America’s turning point is fast approaching. With all the holes our country is digging itself into, I hate that the single issue is this illegal war in Iraq, but I’ll take a turning point anywhere I can get it.

The entire house of cards for this administration is built around our conflict in Iraq. Bush had designs on going to Iraq since before 9/11, and after 9/11 he tried everything he could to pin a war on Iraq until eventually something stuck. He got us there illegally, and personally I don’t think he ever cared about legality - right or wrong, legal or illegal, our oil-baron administration was intent on punishing Iraq… and using that conflict to affect the voters here at home.

Well, now he’s finding out just how difficult it is to operate a prolonged military action in another country: the media asks a lot of questions; recruits stop signing up; troops stop re-enlisting; voters start wondering when the administration is going to pay some attention to the issues here in OUR country. Criticism is mounting. Public support for the war is painfully low. Public opinion of the administration is at an all-time low. Words like “impeachment” are popping up everywhere you look.

Numbers of new recruits are far below the military’s targets, as are the number of re-enlistments, even while the military continues to lower their targets. There is only one possible way in which this military effort can be prolonged: they’re going to have to consider a draft. It’s fast becoming a reality. If you have no army, there can be no war. The turning point is coming. Bush is going to have to make a choice: either accept the enormous public outcry to bring our troops home, or else re-enstate the draft.

Re-enstating a draft is not as easy as it sounds. That has to be passed by the House and the Senate, it can’t just be ordered by a President. But you see, the President can’t be re-elected after this term, whereas members of the House and Senate can be (and most of them want to be) re-elected. Since no one in the voting public wants a draft - parents don’t want to send their kids to die any more than the kids want to be sent to die - our elected officials know that voting for a draft would be political suicide.

The administration knows this, but the desperation is growing. They can’t keep their bank accounts and the accounts of their closest friends (Halliburton, Exxon, et al) filled with cash if there’s not a war on in Iraq. But with the public quickly growing unhappy with this war and with the conditions here in the US, the administration has to do something soon or they will suffer the same fate as Truman with Korea and Johnson with Vietnam.

The one sure thing is this: whatever they decide to do, it will definitely be a turning point in America. The only question is whether we’ll turn for the better, or turn for the worse. Based on Bush’s record, I fear the latter…