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I know people who think that they would support a draft in 2005. This is a position I hadn't really expected, as I didn't really think anyone would support a draft right now. The reasoning was based on the usual carefully thought out stuff - it centered around "well my high ranking military officer friend says everything is going right, and I trust his judgement, and I'm sure we wouldn't use a draft unless ever other option had been exhausted."
Now - let's get all the rage that this kind of idiocy creates inside out of our system. Take a moment if you need to....
Back? Ok, well after I raged at this as well and got nowhere, I remembered the truth that whether we like it or not, these are the people we need on our side - this is Joe Everyman and I need to find someway to persuade him (or her, in these cases it was a him) to see the issue of a draft in the proper light.
Now, I will say one thing. I'm not writing a 1 page fact sheet. I don't consider those particularly persuading. But if someone was really willing to hear my reasons for opposing a draft in 2005, this is what they would be. Let me know what you think:
Why I Oppose a Reinstituted Draft in 2005
By Andrew L. Yoder
Over the last few months there has been fairly conclusive evidence which indicates that if George W. Bush and the current administration are elected for a second term, part of their second term agenda will be to reinstitute the selective service Draft in 2005. The reasoning for this is well known to most of us. Without adding political spin, here is a quick summary of the reasons a Draft would be part of the agenda for 2005:
Summary of the Issue
Basic operations in Iraq – transition, stability and rebuilding – are taking longer and requiring more committed military manpower than originally anticipated. The strain on career military service men and woman as well as reservists who have had their tours of duty extended to sometimes nearly double a normal deployment cycle is becoming detrimental to the effort in Iraq as well as the military on the whole. Morale is down, and according to recent news reports more servicemen and woman are declaring that they will not reenlist when their tour is completed than ever before. The combination of these factors makes a Draft likely, in order to finish operations in Iraq and ease the strain on servicemen and women currently deployed.
Reasons to Oppose a Reinstituted Draft in 2005
There are conceivably conditions under which a Draft might be a necessary (though never desirable) option. However, those conditions have not been met in the current national situation. The reasons why a reinstituted Draft should be opposed are as follows:
1. Questions about the legitimacy and justice of the invasion of Iraq force me to oppose a Draft which would serve only to continue what I believe to be a fundamentally unjust endeavor.
There were three primary reasons given as justification for leading our nation to war with Iraq. The first was the claims of large quantities of weapons of mass destruction, stockpiled, ready to be used/deployed in as little as twenty-four hours. The second reason relates to the first: that this amassment of weapons of mass destruction constituted a “clear and present” or “immanent” threat the security of the United States. The third and clearly sub-classed reason was the liberation of an oppressed people.
In the nearly full year since the invasion of Iraq, an action taken unilaterally and without international support at great and painful cost to the United States in blood and money, each of these reasons justifying and invasion have been proven to be shaky at best, or outright deceptions at worst. The claims of vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction have proven to be untrue – even the administration no longer claims that mass stockpiles will be found, but instead says that “being wrong about the weapons isn’t important.”
Worse, evidence has surfaced repeatedly which proves the Administration deliberately lied about the “evidence” for weapons of mass destruction. The Administration has even publicly admitted that it lied about several key issues: it lied about a provable link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. It lied about the evidence that Iraq sought out weapons grade nuclear material in Nigeria. It lied about the evidence that the Administration knew exactly where weapons were being stockpiled. And, tying into the second of the three claims, the Administration lied about weapons being capable of being launched in as little as twenty-four hours.
A CNN poll conducted last week asked the question, “Do you believe that the Administration misled the public about its reasons for going to war with Iraq.” According to the poll, over 80% of respondents admitted that yes, the Administration did mislead the public. Then just this week a CNN poll question asked, “Do you believe that the war with Iraq was justified if Saddam Hussein was not perusing a weapons of mass destruction program?”* And again, over 80% of respondents voted no, it would not be justified. Why should the American people support a reinstituted Draft which serves only to continue a campaign in Iraq which many people now know to be based on lies and now believe to be unjustified?
Some at this point respond that even despite all the lies and deception to the public, the world is still a better, safer place with Saddam removed from power. Others claim on a more humanitarian note that Iraq is better for its people because we chose to act. This ties into the third and lesser justification for going to war, and its proven falsehoods. Over the last year of Iraqi occupation, it has become clear to me that the “liberation” of the Iraqi people is no serious part of our operations in Iraq. We are the most powerful and richest nation in the history of the world. If the Iraqi people were truly a real priority of our country, Iraq would look much different than it does now.
Immediately following the end of “major combat operations,” great pains were taken to insure that Iraqi Oil fields other strategic military and economic assets were secure and rebuilt. At the same time, virtually no resources were seriously committed to repairing Baghdad’s water supply or rebuilding its sanitation network. Many Iraqi’s died of thirst or dysentery while the US made sure its personal economic interests were secure.
Congress approved 87 billion dollars of additional money for Iraq. But before it did, it made sure to gut and cut money earmarked for Iraq rebuilding and humanitarian concerns in that country. Of the money promised for Iraq reconstruction, much of it was subsequently diverted to other projects. The administration has repeatedly demonstrated that Iraqi quality of life and true “liberation” is at the bottom of its concern list. “Real peace is not just the absence of tyranny or conflict – it is the presence of justice.” So far justice is nowhere to be found.
In the end, it should become clear to anyone willing to honestly confront the facts that the invasion of Iraq was based on one simple, basic motivation: strategic interest, economically and politically. George Bush is on the public record, caught saying to an advisor that he was going to “get that fucker” Saddam Hussein even prior to 9/11. We had committed to going to war with Iraq years ago, and every single reason presented to appease the public in the last year has been little more than smoke and mirrors. I desire to be a principled man committed to the cries of justice, human dignity and spiritual “righteousness” above all else, though I recognize how often I fail to live up to these goals. But because these are my desires, I cannot in good conscience support a reinstituted military draft, the soul purpose of which is to continue on in a fundamentally unjust occupation at the expense of American lives. I consider this a moral issue.
2. Questions about the effectiveness of our strategy in Iraq after the fact of the decision to go to war forces me to oppose a draft – I cannot support a draft that only helps maintain failing policy
While my first reason for opposition to a Draft was largely ideological, my second is largely practical. Since the decision to invade Iraq was made, for better or worse, the military operational tactics in Iraq have been tragically poor. It is one thing to consider the entire operation as unjust. But it is another to realize that, even if one believed the decision to invade Iraq was correct, the invasion itself has still been tragically mishandled.
The invasion of Iraq was thought to be a “cakewalk” according to the Department of Defense, and that failure to take the scope and cost of a military invasion seriously has drastically upped the body count. Last May Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced that “major combat operations have ended” in front of a large banner that read “Mission Accomplished. Since that time, nearly five times as many American boys and girls have been killed in Iraq. This sentiment of overconfidence has plagued every single part of the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.
There has been a rift in the Administration between the State Department and the Defense Department over how a post-war Iraq should be administered. Despite White House and Defense Department claims that no one could have predicted the chaos that would ensue in Iraq after the fall of the regime, the fact is that the State Department and other administration officials as well as many Iraqi exiles predicted it perfectly well. As David Reiff of the New York Times puts it, “What went wrong is that the voices of Iraq experts, of the State Department almost in its entirety and, indeed, of important segments of the uniformed military were ignored . . . the mess that is postwar Iraq is a failure of planning and implementation.”
Unfortunately this failure to heed experts and the willful ignorance of key regional realities continues to plague operations in Iraq. In fact, it is precisely because our action in post-regime Iraq has gone so poorly and is so far behind schedule that talk of a Draft now becomes a real possibility. And this is also one of the very reasons why a reinstituted draft must be opposed. Simply forcing American men and woman to serve as bodies in a military machine stuck in the quagmire of failing policy and implementation is not an acceptable solution.
It is not acceptable to put more American lives at risk for the sameness of a policy disaster. Instead, the plan for post-war Iraq must be radically changed and brought into alignment with what many experts feel is a far more virtuous and hopeful approach. It is also a transition which would make talk of a draft unnecessary. Therefore, it is clear to me that talk of a new Draft severs only to support an unjust war and to continue to prop up utterly failed post-war Iraq policy instead of contributing to helpful and needed policy chance which might put the nation of Iraq back on the right track, and rescued the United States from its current desert quagmire.
3. A reinstated Draft in 2005 should be opposed because not all other viable options have been explored or exhausted, i.e. a Draft is unnecessary and needlessly puts more American lives at risk
Many Americans believe that a draft would never be a real possibility unless all other possible options have been utterly exhausted. However, this is only true if we drastically limit the scope of “possibilities” to only those which have as their aim the continuing support of our own profiteering and political strategic interests. Before even seriously considering any possibility of a draft, we must have the courage not to take any options off the table.
To give an example of the kind of options that have most certainly not been seriously entertained by the Administration, one need go no further than the political platform of Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich:
(Listed Kucinich's 10 point plan here - for space sake I'll leave out)
As early as April, some had advocated a plan for post-war Iraq which would make all talk of a Draft unnecessary. As example, here are points from Democratic Political candidate Howard Dean:
(Listed Howard Dean's early April 8-point plan for post-war Iraq)
As a final example, we certainly should not omit the plan for Iraq proposed by the former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO forces, Europe – retired four star General Wesley Clark. His plan also provides a clear and strategic alternative to a military draft of US men and women. Although lengthy, because the argument in many people’s mind is that a draft is justified since there are “no other options” I will quote General Clark’s plan in its entirety:
(Listed Wesely Clark's Plan at leangth)
All of these plans represent clearly articulated and highly achievable alternatives to current Administration policy, or lack there of, on Iraq. The one thing each of these policies has in common is a return to the long standing American tradition of multilateral cooperation rather than unilateral domination. Each of these policies is supported by the failure of this Administrations unilateral approach in Iraq, the price of which has been a great deal of American blood. These plans are readily achievable. The world community stands ready and has stood ready to assist in the rebuilding of Iraq, and its reintegration into the world community as fledgling democracy with a real future and hope. The United Nations has repeatedly made clear its readiness to assist with manpower, oversight, administration and internationally contributed funds. The world community could be called upon to share the cost both financially and in manpower for the effort to rebuild Iraq.
But it would require of this Administration something it has never been willing to do – look to others for help, admit mistakes, and work together with the rest of the world. It would require us to surrender our stranglehold over economic assets in Iraq which are not ours in the first place. It would require is to share responsibility for the state of Iraq with the world, and it would require us to relinquish some of our singular and strategic strangle hold on the region and invest instead in a broad multilateral coalition of nations willing to invest into Iraq’s future.
I must oppose a reinstated draft for this third and final reason – that it is decidedly not true that there are no other alternatives to it. It is not true that there is no other way that would be good for the country. In fact, I argue that many of the plans presented here would in fact be far better for the country at large, though not for a privileged few strategic stakeholders in the fate of Iraq. The greatest fear I have in my heart and mind is that many Americans would simply rather not think seriously about these issues because they are complicated, because looking at the state of affairs in the world and the actions taken by this Administrations is profoundly sad – and people, particularly Americans, don’t like to feel sad about the actions of their country. It is so much easier to say “we are just, we are right, we are good, we are the best” than it is to look seriously and carefully at what we are doing. It is easier to let people tell us what we want to hear, rather than seek to hear the truth for ourselves.
I urge you, oppose a reinstated military draft in 2005, and oppose it for the reasons I have mentioned here. But if you find that you can not oppose, please at least be able to define for yourself exactly why you support a reinstated draft with the same amount of thought and attention that I have given here.
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