Stanley McChrystal says the U.S. should reinstitute the draft

[unhappycamper]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/19/stanley-mcchrystal-says-the-u-s-should-reinstitute-the-draft/



etired U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal speaking at a January 2013 Brookings Institute conference.

Stanley McChrystal says the U.S. should reinstitute the draft
Posted by Max Fisher on February 19, 2013 at 11:32 am

“America suffers right now from the fact that many Americans don’t meet or deal with anybody outside their social or cultural circle,” retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal tells Foreign Affairs in a lengthy interview. “I think mandatory national service would have a huge effect to help us in that direction.”

It’s not a fundamentally new argument to say that the U.S., if it had a draft military, might be more careful about using military force and more restrained in deploying its service members. Still, it’s interesting to see McChrystal, who led the international force in Afghanistan before resigning in disgrace in 2010, making that case himself.

The “reinstate the draft” argument is typically associated with liberal Democrats and with opponents of U.S. military action, not with the generals who lead that action.

Here’s more from the interview:

[Scuba]

1. Agreed.

[CincyDem]

2. I think he is a democrat underneath

An the point is valid.

As long as the broad electorate can view American Imperialism as "someone else's war", they will never hold elected officials responsible for the decisions they make.

When I think about our community, it is so painful to realize that in the case of reporting a military death, the most often quoted sources are their guidance counselors and teacher from high school where they graduated 2-3 years ago. It is so painful to realize that their last social impact in the world before going overseas was their high school graduating class.

And then I realize that all the school names are small, rural, lower per capita income areas. They're not the same schools we hear about with the top football teams or the most national merit scholars. To be blunt, their not the schools attended by offspring of "the influential".

But what if it were different. What if, sitting in my 600k rubio-mansion having dinner with my 18 year old son, I was faced with the reality that they were heading off to fight some unclear war in an unclear land for an unclear reason. I just might be more engaged.

I think there are huge portions of the American population that view our presence in the middle east with the same interest they have in French troops going into Mali. Not our kids, not our problem.

A national draft would sure make congress take this chit a lot more seriously.

[TwilightGardener]

3. Easy to go to war when only a select few will ever really feel the effects. I have mixed feelings

about it, though.

[sharp_stick]

4. Whenever the draft has been in effect

it was always easy for the more well off to avoid it through deferments or simply by being in the right family.

A real draft with no allowance for deferments or family connections could possibly do some good but I don't think we'll ever see it come about.