Russia's military on verge of collapse: defense minister

[Thurston Howell IV]

MOSCOW (AFP) Oct 01, 2004
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov warned Friday that the Russian armed forces were on the verge of collapse because people were avoiding the draft and less than 10 percent of those eligible were showing up at enlistment stations.

"By comparison I can say that just 10 years ago, in 1994, we called up 30 percent of all of those eligible. Now it is less than 10 percent. This really is a critical line and we cannot go any lower, otherwise we will simply lose our armed forces," Ivanov said at a military base in the central Russian town of Oryol.

But an embedded fear of service in a cash-strapped military, where morale is low and cases of brutal and often deadly hazing are on the rise, have spun a web of ways out of the draft -- from false medical certificates to direct bribes. "We are the champions of the world when it comes to duty deferments," Ivanov quipped.

One reason Russians fear the draft is Chechnya, where war has been waged nearly without interruption for the past decade, with the last campaign launched five years ago Friday. A band of several thousand guerrillas has been standing up against a Russian contingent of up to 80,000 soldiers, with the war now a deadly stalemate with casualties -- including those civilians -- reported on an almost daily basis.


http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041001143518.h7q413va.html

[Dems Will Win]

1. Soon to happen here:

PRINT THE PDF: http://somnamblst.tripod.com/draftalert.pdf
HANG THIS FLYER EVERYWHERE

This is a SPECIAL MILITARY DRAFT ALERT. THIS IS NOT THE RANGEL DRAFT BILL, THIS IS NEW! THIS IS BUSH QUIETLY READYING THE COMBAT DRAFT AND HAVING THE SELECTIVE SERVICE CREATE A NEW DRAFT FOR 2005.

In May, the Seattle Post Intelligencer published an article about a document they received through the Freedom of Information Act. It was revealed that the SSS is currently “designing procedures” for the implementation of a “Skills Draft” after holding a top-level meeting on it with Deputy Undersecretaries at the Defense Department. The top-level This draft would change the very mission of the Selective Service and require “virtually every young American”, male and female ages 18-34, to register for the Skills Draft and list all the occupations they are proficient in to fill labor shortages throughout nearly the entire government.

Here, for the first time, is the FOI document itself:

http://blatanttruth.org/selective_service091304.pdf

This document is real, having been acknowledged by the DoD and the SSS when they said no action is being taken on it at the present time, as reported:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171522_draft01.html

Although Congress would have to approve new legislation to create a Skills Draft or reinstate the combat draft, Family Circle reported in its July 13 issue that Karl Rove has polled GOP members of Congress in September 2002 to see if they would support the President if he requests reinstatement. The Republicans said they would vote for the draft.

In addition, the SSS itself has said that it is “designing procedures” (Seattle PI, May 1, 2004) to implement the skills draft, meaning designing the compliance cards and the data fields needed to keep track of “virtually every young American” and their skills. Acting Director of the SSS Brodsky has also said the Skills Draft is the “top priority” of the Selective Service for 2004. The Issue Paper options include:

- Allow a non-combat draft for shortages in critical skills, without calling a combat draft.

- Fill labor shortages of all kinds throughout not only DoD but the Dept. of Homeland Security and other agencies, especially high-paying professionals like computer networking specialist or linguist.

- Create a single-point, all-inclusive database, in which every young person would be forced to send in a “self-declaration” of all of their critical skills, chosen from a long list of occupations like the Armed Forces Specialty Code. The usual penalties of imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine would apply to all non-registrants.

In the secret planning meeting document, the next steps strongly recommended by SSS Acting Director Brodsky were:

1. “Promptly” redefine the SSS Mission to draft men and women up to age 34 for skills, and deliver them within 90 days or sooner to the Department of Defense. Program a massive database to be ready to enter millions of names of those registering their critical skills.

2. Expand mission to deliver personnel in skills draft to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including FEMA, NSC, Border Patrol, INS, Customs, Corporation for National Service, Public Health Service and other agencies.

3. Form interagency task force to provide Administration with recommendation on this skills draft for the entire government.

4. Obtain White House Statement of Administration Policy on the future of the SSS.

5. Be prepared to market the skills draft, raising the non-combat age to 34 and the drafting of women to the Armed Services and Appropriations Committee.

In contrast to this planning and preparation to create a targeted draft, Kerry plans to spend an additional $7 billion to strengthen the Volunteer Army in what is essentially a “No-Draft Plan”. Moreover, Kerry is strongly opposed to the neo-con plan revealed in Wes Clark’s book Winning Modern Wars, in which Clark was told by a senior Pentagon official that invasions of Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan and Somalia were planned and still to come over the next three years.

MORE: http://blatanttruth.org/draft.php

DON'T FORGET TO USE THE .PDF NOT THE .GIF FILE.

BUSH '04 = DRAFT '05

KERRY '04 = PNAC OUT THE DOOR!

[shraby]

2. Someday, the governments

will want to have a war and no one will come.

[Moderator]

3. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=877734