Historybuffy's Blog

Everyday, the news gets less, and less, and less revalent to what is really going on. We ignore news about the war in favor of toddlers in high heels or news reports about Sec. Clinton lossing her shoe (a story I heared on CBS this morning, I am loosing faith in everyone on the news team but the weatherman who questioned the reporter on how it related to French-American relations). I began to loose faith in cable news networks and newspapers in general years ago when they reported to the whole world that Prince William (now heir to the British throne) was fighting in Afganistan and said exactly where he was. The idiots could have killed him and the rest of the soldiers that were fighting along with him! The idea of a war correspondent has been around probably since or before the American Civil War. Yet we still haven't found the right balence. I would love to find an alternative on the internet. Suggestions?

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast." Gen. William T Sherman

(I mention Gen. Sherman a lot, don't I?)

In Noah Andre Trudea's book (the one I am reading right now), called, Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea the author mentions a man named Edmund B. Walker who lived where a railroad past through a lovely town called Madison, Georgia. Mr Walker wanted to be prepared for everything - even is own funeral. Walker even had his coffin made to fit him and went up to the attic where he stored it to see that he still fit in his casket.

I wonder if he ever got stuck...

No. At least not for the war in Afghanistan. President Obama is a smart man who, I am sure, has taken a history class and noted that people do not take to drafts well. I am also sure that he will want to be elected in 2012 and make it through the next three years alive. Violence always follow the reinstatement of the draft. This is true in cases of the Civil War, Korea, and Vietnam. The one way the government could make (or keep) a draft popular is through some great victory. William Sherman's capture of Atlanta in 1864 secured Abraham Lincoln's reelection so the Civil War could continue. In the 21st century a victory like this is unlikely. We cannot even fight a full fledged battle because of guerilla warfare tactics used in modern warfare. What would we fight over that we do not have that is of stratigic value? (Other than the genuine support of the Afgani people?) America is virtually incharge of the global board;trying to use the military to enforce its power wherever there is resistance like what is happening today in Yemen. Another way to make the draft popular is to control the media's coverage of the war preventing the American people from seeing what the soldiers see in the field (a reason that the Korean and Vietnam wars became so unpopular) - The government could abolish freedom of the press and speech like they already did in WW1. Spreading propaganda is always another popular tool. Patriotism seems to be the overall key to making a draft seem like the right thing to do. Could Obama get away from doing any of this to get more troops in Afghanistan? I doubt it and I do not want to see him try.
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