So about there maybe being a draft...

[CaptainBubba]

I have heard such things as there being deals with Canada to not allow draft dodgers. And it seems the current administration is intent on continuing its policy of world policing. So am I to understand there is going to maybe be a draft? Perhaps?

[Sergeant_Tibbs]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2004/061004draftbill.htm

I don't know how credible the source is but this was the first thing that came up on my search. I'll poke around somemore.

[MEATMAN]

I don't have to worry: the military doesn't want anything else to do with me anymore...

...not after the, um...'incident.'

[Bass]

"This campaign is a baseless and malevolent concoction of the Democrat party," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican. "It has one purpose -- to spread fear."

Yes, how cold hearted. I could never imagine a political party using fear to get elected. That's just damned unethical

[Helm]

People in other countries have a mandatory army service of up to 12 months (maybe more, actually, my father served for 2.5 years),what's the big deal?

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Ugh...it pains me to agree with a piece of filth like Tom DeLay, but he's right. There won't be an overt draft, with cards and numbers in the mail, etc.

Both bills that were sitting in committee (going nowhere) had been introduced by Democrats. The GOP pulled them out of committee the week b/f the election in order to smack them down oficially. No draft.

However, I think John Kerry was right about a back door draft getting placed on our reservists. We don't have the man power to maintain this war, and our current marines and soldiers are feeling the stretch.

[Jixby Phillips]

I don't have to worry: the military doesn't want anything else to do with me anymore...

...not after the, um...'incident.'

being born with holes in your heart and spending the first 2 years of your life in an icubator isn't an incident

[Sergeant_Tibbs]

here's one from cbs; http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/05/politics/main647612.shtml

But they could try to pass it again, and if they do then bush supposedly will veto it; "If this bill were presented to me, I would veto it. America's all-volunteer military is the best in the world, and reinstating the draft would be bad policy..." http://www.gopusa.com/news/2004/october/1006_house_rejects_draft.shtml

stupid edit functions not working >:

[Anonymous]

"I think one way for us to be viewed as the big bad american is if we go around the world telling people 'we do it this way, so should you.'"

"I don't think it's the role of the United States to do what is called 'Nation Building.'"

("How would you nation-build, then?")

"Well, let me tell you this - I wouldn't use force. I wouldn't use force."

-- Other completely true things Bush has said

[Sergeant_Tibbs]

I realize he's a two faced liar, but point taken.
Touché

[glowbelly]

lol@jixby that is all goodbye.

[Perndog]

People in other countries have a mandatory army service of up to 12 months (maybe more, actually, my father served for 2.5 years),what's the big deal?

Because those countries don't have freedom like America does and they all secretly envy us. :rolleyes

[FS]

I think I remember this topic being discussed here before, possibly at the start of the war in Iraq, and hearing that the possibility of a draft was a rather nasty Democrat initiative to confront civilians/voters more directly with the possibility of having to fight and die. Nasty, because said Democrat party would be mostly sitting pretty and due to issues like age and status not be egible to get drafted themselves. Am I thinking of the same thing?

[Preechr]

YES

[Zhukov]

Whoooooose got cold feet!?

[kahljorn]

I'm both a transsexual and I have no Second ammendment rights, so I've at least dodged being drafted as someone who holds a gun.

[AChimp]

You could be a nurse. A very disturbing nurse, but a nurse nonetheless.

[ItalianStereotype]

why the fuck are people so scared of a draft anyway? the whole started because of an internet rumor. even if a draft were reinstated, one could always join some civil defense organization to avoid it.

[kellychaos]

From what I understand of the dem bill, it was proposed so that the rep party, who don't have a large personal stake in the volunteer army, would stand up and take notice when the decision of whether or not to go to war would make them think twice about the matter ... i.e. if there was a war, YOUR son could be made to take part. I don't think that there were any serious intentions at the time. It only became relevant after the current need for 2 to 3 more divisions in our armed services became apparent.

[ArrowX]

In a very longsighted view it would probably be safer in the army than n the US at home because What do you thinks gonna get nuked to hell first?

[Helm]

Hey Arrowx, if there was an IQ base requirement before you could post on this forum, I think you'd be disqualified. Really. No joke. Serious. Maybe when you grow up you'll be able to fake having important oppinions better.

[Preechr]

We Won't Have a Draft
Troops in Fallujah are the best since World War II.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, November 19, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

The amazing, perhaps historic, battle of Fallujah has come and gone, and the biggest soldier story to come out of it is the alleged Marine shooting. There must have been hundreds of acts of bravery and valor in Fallujah. Where will history record their stories?

Maybe it's just a function of an age in which TV fears that attention spans die faster than caddis flies, and surfing the Web means ingesting information like a participant in a hot dog eating contest. By contrast, Michael Ware of Time magazine has a terrific account this week of one platoon led by Staff Sgt. David Bellavia ("We're not going to die!"), fighting its way through the snipers and booby traps of Fallujah: "A young sergeant went down, shrapnel or a bullet fragment lodging in his cheek. After checking himself, he went back to returning fire." Amid mostly glimpses this week of telegenic bullet flight paths and soldiers backed against walls, I wanted more stories like this. More information about who these guys are and what they were doing and how they were doing it. The commanders in Iraq praise them profusely, and by now maybe that's all these young U.S. soldiers need--praise from peers.

But the American people, many of them, have been desperate for some vehicle that would let them actively lend support to the troops, or their families back in the States. The Bush administration, for reasons that are not clear, has never created such an instrument. Had they done it, a force would have existed to rebalance the hyperventilated Abu Ghraib story. The White House seems to have concluded that the American people would support a big, tough war almost literally as an act of faith. And they did, but just barely. Neglect of the homefront almost cost George Bush the election.

The election's one, ironic nod to the nature of the troops in Iraq was the controversy over the draft. Michael Moore traveled to 60 college campuses saying Mr. Bush's opposition to restarting the draft was an "absolute lie." Shortly after, a senior saluted the jolly Hollywood misanthrope and wrote a column for Newsweek denouncing the draft. "We have no concept of a lottery," she wrote, "that determines who lives and who dies." But not to worry, dear. The military brass, to the last man and woman, doesn't want you. Not ever.

The draft ended in 1973. What has happened to the all-volunteer military in the three decades since ensures that no draft will return this side of Armageddon.

Post-Vietnam, the military raised the performance bar--for acquired skill sets, new-recruit intelligence and not least, self-discipline. The thing one noticed most when watching the embedded reporters' interviews last year on the way into Iraq was the self-composed confidence reflected throughout the ranks. And this in young men just out of high school or college.

It was no accident. Consider drugs. In 1980, the percentage of illicit drug use in the whole military was nearly 28%. Two years later, mandatory and random testing--under threat of dismissal--sent the number straight down, to nearly 3% in 1998.

Today recruits take the Armed Forces Qualification Test. It measures arithmetic reasoning, mathematics knowledge, word skills and paragraph comprehension. The current benchmark is the performance levels of recruits who served in Operation Desert Storm in 1990. The military requires that recruits meet what it calls "rigorous moral character standards."

After his August report on Abu Ghraib and U.S. military detention practices, former Defense Secretary Jim Schlesinger told a writer for The Wall Street Journal's editorial page: "The behavior of our troops is so much better than it was in World War II." And more. Unit cohesion, mutual trust in battle, personal integrity and esprit all are at the highest levels in the nation's history, right now, in Iraq. Indeed, the U.S. armed services may be the one truly functional major institution in American life.

Some fear the creation in the U.S. of a military caste, dissociated from the rest of society, or worry about the loss of civic virtue. The bridge across, I suspect, is narrower than many suspect. A 2002 Harvard Institute of Politics survey of college students found that if their number came up in a new draft, 25% would eagerly serve and 28% would serve with reservations. The draft itself is quite irrelevant today. But contrary to the last election's confusing signals about the attitudes of the young, most of them, it seems, are willing to "do something" to protect their country, if asked. It is their elders' job to find a way to ask. The military writer Andrew Bacevich has summed up our current situation nicely: "To the question 'Who will serve?' the nation's answer has now become: 'Those who want to serve.'"

At a ceremony on Nov. 13 at Camp Taji, Iraq--with Fallujah raging elsewhere--Army Maj. Gen. Pete Chiarelli presented 19 Purple Hearts for wounds in the battle of Najaf, the big battle before Fallujah. Gen. Chiarelli remarked that George Washington created the Purple Heart in 1782, for what Gen. Washington himself described as "unusual gallantry . . . extraordinary fidelity and essential service."

Essential service. After 20 months of it in Iraq and two hard weeks of it in Fallujah, "service"--an old idea in a world too busy to take much notice--is a word worthy of at least some contemplation.

Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Wow, okay, now I don't believe that there will be a draft, but this article seems to answer an apple with a really bright orange.

So our troops in Fallujah are awesome? So they kick ass? So we actually do have the best trained and most skilled civilian military in the world...? No way!

I think we should line all of them up against Iran next! Huh? :confused

I don't think anybody is saying "hey, our soldiers blow goats, so we need MORE OF THEM!" I think it's actually a question of resource allocation. Do we have enough of those amazing troops to keep the peace in Afghanistan, keep the peace (or arguably still gain it) in Iraq, and at the same time support Israel in a war with Iran? And what about Syria? Oh, and wait, aren't we pulling troops off of the DMZ next year, in order to send them to Iraq...? That's okay, just leave one of our super troopers on the border, and he'll give those nasty North Koreans the ol' Fallujah Flop!

[kellychaos]

Nobody's ever doubted the quality of the soldiers over there. They were way under-manned for the task at hand and no can fault the job they are doing despite the apparent ill-planning by the administration. Now if we were to listen to this nationalistic rhetoric, I assume the desired effect would be that I would be all hyped by the RaRa and think to myself, "You know, you're right, Preechr, the war was well-planned, we don't need extra soldiers because they're doing just fine with what they have. Isn't America fine? Isn't our army strong?" ... while more soldiers die.

[kellychaos]

And why isn't that 25% eagerly serving now, without the pressure of a draft. Sure, you're right.

[Preechr]

You guys are smarting yourselves stupid on this.

It's not so complex.

Q.- Is there a plan for a draft?

A.- No. During WWII the draft seemed to work because of the uniquely Nationalistic nature of that era's people, both at home and in the field. The whole country pulled together and sacrificed together for an unquestioned greater good.

This was not the experience of Vietnam. The draft was resented and feared. Conscription helped to embitter the country against the war, and the effectiveness of the military suffered greatly which directly increased the risks to our soldiers. Some soldiers died in Vietnam because of the draft, which was in unacceptable.

Since then, the military has been restructured into an all-volunteer force where the individual soldier's training emphasizes the voluntary nature of her service, focusing on her natural skills. The effectiveness of our fighting force, which is to say it's overall quality, is higher than it was during WWII without relying on an enthusiastic populace back home.

There's no way they'd reintroduce the draft because they've developed a much more stable system.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

There's no way they'd reintroduce the draft because they've developed a much more stable system.

No, they won't reintroduce the draft, because like you already said, it would turn political favor against them, and leave W with a bad tasting legacy in his mouth.

But to call this system "stable" is a bit of a stretch. And speaking of stretching things, that's what's getting done to our reservists and full-time soldiers. We can't reinstitute a draft, so Bush will stretch out every drop of blood and sweat he can get from the saps who volunteered to do this.

"Who will serve?" Well, nobody will if the military developes a reputation for being careless with its reserves, sort of like the Michigan National Guard, who were sent over to Iraq with 48 hours notice, with no training.

I'll repeat myself-- it's a question of allocation. Having a voluntary army of really skillled soldiers who do it out of duty and love is great, but that leaves you with a logistical question. To draft, or not to draft? That is the question. It's not about stability. If our nation desired stability, we'd have enough troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea (with a few extra in your back pocket for Iran). But the bottom line is that we don't have those resources.

Again, to me, this discussion has become about apples and oranges. We have a great military, and sure, the best military is the voluntary one that comes from within your own people. Machiavelli believed that. But I don't think Machiavelli had the imagination to envision a multi-front war in foreign lands, while at the same time lacking adequate troops. That's not "Imperialism," or "militarism," that's just plain stupid.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

A 2002 Harvard Institute of Politics survey of college students found that if their number came up in a new draft, 25% would eagerly serve and 28% would serve with reservations.

Right, because a bunch of fucking college students will get put in more "professional" military roles, or end up in the coast guard, or go join AmeriCorps or USA FreedomCorps., etc.

National service has never been an issue for the youth of America. I did it, many others have done it. MILITARY service, with guns, in IRAQ or IRAN, might be a different question....