We are not serious about winning this war we're in militarily. If we're not serious about winning, then why are we fighting? Don't misunderstand. The military people who are engaged in actually doing the fighting are serious. You have to be. The alternative is putting yourself in a position to lose--and that could mean dying.

The people who are not serious about winning is our elected leadership. Here's why I say we're not serious.

I do not understand soccer, a.k.a. European football. On the few occasions I pass by a TV or a field where a game is going on, I only see a swirling mass of people chasing a moderately sized white round ball. I do not perceive any patterns or appreciate any strategy. It's just gobbledygook to me.

I suspect that for the majority of Americans, warfare is to them what soccer is to me--gobbledygook. So let me explain a basic to you. Unlike sports, where you have an equal number of players on both teams, in war you try very hard to put more of your people against the bad guys. 3 to 1, 5 to 1, 10 to 1--If you can achieve those ratios in your favor in a fight, you go for it. Not only do you have a better chance of winning, but the fight is usually over quicker. Many hands make the chore light.

So, what we have here (and I'll post an excerpt in a second of an interview with Admiral Mullen following his return from a visit to the Middle East, along with a link to the full interview) is a situation where the Admiral says we need more troops in Afghanistan. The problem is, he says, that he can't get more troops to Afghanistan without taking troops from Iraq. The Admiral then goes on to say how splendid it is we have a "volunteer" force and how superior it is to the force we had when we had a Draft. All of which proves that you don't get to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs without knowing how to speak to the press in such a way that you don't embarass your elected political masters.

Folks, we are a nation of 300 Million plus people. We have an Army with an authorized end strength of 1.12 Million of which 537,000 are on Active Duty. That means our Army represents less than 1/3 of 1 percent of our population. We are in no way constrained by not having a big enough pool of people to draw from. What we are constrained by is the political gutlessness of not wanting the uproar that would result from bringing back the lottery Draft.

Sorry, Admiral, but your memory is fuzzy. The reason we had such turmoil when we had a Draft was the unfairness of how it was administered. The lottery Draft solved that. It's implementation replaced fuzzy thinking with clear thinking on questions of national defense.

Bottom line here is this. If we need an additional 50, 100, or 150,000 troops to prevail and prevail quickly, then when don't we do what's necessary to get those troops? If you're not willing to do what's necessary, then you're not serious about winning.

Here's the excerpt, followed by the link.

" Let me also say just a word about Afghanistan. I am and have been for some time now deeply troubled by the increasing violence there. The Taliban and their supporters have, without question, grown more effective and more aggressive in recent weeks and as the casualty figures clearly demonstrate. The United States and NATO leadership -- and I had the chance to meet with my NATO counterparts last week in Brussels -- are very focused on the challenges there, particularly in the east and the south.