Stop the draft

No matter who wins the election, the draft will be proposed in 2005.  The time to start talking about it, and organizing against it, is now.

[Expanded from a post to the bottom of kos' thread on the draft and the Iraq war]

Bush is desperately short of bodies (I use the term advisedly).  Extending reservists and regular army people beyond promised 12-month combat tours was done only as a short-term expedient to get past November.  It's not sustainable. If Bush wins, he will push for a draft.  

And Kerry, who thinks that we need more troops in Iraq, will push for a draft, too.

The draft is the great enabler of wars.  No major war was fought without it.  The Iraq war can't be continued without it.  

It's a complete misreading of history and of contemporary politics to imagine that a draft would work against war.  Yes, it would energize some of the opposition; but that is more than counterbalanced by the fact that the draft feeds the beast.  They can't fight a war without soldiers.  They can't keep up a bloodly misguided and discredited war with volunteers.  

It's cynical to propose a draft to curb adventurism and imperialism.  That's offering the blood of draftees to do the political work that we should do instead by organizing political opposition on the merits.

There is a serious argument to be made on the other side.  The notion that all citizens should share the risks that go with defending the nation is appealing.  This argument has less weight when the biggest danger to the nation is not that it will be overwhelmed by a foreign force, but rather that the country will be drawn into avoidable wars of conquest.

National service is a nice goal if the nation is wisely and competently guided.  National service is a disastrous idea if the country is led by demagogues and fools.