Army Expansion Could Last 5 Years: Ranks Will Swell During Restructuring

[LiberalFighter]

Army Expansion Could Last 5 Years

An additional 30,000 soldiers authorized this week by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on a temporary basis could swell the ranks of the Army for five years or longer, depending upon troop requirements in Iraq, Afghanistan and other potential conflicts, a senior Army official said yesterday.

Briefing reporters one day after Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, disclosed the increase in congressional testimony, the official said a wholesale restructuring of the nation's largest military service should produce efficiencies that would enable the Army eventually to return to its current authorized troop strength of about 480,000 troops.

But the official, who briefed on the condition that he would not be identified, said it is not certain the Army would be able to cut strength in four to five years from the 510,000-troop level authorized by Rumsfeld under emergency authority approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
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Not one word about bringing back the draft.

[bluestateguy]

1. They won't call it the draft

That word does not focus group well. They'll say "young people are being given the opportunity to serve their country" (or they can go to jail). Or "national service" (with a gun and combat uniform).

[Media_Lies_Daily]

2. They won't have any problem calling it the "draft" in 2005.

[bluestateguy]

3. Remember this

A lot of Republican members of Congress have to run for re-election in 2006. They don't want to be voted out by angry middle aged mothers.

A draft could probably only pass in a very narrow window of time in early 2005, assuming a Bush victory. Most House Republicans are in safe districts. A few Democrats will support a draft, and thus offset the Republicans from marginal districts who vote no. In the Senate, Republican senators facing tough re-elections in 2006 will be "allowed" to vote no. A few Democrats will probably more than offset them.

Still, it will take some very slick and devious focus group tested messages to sell Congress and the American people on a draft. But don't underestimate Karl Rove.

[Gman]

10. Exactly...

>A draft could probably only pass in a very narrow window of time in >early 2005

Because the RW does it's dirty work in off election years then count on people's short memories.

[Voltaire99]

4. What about the de facto draft now in place?

Instead of merely worrying that middle class youth will be drafted, let's take a moment to remember that workers and the underclass are swelling the ranks of our "volunteer" army because they have little economic choice.

Further, they're being locked into service but stop loss orders.

Redressing this unequal servitude should be our first priority. There's no justification for poor men dying for their economic superiors.

[Dhalgren]

8. You are right. This goes way beyond any traditional draft.

By the public's silent approval of the poor as cannon-fodder, this nation has already instituted an economics-based draft. The only thing that worries the Imperial War Machine is that this particular type of draft may be too slow. As the Emperor's economic policies take firmer hold over the next year and a half or two, the econo-draft will pick up in volume. Will "stop loss" cover the needs of the IWM until then?

[PROGRESSIVE1]

5. It's feeling a little DRAFTY in here.

.

[0rganism]

6. Are so many of us going to be unemployed that we will have to enlist?

Cos it's either that or the draft. I don't foresee too many of those ultra-patriotic college republicans lining up outside the recruiting center of their own volition, oh no I do not.

[colonel odis]

7. that would seem like a logical strategy

keep the masses unemployed so that the military becomes a genuine means to a paycheck.

cut veterans' benefits because military service doesn't have to compete with the marketplace. people are serving so they and their families can eat.

use the expanded military as your enforcer in the world at large.

perpetual war. think the bush administration is above something like this?

[Dhalgren]

9. Hell no, they aren't above it!

It is the essense of their "strategery".

[hang a left]

11. This appears to me as paving the way for the next

administration, be it rep or dem, to enact the draft.

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. So Rummie lied

We were going to invade every country that posed a threat to US 'interests' and we were going to do it with a leaner, meaner army. I guess these incompetent traitors got it wrong again.