Man, I wish you were around during Vietnam. Trust me, you would be finding worldliness, opportunities, and an appreciation of life with that draft notice staring you in the face. I was lucky. I just missed it, with a high number in the first draft lottery. Many people I knew back then didn't have my kind of luck. I'm sorry, but I couldn't be any more against a draft. The military doesn't want it. It would be a disaster. Listen, if anyone wants to serve their country, no one is stopping them. You can join the Peace Corp. You can volunteer in your community, or for a host of state and national charities and organizations that do good work. You can spend your summers, as my Father did, working in developing countries for USAID, if you are an educator, and want to travel the world, and serve not only your country's interests, but people overseas who really, really need help. You can become more active in our political process, and help make change that way. The possibilities are endless for those who want to serve their country in some capacity. Hell, you can join our professional military, or the Guard and Reserves, if you really want to get down and dirty for the United States of America. We sure as hell don't need a DRAFT to do any of that. Keep D&D Civil!!
This was a pre-election ploy by democrats to accomplish exactly the kind of reaction some of you on this board had. Why, in any realistic scenario, would a bunch of democrats hatch a republican plot? If that is not enough, I think it was CBS that broke this story. The sky is not falling !! This whole story has already been debunked.
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/page2/archives/000613.html This link will explain the whole affair.
I agree that "The sky is not falling." But, the CBS issue, a moot point. The fact that the question of the DRAFT is out in the open for the public debate. This is all that matters. No one knows what will happen after the elections or in 1 or 2 years. Regardless of what President is in the White House. The possibilty of a DRAFT is still going to be an topic of discussion in the future. Plus, it's good to hear what people think about this (everyone). One of the things that I find interesting is how the Republican's react to the possibility of a draft. It causes even THEM to pause. Their kids come to mind, I'm sure. I wonder if they would support Bush (or Kerry) if the draft was reinstated? Just something to think about. P.S. The CBS issue is a perfect example of the "Kill the messenger, then you'll kill the message." Sorry, that wont work this time. The gennie is out of the bottle. And CBS did their job. They asked the question.
Wait a minute. I thought the REPUBLICANS were the ones running on fear. What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here?!?!?
The Republican decision makers who pushed this war and the next ones are as likely to urge their kids to volunteer for this war as I am. That is not at all. I don't know where they come from on the issue of honor as they claim this war is vital for the defense of the country.
Guys: The point is that DNC and possibly CBS as its tool is trying to manipulate a presidential election with fradulent or misleading information. [ ie. Rather/Bush and Rangel/draft ]. That should burn your butt no matter which side your on. They have such little regard for your intelligence and the intelligence of the on-line community that they actually attempt this crap. Read the link I provided a couple of lines up. Rangel virtually admitted that he put the bill up just to mess with people's minds and attempt sway the vote of young people who might be draft age. I am not pro-war, but I think I would rather have terrorists blowing up Iraq than Houston.
You will find that the other side ends up ignoring this. When it turns out that Kerry didn't vote to cut intel spending, but only a spy satellite that was never launched, the GOP chose to try and say Kerry did vote to cut intel spending in order to manipulate this election. When it turns out that Kerry actually has been consistent on Iraq since day 1, the GOP tried to play it off as flip flops in order to manipulate this election. When Dick Cheney and Zel Miller voted for or supported all the same military cuts Kerry did, or even more, that didn't matter to the GOP who were trying to manipulate this election. I would think dishonesty like that would burn people's butt no matter which side they were on, too but it didn't. As far as Rather goes I think he should resign. That was sloppy reporting, and their was no excuse for it. There has been no proof that the Dems were behind the documents, but if it turns out that they were they should fire the person responsible.
10-04-2004 Hack's Target Uncle Sam Will Soon Want Your Kids By David H. Hackworth Recently, when John Kerry brought up the possibility of a return to the draft, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld was quick to respond that Kerry was full of it. But my take is that Kerry is right on the mark. Not only because Rummy has been flat wrong on every major military call regarding Iraq, but because this is a war that won’t be won by smart weapons or the sledgehammer firepower we see every night on the tube. Right now – with both our regular and Reserve soldiers stretched beyond the breaking point – our all-volunteer force is tapping out. If our overseas troop commitments continue at the present rate or climb higher, there won’t be enough Army and Marine grunts to do the job. And thin, overworked units, from Special Forces teams to infantry battalions, lose fights. Clearly, this war against worldwide, hardcore Islamic believers will be a massive military marathon, the longest and most far-flung in our country’s history. By Christmas, more troops could be needed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but wherever the radical Islamic movement is growing stronger, from the Horn of Africa to Morocco, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen and across Europe – remember Spain?! – to Asia. Accordingly, we need to bring our ground-fighting and support units to about the strength they were before the Soviet Union imploded, especially since the proper ratio of counterinsurgent-to-insurgent in places like the Middle East should be around 15 to 1. You don’t have to be a Ph.D. in military personnel to conclude we need more boots on the ground. Most of our warriors – who are mainly from blue-collar families from Small Town, USA – have few political connections and few conduits though which they can effectively sound off. So when they get screwed over by a desperate Pentagon’s makeshift policies – such as the “Stop Loss” program that’s holding over large numbers of our servicemen and -women well beyond their contractually agreed-upon terms of enlistment, or the widespread calling up of out-of-shape, ill-trained citizen soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve – these “volunteers” salute, suck it up and lay their lives on the line. But like elephants, they won’t forget that they are “backdoor draftees,” as Kerry and John McCain call them. Which means that when their hitches are up, they won’t be rushing to re-enlist. And they’re also warning their younger brothers, sisters and pals to stay away from recruiting stations. Although Pentagon puff artists insist they’re making quota, recruiters are already saying it would be easier to find $100 bills on the sidewalk outside a homeless shelter than fill their enlistment quotas, even with the huge bonuses now being paid. So the draft – which will include both boys and girls this time around – is a no-brainer in ‘05 and ‘06. Oh sure, the Pentagon suits will fight it. Volunteers tend to go with the flow and seldom blow the whistle on military stupidity, flawed tactics and self-serving leadership. And draftees don’t hesitate to make waves and tell the truth. Not to mention influential citizens with draft-age kids who’ll soon be demanding an answer to the same type of hard question their moms and dads shouted during the Vietnam War: “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Rumsfeld, in fact, has already kicked off the anti-draft campaign by denigrating the draftees who fought in Vietnam. The SecDef, who prefers sycophants who don’t ask questions, recently stated that Vietnam-era draftees added “No value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services ... because ... it took an enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone.” Wrong once again. I led draftees for almost four years in Vietnam and for several years during the Korean War. If well-led, there are no finer soldiers. Ask the Nazis, the Japanese and the Reds in Korea and in Vietnam, where “no value” draftees cleaned their clocks in fight after fight. Israel, a country that has lived under the barrel of the Islamic terrorist gun for decades, has the most combat-experienced counterinsurgent force in the world – and boy and girl draftees are its major resource. Count on it. We will follow their lead. --Eilhys England contributed to this column. http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/...mmand=viewone&op=t&id=86&rnd=672.997896581235 Col. David H. Hackworth (USA Ret.) is SFTT.org co-founder and Senior Military Columnist for DefenseWatch magazine. For information on his many books, go to his home page at Hackworth.com, where you can sign in for his free weekly Defending America. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. His newest book is “Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts.” © 2004 David H. Hackworth. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
The purpose of the bill, which has no way in hell of passing, is to make a draft more equal, not to reinstate it. The president would have to reinstate the draft. All this bill says is that there are fewer exceptions. In other words, children of Congress and other important people would not be able to avoid it as easily as they did the last time we had a draft. Rangle, Conyers and the others do not want a draft. They want to make sure that IF the day comes when a draft is reinstated, it will be done so equally. peace.
President Bush was recently asked this very question by an FFA member at one of his pep rallies: Q Mr. President, if the war on terrorism continues, do you feel that there will be a need for the draft? And do you want to start the draft again? THE PRESIDENT: Yes, first of all, the war on terror will continue. It's going to take awhile. And, no, we don't need a draft. What we need to do is -- don't worry about it. What we need to do is to make sure our troops are well-paid, and well-housed, and well-equipped. (Applause.) Oh... don't worry about it. Well that settles everything. Thanks Mr. President.
Don't shoot the messenger... Poll: Youth Tie Bush, Draft Reinstatement WASHINGTON - In spite of denials by the Bush administration, half of young Americans believe President Bush (news - web sites) wants to reinstate the military draft, a national poll suggests. The National Annenberg Election Survey found that 51 percent of adults age 18 to 29 believe Bush wants to reinstate the draft. Eight percent said Kerry supports bring back the draft, and 7 percent said both want to. A fourth of those polled said neither candidate favors the idea. Both Bush and Kerry say they don't support a renewed military draft. Earlier this week, the House defeated a bill paving the way to a draft 402-2. House Republicans have sought to quash the persistent Internet rumor that the president wants to reinstate the draft if re-elected while Democrats have fanned the flames on the rumor. "Young voters are much more misinformed about the presidential candidates' positions on the draft than the population in general," said Kate Kenski, an analyst at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. Three in 10 adults think Bush wants to reinstate the draft, and 7 percent of all adults think both Bush and Kerry feel that way. The polling of 1,543 adults was done from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points — 7 percentage points for the young adults. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...96&e=1&u=/ap/20041008/ap_on_el_pr/draft_fears
pretty sad poll numbers. doesn't speak well for a well informed electorate, does it? but i guess if it gets them to vote for the 'right' guy it's ok.
I kinda' hoped the youngsters were better informed than the over 30's crowd.... maybe they thought the question was about draft beer???
I think they're plenty informed. Did it ask, "based on their statements, does B/K want to reinstate the draft?" (which would be just a quiz on how informed the polled are about the statements of the candidates). Or did it ask "Do you believe B/K wants to reinstate the draft?" If it's the latter, they are asking the polled to say what they think B/K thinks instead of what B/K has said. Not believing Bush does not make the under 30 crowd uninformed. It does the opposite. How does that old tennessee saying go? Fool me once... shame on... shame on you... If you fool me... you can't get fooled again
An editorial that talks of the credibility gap of the Bush Administration has a crediblity gap on the draft issue. ******* Friday, October 08, 2004 The military draft and a credibility gap Talk of a draft won't be silenced by promises from an administration that can't shoot straight. House Republicans forced a vote on the military draft Tuesday so they could slam the idea down. President George W. Bush says he's not considering reinstating the draft, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says it won't be necessary. Yet, fear of the draft continues to be the talk of college campuses and Internet blogs. It's as if America's draft-age youth don't believe the nation's leaders. Why would that be? Let's see, the Bush administration made war on Iraq to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists, but the weapons did not exist. Evidence of them, Americans learn, was never as strong as they were led to believe. President Bush said major combat was over in Iraq in May 2003, but many more troops have died in fighting since he declared "Mission Accomplished" than before. The president insists the U.S. occupation of Iraq is leading inevitably to freedom and democracy even as widespread insurgency thwarts reconstruction and threatens to make a mockery of any election. And now Bush assures skeptical young adults that, even after our November election, Uncle Sam won't need them badly enough to draft them. That's what Americans hear from this president. What they see are National Guard members and reservists going to Iraq - more than once - to fill gaps. And they hear from others, including military officers, that the force on the ground is not big enough to pacify Iraq. And if a crisis arises in Iran or North Korea, the other points on Bush's "axis of evil"? "A Pentagon-appointed panel," The New York Times reported Wednesday, "recently concluded that the military would lack the forces to handle its current combat and stabilization operation if new crises emerged." Republicans won't quell fears of a new draft with political stagecraft. Young people can see that current U.S. forces aren't large enough in this world that the Bush Doctrine has wrought. They're not assured by Bush's "war president" demeanor. Why would they be? link
"I hear there's rumors on the Internets we're going to have a draft, We're not going to have a draft -- period." W 10/8/04
