So I've been thinking a lot recently.

No, stick with me: it's true.

More specifically, I've been thinking about the now over eight-year-old "war" on terror, and how President Obama has been pressed to make a decision as to what military strategy we're going to take in that war.  Presumably it's going to be something different than President Bush was doing, because doing more of the same is going to amount to a tacit admission that Bush actually got something right (shock, horror!), and that's not something that the Democratic Party would like to have as a campaign slogan going into the next round of elections.

But Pres. Obama does have some tough choices to make, particularly because we have a few differences in this "war" that we've never had to face before.  One is that we're not facing any kind of "standard" army.  Sure, in Vietnam there was guerilla warfare, but we've never seen the kind of cell structure that the terrorists today are using as a method of maintaining fluidity and anonymity.

Another thing is that we have a confusion about precisely which "bad guy" we're supposed to be taking on: the Taliban?  Al Quaeda?  Katie Couric?*  When we think of the "great" war movies, which ones come to mind?  I'll bet if you listed your top 10, at least seven of them would be about World War II.  And there's a reason for that: it's the last war we fought where there was a clear-cut "bad guy" (something Americans require), and a clear cut "good guy" (something Americans long to be).  In the present "war" there's a lot more ambiguity.  I mean, most people agree that the Taliban and Al Quaeda are a pretty nasty pair, but there are other nasty folks out there, too.  Why not fight them?  Why these two?  And of course, there's always the vocal minority that says that we're just making things worse the more we fight these groups: that the very fighting inspires necessary collateral damage (i.e., innocent dead people), which then gives these fundamentalist groups that much more propaganda fodder to work with.

And one more thing that distinguishes this war from World War II, World War I, the Civil War, or any of the other "great and noble" wars that the US has been involved in:

We're not all in.

By that I mean that President Bush and his administration stressed "business as usual."  Condition Orange?  Go about your normal lives, because not doing so means the terrorists win.  President Obama and the mainline press today seem to be leaning toward this same strategy, at least inasmuch as there is about twice as much news coverage on Sarah Palin's new book as there is on anything happening to our soldiers on the battlefield.

But that's not how wars are fought.  Or rather, it's not how wars are won.  In WWII, we had Boy Scouts going door to door collecting tin cans and other scrap for the troops.  We had paper drives where people would give up diplomas and family records to support "the cause."  We had young men - boys, really - being drafted or even volunteering to participate in a war that was a clear-cut case of good-vs.-evil.

Were there political ramifications?   Certainly.  FDR probably wouldn't have stayed in office for four terms without WWII giving the nation a need for a stabilizing feature in the White House.  Did both the West and the Soviet Union see opportunities to profit by Hitler's fall?  Certainly (and one can only wish that Churchill had played a greater part in the final peace talks - we might have had a much shorter Cold  War).

But those were not the point... at least, not to the "Everyday Joes" who were fighting for - and dying in - the war.  No, the point was that evil was being done, that if left unchecked it would eventually come to threaten our homes... and they were all in for stopping it.

I'm speaking in generalities here, I know.  Of course there were deserters.  Of course there were dissenters.  But the nation, the media, the industrial machine as a whole got behind the war... and won it.

So as Pres. Obama deliberates what the strategy should be for this war, may I put forth this option: don't make it a "business as usual" war.  Speak, not of less sacrifice, but of more.  Call, not for less in the way of personal commitment, but for more.  "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

If it were me, I'd probably call for more boots on the ground as quickly as possible.  I'd also re-instate the draft.  But not what we usually think of as the draft.  Rather, I'd have the federal and state government set up a series of service and support centers where people would be required to come in and work a certain number of hours per week.  Are you a doctor?  Then you're either shipping over for a month to give training not to our troops, but to village and town doctors, or you're going to a service and support (S&S) center to answer fax questions about medical issues as they arise.  Are you a lawyer?  How many of these emergent "democracies" are strugglnig with rule of law?  Either you ship over for a month to give one-on-one support and advice (not training - we aren't better, we're just there for help when asked), or you report to an S&S center a few hours a week for a year and go over legal questions that local and federal magisterial officers may have about how to make a democracy run.

Firefighter?  Think they couldn't use basic FLS (fire-life-safety) training in a lot of places?  Go for a month, or do your S&S time for a year.  Work for the Department of Water and Power?  Geez, don't even get me started: that's probably the most valuable of the bunch.

In other words, we'd be providing on the minute assistance for our friends in Afghanistan and Iraq and all the good people who have been misled into thinking that we are The Great Satan (or words to that effect).  We'd be showing them that we're all in, that we're not going away, and that we have more to give than the others who offer paradise in exchange for a suicide run at a mall full of innocent people.

Folks, contrary to the headline for this piece, war is never fun.  We've been trying to make it so... or at least make it convenient and unobtrusive.  Which means we've been trying to raise fear in the hearts of our enemies while never raising passion in our own.  There's a word for this.

It's called losing.

*Don't laugh.  I'm fairly certain she's the spearhead for an alien invasion.  Reliable sources (my Alpha-Bits) told me so.