'A Battle of Wills'

Here's Harold Myerson's Salon article comparing George Will, Traditional Conservative, to William Kristol, Neoconservative.

That's what I'm sayin'.

Myerson concludes that George Will is a quaint relic in Republican circles.

My view is that the Neocons will have their way in those circles so long as Republicans of all stripes are willing to do anything and say anything to bring Obama down.

Should Obama reverse course in Afghanistan, as George Will, urges, he would be vilified as a wimp on terrorism and national security.

The American people are not supportive of a long term effort in Afghanistan, according to most polls, but neither are they worked up about it in the face of loss of jobs, health care costs and all the domestic problems we face.

And as long as there is no draft only the families of volunteers are worried for their relatives in uniform. And as long as the Pentagon's hiring of soldier of fortune private firms to replace support troops in combat zones goes unchallenged, the American public is not likely to rise up against war in Afghanistan any time soon.

We seem to have been raising a private army to fight along side our volunteer armed forces. I wonder where they fall in the chain of command of which the president is Commander-in-Chief.

The Neocons like it the way it is. There are plenty of former soldiers, security guards and other aggressive kinds of people to fill the ranks of the private security firms. The pay is good and fighting bad guys with deadly weapons suits their lifestyle and world view.