@Paul,
40 years ago people were arguing that LBJ lost the Vietnam war because he refused to nationalize it. Tom Selleck spoke of how he was in the California National Guard sitting on his duffel bag at LAX when Johnson decided not to use the Guard in Vietnam. In WW-II we had people in Iowa putting up blackout curtains and collective scrap that cost more to collect than it could possibly benefit war production. The point was the whole nation went to war.

After 9-11 Hollywood producers offered to make Why We fight films and Ellison of Oracle offered to produce ID cards for free. Instead Bush channeled Warren Harding and began preaching “Normalcy.” We knew we were in trouble when late night comics started making jokes about guys telling girls they must have sex or “the terrorists will have won.” We can mobilize this country. We can go to war, not send a few units around a game board but as a country, as a nation, goes to war. When we do so we do so not like McClellan’s army of nuanced mauever getting boxed in on the James river but as US Grant did smashing everything in our path. We can do this two or three or seven times until dumb thugs in both shitty little countries and big ones decide that it is a real bad idea to tweak the eagle. Then we can go home to drink Coca Cola™ and eat to much until the next time they insist on making their problems ours.