We must spread this around the blogosphere and get the MSM to cover this.

Via Think Progress, John McCain was at a townhall today, and a questioner said:

If we don’t reenact the draft, I don’t think we’ll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

To which McCain responded:

Ma’am, let me say that I don’t disagree with anything you said.

Video below the jump:

Many independents and moderate republicans beat the ‘yellow elephant drum" and say there will be no draft to support the Iraq war.  I say BULLSHIT.

WHY?

Base Realignment and Closure Acts (BRAC Acts)

Presidents Reagan signed into law four rounds of BRAC and President Bush signed into law one round of BRAC.  This fact is important because these Republican laws are why our military strength is diminished. The strategy for our Department of Defense since the end of the Cold war was to fight a two theater strategy meaning we would maintain the combat strength to fight two wars in two different parts of the world at the same time.  When I served in Desert Storm we had 16 Combat Divisions and support forces on the ground in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.  We still had available, uncommitted, 5 Infantry Divisions:

7th Ft. Ord, California
10th Ft. Drum, New York
2nd Korea
6th Ft. Wainwright, Alaska
25th Hawaii

We actually could maintain a two-war strategy in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

Join me on the flip for the very bad news Republicans will not talk about in the company of voters.

Author Colby Buzzell Being Sent Back to Iraq

Cross posted from Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

The reviews you should be reading and listening to, from Military Personal and Family members Of. The ones, small numbers they are, who are actually sacrificing and understand the meanings some of these movies are trying to bring out, that the greater majority, the civilian population, really need to be explained to. Especially in these conflicts they do little to nothing as a sacrifice, most important not wanting to pony up the cost of these Wars of Choice and the Huge longterm Costs of!

Stop Loss:

Retention policy of keeping solders in the military past their contractual obligation

Despite John McCain’s frequent comments to the contrary, a McCain presidency would significantly increase the likelihood that the military draft will be taken out of mothballs where it has been for the last three decades.  Both the Army and Marines have struggled to meet recruiting goals in recent years.  The Army, in particular, has had to lower its standards to the point where some (a small minority) of its recruits are only functionally literate, some have criminal histories, and others are psychologically unfit.  Because of malfeasance on the part of former SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld, the active duty Army is grossly under-sized for today’s situational environment.  The notion that reserve units have been over-utilized under these circumstances is an understatement.  Given recent campaign statements regarding a protracted occupation of Iraq and beyond, one can easily conclude that, with McCain as Commander-in-Chief, a military draft will be inevitable.

Occasionally I hear that, had there been a military draft in America, BushCo would have a much harder time doing all they did.
Perhaps.

But if you advocate a universal draft, Be careful what you wish for.

Recently, Israel's IDF reported an increase in draft evasion, sparking a heated media "debate" - like in American MSM, the "debate" consists of ignorance, superficiality and hysteria. And draft evasion is conflated with conscientious objection.

Which prompted CO support groups such as Yesh Gvul to step into the fray. I volunteered to write a text about it (Hebrew;  English below).

See: missing from the "debate" is the nature of the military experience itself. Is it something we should be glad to put our kids through, generation after generation? Or sigh, "There is no choice" and look the other way?

So I decided to out my own military experience.

By the way, note this sentence in my text:

The IDF experience described here is not necessarily worse than in other armies.

Text with some extra comments below.

To mimic the blasé Vichy French administrative officer on hearing that gambling was going on in Rick’s American Café in the classic Humphrey Bogart film Casablanca-"I’m shocked". Why? A couple of days ago Bill From Portland of the Cheers and Jeers section conducted a poll asking about the reintroduction of the military draft. The response indicated that an astonishing 69% wanted such a draft. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is the Daily Kos site not Fox Channel online, right? This site is at least in spirit anti-war, right? Then how the hell can a strong majority of participants who, assumedly are fighting tooth and nail for withdrawal from the Iraq (and Afghanistan) wars, desire to give the state additional powers to provide ‘the cannon fodder’ necessary for those and future wars.