Inevitable Draft

[Foozle]

Does anyone else worry that a draft is now inevitable, even if Kerry wins?

BTW, I am most likely ineligible for the draft (age, wonky knee, etc) - so really I am talking about you all and not myself.

That's right, I am worried about you bozos...

=)

[Jerico]

I think Kerry understands terrorism and how it should be countered. If past records really do mean anything, Kerry is a war veteran who is anti-war. So even though his plan sounds a bit similar to Bush, I think he will be pulling troops out of Iraq in due time even though he wants to strengthen the military. He voted against Gulf War '91.

Personally, I am FOR reinstating the draft at this point, my logic leading to this is probably similar to Rangel and other Dems; people will be more hesitant to wage and support war if they actually have risks involved-- ie. their son might be in combat, they themselves might be in combat (we're talking about the rich people, esp. politicians, and their kids who have better options than joining the military).

And I have thought it out really well. I posted this previously in another thread...

Politics Today: Why Not Bring Back The DRAFT?

If you haven't been following politics, especially if you are in the 18 - 26 year old age range, then I feel sorry for you.

We are in a war where there is no end in sight anytime soon. I'm sorry to tell you this, but...

I say bring back the draft!!

It would be a good opportunity for young people, especially those who back Bush, to serve the country, and get a good taste of reality for what it exactly means to serve an administration that has a preemptive ideology-- to strike our "enemies" in their own territory, so our own territory will not get destroyed by planted bombs and hijacked airplanes. You just cannot underestimate the mighty force of plastique and hijacked airplanes, you know.

Without Bush I'm sure these things would have happened again since
9-11-- well I guess if you believe everything coming out of Bush and Cheney's collective mouth-- because they have made us safer even though most of Iraq is without power and people are still dying, including our own, and it is generally a state of chaos on the ground over there.

If we didn't invade Iraq, which had no ties to 9/11, surely all that chaos over there could happen here! Explosions, and beheadings in the USA since those terrorists will do anything they can to kill us. So we have Saddam Hussein behind bars, but things have gotten worse in Iraq. Even though we're safer at home now, things have gotten worse in Iraq because these killers are against Freedom. The last thing they want is a free Iraq. Why? Because they are against Freedom and are cold-hearted killers of course! That's Bush's position is it not?
Bush is basically saying...
We are safer, but we are still in danger from terrorists.

The experts know Iraq becoming stable, if it's possible, will take a long time-- I've heard one say 20 years. And we know our military is over-stretched. You can't argue with that. You haven't been following the news if you don't realize that.
If things continue the way they are, a volunteer military will not work. Enlistment will drop dramatically. It doesn't take rocket science to understand that. I recently saw a news article about how reserves are hesitant and not showing up for duty. It's old news about how the military has lied to reservists to get them to re-enlist, saying that if they don't they could get called out of IRR and go straight to Iraq.
It's not right for military commanders to have to resort to such tactics. But can you blame them?*

So I say reinstate the draft. Like my friend Carter said, it would be good for our youth who are said to be too fat nowadays. Well stop playing the Xbox and drinking soda and do something good for your country! Plus it would be more fair. The sons and daughters of rich people will serve, not just the unfortunate who are poor and don't have many options in their lives.
I'm all for Paris Hilton, and the Bush Twins wielding an M-16. Otherwise, what good are they? Enough with the reality TV, and time for reality! Paris Hilton ought to be doing more than parading her bony ass out in public, showing how much air rushes through her head, and showing us her sexual prowess on scandalous home-made porn tapes! Why should she not really give back to the country that made her and her daddy rich?

Additionally, by the time things in Iraq are about cleaned up, John Edwards' young son will be old enough to enlist or be drafted to do the finishing touches on Iraq's democratization! It would be a great testament to the first part of our 21st century! Everyone gets to serve in the overthrow of the terrorists and democratization of the entire globe!

Maybe my words can inspire. I say JOIN NOW!!

I proudly served already. I say, y'all youngins, it's your turn! I know you are patriotic; I know you love your country; never forget 9-11! Now is your time to shine!

This is about freedom, people!
God bless America!
___________________
* I wonder if the military's offer for free plastic surgery worked in increasing enlistment?

______________________
Wow! I think this was my best blog ever. It's objective and represents both Democrats and Republicans. It's for the entire USA, the Land of the Free. And now we can once again prove it's the Home of the Braves. Oops! The Brave! (the people, not the baseball team)

=========more...

JOIN NOW!!

I'd like to continue my promotion of the draft and military participation.

The military is a great opportunity.

When you start off I think you get paid about $100 dollars a month. Something like that right? (It was a while ago when I served, but when you're 18 years young, that much money is a lot!) Excellent!

Hey! It's better than sitting on your ass playing Splinter Cell! How about doing Medal Of Honor, only it's for reals!!

Sure Wal-Mart pays about the same and you probly won't get shot at (you never know though, esp. if you work the late shift), and you won't get sent far away from home, but at least you will get away from your parents b*tching at you, and/ or get time off from your crying babies.

You don't have to be that mature and responsible to be in the military you know. You get told what to do most of the time. So it doesn't matter if you have no drive or not much know how, someone will be telling you what you should and WILL be doing. So if you like sitting on your ass, there's plenty of that cuz it's all about what's called hurry up and wait. You can take naps during the "wait" parts.

You don't have to pay bills. It's all taken care of. Housing, gas and electric, cable, and food! You don't have to cook! They have chow and mess halls all good to go. If it isn't top round for dinner again, you can have MRE's out in the field. MMMMM good!

And if you break your mouth skate boarding, your mom or dad won't yell at you, saying "I told you so!" Instead, those fine military doctors will stictch you up and get you back into the trenches immediately.

Just think if you're single, everything is taken care of and you can do whatever you want with that $100 dollars! You can do what you probably do already:
Buy the latest DVD of the latest cookie-cutter formula Hollywood blockbuster, or the newest CD of the "white girl singing like a black girl," or buy the latest version of the "blow up the town and kill everyone" video game. If that's not good enough, you can also save up a little money and buy those pair of skiis you've been wanting, even though you might be in the middle of the desert, you'll have enough liberty to go home or go on vacation and ski someday! Not sure exactly when, but someday! Your participation will ensure a strong military, and a strong military helps keep the economy going! Did you get the Star Wars DVD set yet? You can if you are a serviceman (or woman); it's a job, you get that $100 paycheck!

I forgot to mention how much girls like those sexy uniforms. You are guaranteed to get sex, stud-boy!
If you're a girl, hey I think the guys dig those uniforms also. (Actually, I could be wrong, most guys just like things that smell good and have a nice wet warm hole in it.)
Even if your uniform consists of those those bell-bottomed dungarees, it's still sexy. It kind of evokes the '70s or something.

It's all good! Please consider enlisting soon! The sooner the armed forces gets your help, the sooner we can patch up Iraq and pull out!

Thanks!

Bring back the draft!

DIE FOR YOUR COUNTRY, MF!!!!

[Jerico]

I have a good pic that goes along with my BRING BACK THE DRAFT blog...

www.members.aol.com/Jerricho1/FatBoysAtMcDs.jpg

[M-A_19]

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen


So Kill the "High zest" Eh? I know what you mean though, the only people who really know what war is are ex-soldiers, If only there was a way to give everybody that experience without getting 60% of them killed!

[Foozle]

Holy crap! Will that kid ever get a date? If he does, and they have sex - will the other person survive the smothering? I am not the thinnest person in the world, but I do not have bulges of fat on my forearms, dammit!

Poor fellow needs help.

[PsychicWarVeteran]

Re: Inevitable Draft

Does anyone else worry that a draft is now inevitable, even if Kerry wins?

Oh, YES! I have a 20-year-old son... 'nuff said.

[Foozle]

The draft won?t happen. It is a form of slavery that I?m sure can be easily apposed legally.

Seriously, what do you do again? Counsel prisoners for the state or something like that?

How can you make such egregiously uneducated statements like that? The draft is perfectly legal. it's been done before it can be done again. Isn't being a prisoner working for Unicor a kind of slavery? You'd think it would be possible to oppose that on legal grounds, but no.

Between this and some of your thinly veiled racism elsewhere, it's very hard not to imagine you as a troll of some kind.

You will have to disguise it better in the future...

[Danisty]

Anyway, I dislike cultures and don't believe in race. I dislike ours even!

I love cultures! It's just when people use it for hate that it pisses me off. I would be extremely bored if it weren't for so many interesting cultures to study, particularly for me, the Greek and Japanese cultures.

Luckily, we don't have to worry about the draft. It's extremely unlikely they would take my husband anyway. If it was a concern, well, sorry to disappoint you folks, but we'd be dodging it like it was cool.

Poor fellow needs help.

I'm overweight, but I've never looked like that. The part that really sickens me is that a child could never get like that if the parents did their job. It really seems like a form of abuse or neglect to me.

[A_Non_Ymous]

First, as Foozle correctly points out, there are no legal impediments
to reinstituting the draft. It's political dynamite, and it'll be interesting (as
in the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times!") to see whether
the people in our government have the cojones to continue to pursue
the current national foreign policy and make the consequent hard choices
that follow it.

The truth is, it's a numbers game at this point. The foreign policy which
the U.S. is pursuing (whether one agrees or disagrees) requires among
other things manpower. Despite the spin being put on recruitment results
for the military, it has been reported in several places that recruiting goals
aren't being met. If the U.S. military must commit large forces to trouble
areas (e.g., Afghanistan and Iraq), their forces are at the limits of the
possible. Even to meet the current committments, the military is forced
to engage in the stop-loss program, as well as calling up reservists and
National Guard units. The National Guard, the last numbers I saw, was
supplying an extremely large number of forces for purposes of rotation.
One consequence is that National Guard enlistment & reinlistment is down,
too.

So the military is being squeezed. What happens if they must commit
forces to yet another theater? That's a really tough question.

The government is not unaware of the problem, we can be sure. Stepped
up efforts at recruiting are happening, but the payoff to these efforts
doesn't look as if it's going to fill the breech.

The government can obviously do their damnedest to reduce their commitments.
Pull outs from Europe and Asia are already announced. And there's a genuine
desire to extricate our forces from Iraq, but the military and political situation
is intractable there, to say the least. It's unlikely to come to any solution for
years, and many in the government acknowledge this. Furthermore, if, after
instigating the war in Iraq, the government is forced to retreat and leave a
terrible mess behind, that'll be perceived by many as a politcal and military
defeat. (We needn't debate whether that's the right course or not. That's a
separate topic entirely, but one with a lot of significance to this issue.)

So from all appearances, the government is facing a large potential shortfall
in the availability of military forces, with no clear end in sight. The most obvious
way to shore up the military is to institute a draft.

Historically speaking, when the U.S. has faced a national crisis of a military sort,
they've imposed a draft. It happened in WW I, WW II, the Korean War, Vietnam.
No one wants to be drafted, but until the Vietnam conflict, there wasn't a widespread
national opposition to the draft. Opposition arose to the Vietnam War draft because
it wasn't a matter of "defending" the U.S. itself or dealing with a clear (which is
to say non-nebulous) threat. The war in Vietnam had a complex basis of history
and circumstance, but is what's known as a Cabinet War, which was decided upon
by the government at high levels, not as a defense of national safety or interest, but
as a furtherance of national policy. The war in Iraq is similar in this regard. Cabinet
wars, if we're to believe in historical precedent, just aren't popular unless the
government can sell the idea as crucial to national safety as well as interests.

So there are forces at work here which arise largely from national policy to require
the U.S. public to supply men and money for military purposes. There are counterforces
that are working to dry up (or slow down) the source of military manpower. There
are also forces putting pressure on the national ability to pay for these efforts, but
that's also another topic.

That leaves 3 options that I see:

1) continue with what the government has (plus reserves and National Guard) and try
to resolve the situation ASAP,

2) institute a draft, or

3) cut and run.

If 1) fails, the easiest in operational terms might be 2), but it could have extreme
political ramifications in the long run. As for 3) (also called the Vietnam solution),
things will have to get pretty bad before any U.S. government will take that step.
If they do, they'll cover it with doublespeak by saying they're training Iraqi government
units to handle the conflict, and those Iraqi units will "gradually" take over as the
U.S. pulls out. When this fig leaf was used to cover up in the early '70s, it was called
"vietnamization" of the war. Note that it's difficult to make such a program work unless
the government in the country assuming the load has genuine popular support.
(In Vietnam, it did not. Reports differ, but there are those in Iraq who say the situation
there is analogous.)

Personally, I oppose such a draft, but that's because I oppose the current foreign
policy the U.S. is pursuing. If the foreign policy doesn't change in some substantial
way, the people running the show aren't really free agents -- they're slaves to their
imposed commitments and the circumstances.

My 10 centimes on the subject.

LSN

[Jerico]

Thanks for your take, LSN. Very informative.

[Doc]

Hey, LSN. Good to read your always eloquent take on things.

I'll also add-
The government can fail to honor the discharge dates of enlisted men to keep numbers up. While I don't necessarily think of this as a back door draft (as some have characterized it), I do think the practice is more than a little reprehensible. Enlisted people go to jail when they fail to honor their end of the enlistment contract, but the government can extend the terms of the contract indefinitely. Read carefully before you sign on that dotted line.

[A_Non_Ymous]

Hey, LSN. Good to read your always eloquent take on things.

I'll also add-
The government can fail to honor the discharge dates of enlisted men to keep numbers up. While I don't necessarily think of this as a back door draft (as some have characterized it), I do think the practice is more than a little reprehensible. Enlisted people go to jail when they fail to honor their end of the enlistment contract, but the government can extend the terms of the contract indefinitely. Read carefully before you sign on that dotted line.

That's yet another factor, you're right. The contracts say, as I recall, that in the event
of the country being engaged in a foreign conflict, the soldier can be kept in for the
"duration" of said conflict, unless mustered out for some other reason (e.g., retirement
age, injury etc.).

Careful what you agree to, seems the rule here. Many people in the National Guard,
for instance, signed up because they thought they might be called up in the event of
a local emergency -- such as the hurricanes in Florida. That comes with the territory.
Many didn't imagine in their wildest dreams that they'd end up serving on active duty
in a war zone. You sign your name, and you take your chances, it appears.

No wonder the National Guard is facing an enlistment gap, too.

Something we thought we'd learned from Vietnam was not to go into a conflict without
a realistic exit strategy. For all his deficiencies as a statesman, Colin Powell, at least, was
banging this drum before the start of the Iraq "adventure." He wasn't heeded, as we
hear today, and the people in charge seemed to think the whole thing would be a walk
in the park. How quick people are to discard the lessons of history.

I was in the last age group that had to register for the Vietnam draft.
I was strongly thinking about university in France as a possible alternative.
Fortunately, they chose to end the draft that year, and I didn't get called up.
I didn't think we'd be facing an analogous situation in my lifetime. Santayana
was right, I sometimes think. :roll:

LSN

[A_Non_Ymous]

Thanks for your take, LSN. Very informative.

Thanks to you guys for putting up with my longeurs on the subject.
A lot was being said about the situation, and some people seemed to have
a complete view of the issue, and others did not. I felt if we laid out the
issue and the forces in detail, the arguments with your and Foozle's point
would focus more on the issues, and less on questioning the possibility.

It's very possible, I'd say.

LSN

[Jerico]

If we get "4 more years!" I'd say it's inevitable.

___________________________
"Four more years!" the raving of lunatics.

[A_Non_Ymous]

So, if I read TheAdlerian's take on this correctly, he is of the opinion that,
of the 3 options I laid out, the government will pursue #1), and if it doesn't
pan out, move to #3).

The problem with #3) is it might be as close to political seppuku as #2).

I'd be skeptical about the current administration following a course where they'd
be forced to admit making a mistake. In a sense, #3) is such an admission. The
current administration also doesn't seem to worry too much what the American
public thinks about their activities except during an election year. Even then, they
seem very confident that they can cause their actions to be portrayed in the light
they desire.

If one controls the media, and has sufficient cheap shills (e.g., Sinclair, Fox) to
proselytize for one's "spin," their assumption may be more or less correct up
to a point. It took a lot of casualties in Vietnam before people started to discount
the government's spin on the subject. Note that this was during a time when the
news media were less under the government's thumb, too.

LSN