[War] Rolling Stone: "...he's got a plan to draft you."
Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 12:47:44 AM PDT
Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone Magazine
asks:
With the army desperate for recruits, should college students be packing their bags for Canada?
The draft issue is one way to bring the war home. The more that young Americans think of the war as something that may forced to participate in the more who will consider joining the anti-war ranks. Young Americans do not want to kill and do not want die for an illegal and immoral war.
Democrats and other progressives (who are opposed to illegal and immoral war) make a huge mistake by not making it clear that (1) there is a reasonable possibility for a draft and (2) a draft for an illegal, immoral and dangerous war is morally wrong.
The draft-issue is an opportunity to shift the discussion from one of logistical failure to moral failure. Read the Rolling Stone article to understand how the draft-issue brings the war home, and why it makes sense for Democrats to oppose the draft loudly, clearly and on moral grounds. (more on the article after fold)
Uncle Sam wants you. He needs you. He'll bribe you to sign up. He'll strong-arm you to re-enlist. And if that's not enough, he's got a plan to draft you.
Okay. Clear enough. This quote is worth repeating, and repeat it we should:
"...he's
got a plan to draft you."
Uncle Sam wants you. He needs you. He'll bribe you to sign up. He'll strong-arm you to re-enlist. And if that's not enough, he's got a plan to draft you.
There is a reasonable possibility for the draft. This point is essential, because when we oppose the draft we assert this possibility. And with this possibility the war comes home.
Don't think that Rolling Stone knows shit? Here are some other sources
that make this possibility realistic:
Not enough soldiers in military / plans are getting made:
"The Army's maxed out here," says retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, who served as Air Force chief of staff under the first President Bush. "The Defense Department and the president seem to be still operating off the rosy scenario that this will be over soon, that this pain is temporary and therefore we'll just grit our teeth, hunker down and get out on the other side of this. That's a bad assumption." The Bush administration has sworn up and down that it will never reinstate a draft. During the campaign last year, the president dismissed the idea as nothing more than "rumors on the Internets" and declared, "We're not going to have a draft -- period." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in an Op-Ed blaming "conspiracy mongers" for "attempting to scare and mislead young Americans," insisted that "the idea of reinstating the draft has never been debated, endorsed, discussed, theorized, pondered or even whispered by anyone in the Bush administration."
That assertion is demonstrably false. According to an internal Selective Service memo made public under the Freedom of Information Act, the agency's acting director met with two of Rumsfeld's undersecretaries in February 2003 precisely to debate, discuss and ponder a return to the draft. The memo duly notes the administration's aversion to a draft but adds, "Defense manpower officials concede there are critical shortages of military personnel with certain special skills, such as medical personnel, linguists, computer network engineers, etc." The potentially prohibitive cost of "attracting and retaining such personnel for military service," the memo adds, has led "some officials to conclude that, while a conventional draft may never be needed, a draft of men and women possessing these critical skills may be warranted in a future crisis." This new draft, it suggests, could be invoked to meet the needs of both the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.
What does Selective Service have to say?
Richard Flahavan, spokesman for Selective Service, tells Rolling Stone that preparing for a skills-based draft is "in fact what we have been doing." For starters, the agency has updated a plan to draft nurses and doctors. But that's not all. "Our thinking was that if we could run a health-care draft in the future," Flahavan says, "then with some very slight tinkering we could change that skill to plumbers or linguists or electrical engineers or whatever the military was short." In other words, if Uncle Sam decides he needs people with your skills, Selective Service has the means to draft you -- and quick.
No problem - I don't have any special skills, you think?
But experts on military manpower say the focus on drafting personnel with special skills misses the larger point. The Army needs more soldiers, not just more doctors and linguists. "What you've got now is a real shortage of grunts -- guys who can actually carry bayonets," says McPeak. A wholesale draft may be necessary, he adds, "to deal with the situation we've got ourselves into. We've got to have a bigger Army."
The article continues - with lots of reasons to not only assert the reasonable possibility of the draft - but reasons to be very very very concerned about this possibility. So why are Democrats and other progressives (1) saying it won't happen and (2) we want a draft? Hell if I know. The draft know is wrong - it would help the war effort get expanded. That is flat out wrong. And it is just stupid politics to support something that will be hugely unpopular and that can, if framed correctly, bolster opposition to the war (even if the draft never actually happens).
Last word goes to Rolling Stone:
In the end, it may simply come down to a matter of math. In January, Bush told America's soldiers that "much more will be asked of you" in his second term, even as he openly threatened Iran with military action. Another war, critics warn, would push the all-volunteer force to its breaking point. "This damn thing is just an explosion that's about to happen," says Rangel. Bush officials "can say all they want that they don't want the draft, but there's not going to be that many more buttons to push."
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