Newsweek - Draft Me Not

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4760088/

April 16 - I’m in a cafeteria on the west bank of the University of Minnesota campus. A friend of mine looks up from a copy of the Minnesota Daily and asks me when we are going to be “out of this mess.” I just laugh and sigh.

It’s hard to find much that’s humorous about the news these days, though, as the situation in Iraq grows worse. Politicians are no help—only the most partisan students here accept their talking points. The rest of us are confused and concerned; we're worried about our friends and family as U.S. troops and civilians come under escalating attack. Even for those of who don’t know people fighting in Iraq, the rising death toll has a personal side: the troops who are dying are our age—they could be our classmates and friends. And if things keep getting worse, we could be forced by our government to join them in their fight.

Fears of the draft on this campus have been rising with the death toll. The chances of a forced conscription coming back are vague, of course, but so is everything else about Iraq—who will govern the country after the transfer of sovereignty in June, how power will be distributed among the Iraqi people, what the future role will be for U.S. troops. All that’s clear is the troubling reality of the present. I turn on the news and see that this April, only half over, is already the bloodiest month of fighting in the entire war. As I watch everyone around me fretting about their taxes, I think of the Iraqis, whose government only exists as an idea at this point, much less a tax-supported democratic authority. To get them from here to a self-sufficient government could require years of U.S. involvement. Our military is already stretched to capacity. If the situation continues to deteriorate, the draft could be the only choice U.S. policymakers have to make.

These are the doomsday scenarios students struggle over in idle conversation here. Some raise the possibility of being attacked on another flank while our forces are tied up in Iraq, a frightening scenario that would almost assuredly necessitate a draft. Up to now, most college students have shied away from the Iraq-as-Vietnam comparisons that so fixate some adults because none of us lived through that painful war. But with draft talk in the air on campus, the Vietnam comparison is suddenly starting to hit home.

more