The "wakeup call" argument with regard to ringing back the draft

[bluestateguy]

Some here and elsewhere have argued that bringing back the draft might be a decent idea because it would serve as a "wakeup call" to the middle class that largely supports or looks the other way at this Administration's foreign policy. The argument continues this way: if there were a draft, people who were sitting on the sidelines cheering on the Bush wars in Iraq and God knows where else would have to think long and hard about endorsing military adventures all over the world if it meant that they or a loved one would be sent off to fight; the American public would be less hawkish and opposition to the war would increase accordingly.

If you are an opponent of this Administration's policies, this is flawed logic for a number of reasons.

First of all you will only be providing the war planners in the White House and the Penatgon with more warm bodies to conduct ever more deadly military adventurers around the world.

Second, however entertaining it might be to watch rich frat boy chickenhawks make excuses for not serving, the fact of the matter is that many more working class and middle class young people will be involuntarily forced to fight. Some say that war opponents will resist the draft or flee to Canada, while war supporters will be forced to put up or shut up. It won't work out that way. Chickenhawks will be chickenhaws, a few people really will put their money where their mouths are, but most young people are politically apathetic. Many young people will simply go because the government tells them they have to go. They won't know much about Middle Eastern politics, or why they have to fight, but they will just go because they have been raised to respect authority figures. Even some young people who marginally oppose the war will just go because the government says they have to. To assume that all war opponents or political fence-sitters will simply take to the streets in protest if there is a draft is a pipedream.

I urge people to think very seriously about the implications of this issue. It's not fun and games. People's lives depend on it.

[Loonman]

1. So the GI who dies at age 20 in Iraq

Is his life worth less than any of ours?

[buddy22600]

3. nope

[bluestateguy]

4. I don't know what you are talking about

You need to either re-read my post or explain what you mean.

[ButterflyBlood]

2. I completely agree

if there was a way to draft only war supporters, I'd support it. But sadly there isn't. This would throw the baby out with the bathwater, and is completely unfair.

[Mari333]

5. There already is a draft , its called stop loss

and the reserves and guard are suffering from it right now. Being sent back with PTSD, having their tours of duty extended past a year, and being sent back with horrific wounds and trauma..plus, not letting the troops out when their time is up..stop loss..
we are stretched that thin
so, we either get on the phone and email and fax our congress and senate and demand the troops be brought home now and this war ends, or we sit on our butts and let the draft come and take more kids
There is no other solution
either demand the troops be brought home right now
or there will be a draft
www.bushdraft.com
Thats what it boils down to

[salin]

6. I think it is not a good "strategy"... however I think it is a necessary

public discussion.

One can not wage war without costs. The costs are human resources and financial resources. This administration has sold these wars as being like a free lunch.

Their frightening rhetoric conjours up the possibility of at least three more campaigns. Simply put - we can not man the conflicts and obligations we currently have. The fantasy can not be continued.

When Wolfowitz pushes holding Iran accountable... the question has to be asked - through what means? Force? If so - how do we man it?

If the public were realistic - the public would have to ask for each of these conflicts... is it such a threat that it is worth paying $ much more in taxes... is it such a threat that it is worth mandatory service requirements. In world war II it WAS deemed, by the public, THAT IMPORTANT. If it is NOT important enough at that level - then why the hell are we considering additional military campaigns.

The public can not keep being engaged in free lunch wishful thinking about serious policy. In other countries there is a much greater dialogue - in part because in many countries the question is thought of immediately in those terms (is this conflict personally and collectively worth the cost...)

We should be talking this way about the tax cuts (are these tax cuts worth the increased costs of services and the higher local and state taxes that will ensue?)

I know people do not like hearing it, and I have five nephews of or near draft age. The question should not be asked as a means for turning public opinion against the war (that WILL backfire). It DOES need to be asked, though, in terms of forcing more real discussions about the TRUE costs of our policies and whether or not the public really chooses to accept those costs.

[Brotherjohn]

8. I agree with you as well. But I don't think there's much difference...

... between discussion of a draft to turn "public opinion against the war" and discussion of the draft forcing "real discussions about the TRUE costs of our policies and whether or not the public really chooses to accept those costs".

I think the two are one and the same... i.e. real discussions of the costs will only turn public opinion more against the war. To date, people have only weighed the benefits, and not the costs.

When you are asking "do you still support continuing the Iraq War (and further "terror wars") if it means a draft?", you are asking people to weigh the costs as well as the benefits.

[salin]

10. Except that I view the needed conversation

to be one that should be had on MOST public policy conversations - and that the conversation has all but disappeared in the bush fantasy years.

The public, for all I know, might still side with the president and that it IS worth the cost. But at least then, there would be real public commitment - not some sort of audience viewing a John Wayne movie. By NOT having the conversation - we have this really frightening disconnect between actions and costs and obligations as citizens for bearing those costs. Maybe I am not clear, but I see this as more than a public dialogue to change opinion about this particular war.

[Brotherjohn]

11. Yes, I agree it is the right approach to ALL issues, and has been sorely..

... lacking in this administration. But I can't help but fixate on the war and the draft issue (well, it was what the thread was about, too).

I mean, I don't think this man (Bush) is capable of weighing costs and benefits in his head on anything. I don't think he did so for a second regarding the Iraq War.

People ask him if it was worth it, and he utters inane responses like "We freed the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein. I don't know how anyone could say that's not a good thing!"

Well, yes, George. But the real issue is how many BAD things had to happen to obtain that good thing? What about dashed alliances, a bankrupted treasury, hundreds of dead Americans, thousands of dead Iraqis, and inflamed anti-Americanism throughout the Muslim world? Hmmmnn, George?!

I swear, when I hear him say things like that, I feel like someone needs to shake him and speak to him as one would a 3-year-old.

(/RANT OVER)

But I think his lack of consideration of these factors is largely responsible for much of the nation's same. He is our "leader", like it or not, and many people follow his lead.

[salin]

13. add the media complicity

and I would agree. And.. hey... can I share a little space on that soapbox - I so agree with your rant.

[Brotherjohn]

7. Agree completely. The "draft as a deterrent to war" theory only works...

... we are not in a war.

But we are already in it deep. Don't think for a second that if we provide Bushco. with more soldiers in this way that they'll view them as anything but fodder.

But the discussion of a draft alone might act to cause many war supporters to second guess their support.

[SEpatriot]

9. The problem is a volunteer army is terribly inequitable

I'm not for the draft - and I think your points are very realistic and credible. The problem is that the volunteer army is fine for peacetime (if we ever really have such a thing) however, when we invest in wars the draftee army invests the nation as a whole (at least in theory) and should make people think a little harder about these issues. The army as it stands is mostly lower-income kids who saw service as either an opportunity to fund college or a good shot at a career. All the males (family of 12) in my father's family were either drafted or volunteered in WWII or Korea and my father and one uncle joined the Air Force post-Korea in order to get out of a poverty-bound lifestyle.

The fact that Bush will probably bring back the draft should be wakeup call enough - but it is totally unjust to send ( and keep )this army into a completely unjustified war that broke over 200 years of American foreign policy doctrine.

[Crachet2004]

12. If you give them unlimited manpower, they will make unlimited war...

The war in the middle-east can widen in a hurry-a lack of troops is the only thing slowing Bush down NOW. Fortunately for us, that we are fighting for lies is coming to light much quicker than it did in the Vietnam era...today, thanks to the net and the speedy disemination of information, everything is encapsulated...as though time, with regards to the war, is in fast forward.

What is troubling to me, is that the GOP and many Democrats too, now seem to believe that we have to 'fix' what we broke, and that more troops are somehow the answer.

Let me make a prediction: the more troops we send, the higher the body count will be on both sides. Some things cannot be 'fixed'. We attacked a sovereign nation with a causus belli based on a pack of lies...and we are killing those people to this day. The end result of our meddling will be another radicalized Shia regime...just how radical being dependent on how many of them we mutilate and kill, before being forced out. In other words, we need to leave sooner, rather than later, to minimize justifiable ill-will.

If we beat Bush in the fall, we can blame the entire thing on him and Saddam, and I think the Iraqui's will accept that. We can leave and offer them the entire smorgasbord of foreign aid for reconstruction, and maybe even cut a deal on oil. But the Iraqi's have to rebuild a society in their own image, themselves, and we are just going to have to like it or lump it.

Draft or no draft, someday soon-within ten years, say-we will be leaving Iraq. The only question is how much hatred of us and how many dead bodies we will leave behind.