Tacitus tonight, because the guy is contemplating how the Iraq war, HIS WAR, could cost the United States our entire Army. I know he would hate that I'm feeling sorry for him and he'll probably insist that it is MY WAR too or would be if I were a good American. For that, I feel sorry for him too.
