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Only Way to Peace: Bring Back the Draft

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Zion, Apr 28, 2004.

  1. Zion

    Zion Member

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    Published on Tuesday, April 27, 2004 by the Capital Times / Madison, Wisconsin
    Only Way to Peace: Bring Back the Draft
    by Ed Garvey

    How could it be that a majority of American people believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks?
    How could it be that a majority of those polled still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when all the evidence shows there were none?

    After the books by Paul O'Neill, John Dean, Bob Woodward, Richard Clarke and Kevin Phillips exposing this administration as the most dishonest and incompetent group to ever occupy the White House, how could President Bush be ahead of Sen. John Kerry in the polls when it comes to the question of handling terrorism?

    Indeed, after we found out that Saudi Arabia was briefed on the war plans before Secretary of State Colin Powell, and that a deal was struck with the Saudis - we turn Saddam into "toast," you cut oil prices in October - could anyone seriously trust the Bush/Cheney team?

    With 700 dead soldiers and thousands wounded, plus thousands of dead and wounded noncombatants - or as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls them, "collateral damage" - how can a majority of Americans trust Bush more than Kerry on anything?

    The answer is that most Americans are not paying close attention because it doesn't directly affect them, their children or their grandchildren. In "You Back the Attack," Micah Ian Wright points out that in 1956, 400 of 750 Princeton graduates went on to serve in the military and last year three out of 1,000 Princeton grads signed up. I suspect the same is true at the universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, Chicago and at Harvard. With a volunteer army, we can fight a war or invade a country without bothering to get permission at home because those with influence are not affected.

    The Bush advisers did not see action in Vietnam or the first Gulf War. Verbal combat at the Cato Institute would be as close as Paul Wolfowitz got to real action. Karl Rove avoided the draft.

    Cheney, who according to Powell was "in a fever" to invade Iraq, did not serve during Vietnam. He has never seen young men die in combat. "No," he told the Washington Post, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." Disdain for those who did serve drips from his lips. He had "other priorities," as if the 58,000 men and women listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall did not!

    Oh yes, there was USA Patriot John Ashcroft. He got a teaching deferment. And how about members of Congress who remain silent?

    Our armed forces are not made up of a cross-section of our society. Those National Guard members aren't in on the upcoming Google stock offering. The death of an NFL player, Pat Tillman, brings that message home because he was someone of means and was therefore different. He was the only NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball or NBA player we know of who enlisted in the service after 9/11. Celebrities, athletes, actors and bankers don't have to fight. Nor do their kids.

    Will the president attend Tillman's funeral? Will photos be permitted?

    World War II and Korea were not like that. The wealthy and well-connected Kennedys fought, as did hundreds of athletes and hundreds of thousands of wealthy and middle-class sons and daughters. World War II and Korea, and even Vietnam, were "our" wars.

    Our Army now is disproportionately black, Hispanic and poor white. It is not made up of children of privilege who worry more about their portfolios than a possible assault on Fallujah. This, or any other war, won't disrupt the well-off. Their families will not join with the families of our current troops at food pantries. And so they are not paying attention.

    But Fallujah exposed something equally sinister. We have more than 20,000 "hired guns" working for us in Iraq. Mercenaries. The very word sends chills. Coalition administrator Paul Bremer is guarded in Iraq not by Marines but by mercenaries from a shadowy outfit in North Carolina. And these soldiers of fortune are paid up to $1,500 per day while our soldiers take in $16,000 per year.

    What does it mean in our "war without end" if we take the next step and truly "outsource" our fighting? Will anyone care if 10 or 1,000 mercenaries are killed near Basra or Kabul or Caracas? I don't think so.

    Why would our president refuse to permit photos of flag-draped coffins of our dead soldiers and refuse to attend even one funeral of one soldier killed in his war?

    You know why. It would bring the war home. They want the middle class and the wealthy elites to think about something else, like the all-important NFL draft, the NBA playoffs or the start of the baseball season, while others fight and die.

    The Bush formula is intriguing. Cut taxes, borrow the money to pay for the war, send the poor to fight, hire mercenaries. Make the invasion as comfortable as possible at home through November.

    So, friends, there is but one way I know of to get the attention of the American people and stop the madness. It is called the draft. We need one and we need it now. No exceptions, no student deferments, no excuses. Married, single, gay or straight, male or female - everyone between ages 18 and 30 should be subject to the draft. Our sons and daughters should fight our wars or force the country to seek peace. It is that simple.

    Would there have been an invasion of Iraq if we had had a draft in place? No way. Period.

    Time to return to the public good. Time to assert that all of us, poor, middle class and rich, have a stake in our country's future. It is time for the draft because it is time for peace.

    Ed Garvey, a Madison lawyer and former Democratic nominee for governor, is editor of the www.FightingBob.com Web magazine.

    http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0427-13.htm
     
  2. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Member

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    These issues were brought up in the Sen. Hagel mulls draft thread. Then as now I agree with having a draft for the exact reasons described.

    I have great respect for our troops but think they have been ill used by the civilian political leadership. Part of why I think is because they haven't been affected personally by war and at the same time most of America hasn't either.

    If more people share the burden of military service there will be more concern about what uses the military are put to.
     
  3. glynch

    glynch Member

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    I tend to agree. Maybe the Bush twins could get through to ol chickenhawk daddy what it means to go to war if they were over there.

    He is rather short on the empathy scale, but maybe he would have some for them.
     
  4. mrpaige

    mrpaige Member

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    Yeah, I remember how the draft kept us out of Southeast Asia.
     
  5. Woofer

    Woofer Member

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    It took 10,000 days of war, but it worked.
     
  6. mrpaige

    mrpaige Member

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    I don't think it will take reinstating a draft to get the American public to force an end to the conflict in Iraq if it were to get anywhere near the point that we saw in Vietnam.

    The point that keeps being made is that war would be avoided altogether if there was a draft, but I don't know that there's any evidence to support that idea (even the only Senator with a son in the military - the 101st Airborne, at that - voted for the resolution to go to war in Iraq).

    Nor is there necessarily any evidence to support the idea that a person who is personally affected by war would avoid war in the future. Just because the recent guys in charge avoided military service and are relatively quick to war doesn't mean that those who have served in wartime would be different. The President's father got us Gulf War I, and his plane was shot down twice in WWII. Kennedy's boat sank and he didn't have any problems sending troops to Vietnam. LBJ won the Silver Star in the Pacific during WWII and still escalated the Vietnam war. Richard Nixon was also a Lt. Commander and served during WWII, and then expanded the Vietnam war during his presidency. Harry Truman led a regiment in France during WWI and still managed to drop the A-Bomb on the Japanese and send American troops to Korea.

    And so on.
     
  7. ROXRAN

    ROXRAN Member

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    as been said before,...a volunteer fighting force is a much more professional and potent combat soldier...if you don't like that too bad, that's how it is...
     
  8. mrpaige

    mrpaige Member

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    Not even really the argument, though. It seems most of the people making the pro-draft argument don't really care all that much whether the military is the best that it can be.

    The argument is that there will be no more war if all the young dudes have to serve. And I think that's a dubious argument based on the history of this country and the way the argument is made.
     
  9. rimrocker

    rimrocker Member

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    I agree with you mrp. I am a bit torn on this question, because I fear a draft could have the opposite effect of the one proposed in the article yet I think a draft would serve the military well by exposing it to other ways of thinking. Let's face it, the military is no longer apolitical and there seems to be a rigidity in the thinking lately. Would not having to deal with folks who would not normally volunteer necessitate some changes? Though I'm sure there are better ways to do this then through a draft.
     
  10. Supermac34

    Supermac34 President, Von Wafer Fan Club

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    While I'm all for injecting new ideas into organizations, I don't think that a draft is a good idea for the military.

    A well regimented and disciplined fighting force is essential to keeping people in your military alive. It's when the discipline falls apart is when mistakes are made. Rigidity and sticking to the rules is a good thing for a soldier. The training and rules are what keeps you alive when you are fighting.

    Now I'm sure that the military always bright thinkers when it comes to senior officers and decision makers, but I believe they have themselves well covered with their various military academies. They seem to get their fair share of the best and the brightest in most of them.
     
  11. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Member

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    You bring up some good points but in rebuttal I will point out that in the case of GH Bush he moved cautiously into the first Gulf War and held back from pushing the war beyond the narrow stated goal of getting Saddam of Kuwait. Nixon pulled out most US troops from Vietnam, why Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize, even though he felf compelled to continue bombings. Truman justified dropping the bomb by considering how many US troops might die in an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

    I'm not saying the draft is the anti-dote for war but that our country has greatly changed since the 60's and 70's where now there are much much fewer Americans who have seen combat so the idea of war seems distant and remote to most Americans. At the same time with a volunteer force is easier to put those soldiers in harms way because its justified by, "well they volunteered." Warfare isn't a shared burden but instead but instead carried literally on the backs of a force primarily composed of the poor and rural who see the military as the only path to advancement. Pat Tillman was notable for being an exception among our troops.
     
  12. Woofer

    Woofer Member

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    That's not what I have said. In other threads noting our lack of troop strength, there is no way for us to bring security to Iraq under current conditions without a draft. Hiring mercenaries who are unaccountable to any law doesn't do us any good.
     
  13. mrpaige

    mrpaige Member

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    I agree that not everyone has made the draft argument that way, but it is the argument made by many, including the author of the original article posted here and many who have an anti-war stance.

    But you're right, not absolutely everyone makes a pro-draft argument that way.
     
  14. gifford1967

    gifford1967 Member
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    From the Toronto Star-
    http://www.thestar.com/

    U.S. eyes proposal to draft women



    WASHINGTON—The chief of the U.S. Selective Service System has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about whether they have training in niche specialties needed in the armed services.

    The proposal, which the agency's acting director Lewis Brodsky presented to senior Pentagon officials just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, also seeks to extend the age of draft registration to 34, up from 25.

    The issue of a renewed draft has gained attention because of concern that U.S. military forces are stretched thin because of worldwide commitments.

    Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes, U.S. forces have fought and won two wars, have established a major military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq and are now taking on peacekeeping duties in Haiti.

    The plan, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, highlights the extent to which agency officials have planned for an expanded military draft in case the administration and Congress authorize one in the future.

    "In line with today's needs, the Selective Service System's structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered toward maintaining a national inventory of American men and, for the first time, women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills," the agency said in a Feb. 11, 2003, proposal presented to Pentagon officials.

    .

    The agency acknowledged that they would have "to market the concept" of a female draft to Congress, which would have to authorize such a step.

    Agency spokesperson Dan Amon said the Pentagon has taken no action on the proposal.

    "These ideas were only being floated for department of defence consideration," Amon said.

    He described the proposal as "food for thought" for contingency planning.



    If talk of implementing the draft and extending the draft age to 34 gets significant media coverage in the US watch support for the Iraq war and Bush drop like a rock. There are a lot Cheney's out there that think this war is a great idea, until it's their ass on the line.
     
  15. Deckard

    Deckard Blade Runner
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    I would advocate pulling out of Iraq before I would support a draft.
    It should only exist in dire need and during a true national emergency. Iraq doesn't meet that test. And 9/11 didn't require a response incurring a draft. Our superb military was meeting the challenge easily before Bush's invasion of Iraq.

    Let us hope God doesn't tell George W. Bush that we must have a draft.
     
  16. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"
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    A million women: "US out of our wombs!"

    US: "Oh you wanna march, do you? Here's an idea..."
     
  17. gifford1967

    gifford1967 Member
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    More murmurings about a draft-

    From the DailyKos (http://www.dailykos.com)

    Inactive reservists to be called up
    by kos
    Tue May 18th, 2004 at 13:22:13 EDT

    Nick Confessore writes in Tapped:

    A friend of mine who is currently an inactive Army reservist forwarded me some memos he received regarding future mobilizations -- memos that indicate that we are not far from some kind of conscription in the next few years.

    According to my friend, recruiters are telling inactive reservists that they're going to be called up one way or another eventually, so they might as well sign up now and get into non-Iraq-deploying units while they still can. There's also a "warning order" -- i.e., a heads-up -- from the Army's personnel command that talks about the involuntary transfer of inactive reservists to the active reserves, and thus into units that are on deck for the next few Iraq rotations.



    Nick is unsure of how the inactive reserves work. Here's how it worked during my time in service -- every enlistment was for eight years. The only variable was how many years you were active duty. In 1989, when I enlisted, the options were two, three and four years. I believe the two-year enlistment option has since been eliminated.

    In any case, you would finish off your active duty service, and would be "inactive" for the remainder of that eight year term. My regular enlistment ended the summer of 1992, and then had to wait an extra five years to get rid of that "inactive" tag. The day I was officially done with my 8-year enlistment I had a party. My mother called that day to say, "today is the day, right?" She had apparently marked it in her calendar and kept track the entire time.

    If what Nick writes is true, the military is digging through its last reserves before a draft is necessary. And calling up people from the inactive reserves won't be met quietly. These are people that volunteered their time and service to their nation, who have moved on to build their lives. There's no doubt that Bush would hold off on any concrete orders to call up the inactive reserves until after November. But the fact that the military is reading the groundwork, if it receives a wide airing, could present yet another obstacle to his reelection chances.

    This is a war that Rumsfeld insisted could be won by 100,000 troops. Now we are scraping the bottom of our active reserves and starting to eye the inactive reserves with hungry eyes.
     
  18. rimrocker

    rimrocker Member

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    IRS May Help DOD Find Reservists
    Fort Worth Star-Telegram
    May 18, 2004


    FORT WORTH, Texas - The Defense Department, strapped for troops for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has proposed to Congress that it tap the Internal Revenue Service to locate out-of-touch reservists.

    The unusual measure, which the Pentagon said has been examined by lawyers, would allow the IRS to pass on addresses for tens of thousands of former military members who still face recall into the active duty.

    The proposal has largely escaped attention amid all the other crises of government, and it is likely to face opposition from privacy rights activists who see information held by the IRS as inviolate.

    For it to become practice, Congress and President Bush would have to approve the proposal, which would involve amending the tax code.

    Ari Schwartz, an associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, said granting access to any IRS data would open the door to more requests from other arms of the government.

    Just a few years ago, Congress strengthened the privacy provisions of the tax code, he said.

    "There are other ways to solve the problem they have, without putting the tax information at risk," Schwartz said. "We would hope that those members who worked only four or five years ago on strengthening tax-privacy laws would stand up and say this is a bad idea."

    Lt. Col. Bob Stone, a spokesman for the assistant defense secretary for reserve affairs, said the proposal was developed several years ago and is unconnected to the Army's current shortage of troops.

    Part or all of nine of the Army's 10 active-duty divisions are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and 167,000 members of the reserves or National Guard are on active duty, with thousands more on alert for mobilization.

    Unknown to most Americans, though, is the existence of the Individual Ready Reserve, which has more than 280,000 members.

    The IRR is a distinctly different animal than the drilling reserves or National Guard.

    Those in the IRR are people who have completed their active-duty tours but are subject to involuntary recall for a certain number of years. For example, a soldier who serves four years on active duty remains in the IRR for another four years.

    During that time, however, they receive no pay, do not drill with a unit and are otherwise completely civilian.

    The problem for the Pentagon is that the whereabouts of 50,200 of those veterans are unknown to the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. The largest number - 40,700 - are former Army GIs.

    Because Texas sends more people into the service than almost any other state, it's a good bet many are in the Lone Star State.

    "While the military today is comprised of an all-volunteer force, every individual who volunteers for service in the armed forces voluntarily accepts an eight-year military service obligation," Stone said.

    The troops are required to keep the services' updated on their residences, but many do not. Thirty-four percent of former Army soldiers cannot be tracked. The unknowns in the other services are in the single digit percentages.

    "One of the difficulties that the military services confront is keeping addresses current," Stone said.

    The Defense Department has called on members of the IRR before. About 7,000 people have been recalled since 9-11, Stone said. Approximately 30,000 were recalled for service during the buildup for the Persian Gulf War in 1990 and 1991, he said.
     
  19. mc mark

    mc mark Member

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    My brother is one of them. But I'm sure the government knows where he is, being the good citizen that he is. He did 10 years in the Air Force and retired in 1996.

    ah man! :mad:
     
  20. glynch

    glynch Member

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    A vote for Bush is a vote to call up the inactive reserves.


    As the articles say, he won't do so until after November 2004.
     

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