Has anyone seen a poll like this one in which Americans were asked something like:

"Would you support a draft in which all eligible American men under the age of 35 were conscripted into the military as part of the U.S. strategy to overthrow the current Iraqi regime and after, to operate a long-term peacekeeping/nation-building force in the country?"

I tend to doubt that most people's support for Bush's aggressive march toward war extends as far as the 19 year old son they have away at college or the nice 25 year old guy who waits on them at Applebees.

I have tremendous respect for the men and woman who make up and maintain our current all-volunteer military force. But because most Americans don't actually know anyone who will be in harm's way when the war starts, I think it makes it all awfully abstract.

Add to this the all news networks' ability to slickly package images and ideas of battle with special graphics, slogans, and even theme songs (that great scene in Broadcast News in which the two music geeks play their proposed new theme song for the evening news for the network execs on a synthesizer comes to mind ...), and war becomes nothing more than a super looking Playstation game to most of us.