Newsweek: America is Dodging the Draft Issue

[Scooter24]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6099727/site/newsweek/
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek

If we need to occupy another country that threatens us, we will either do it with the help of our allies or the conscription of our kids


Oct. 4 issue - It's a potentially lethal issue—the kind that could make young voters swarm to the polls and their nervous parents change their minds about supporting President Bush. Republicans are peeved over Democratic claims that the president will impose a draft if he's re-elected. John Kerry was hammered for mildly suggesting that such an idea was even "possible." Bush backers are right that this is a suburban myth and no such plans are underway. A scary and misleading Democratic e-mail circulating on college campuses highlights pending legislation to revive the draft and efforts by the administration to bolster local Selective Service boards. Predictably, the e-mail doesn't mention that the draft bills, which are going nowhere, are sponsored mostly by Democrats (who think military service falls too heavily on minorities) and that the draft-board system is being kept well oiled because of old laws requiring it—not some nefarious Bush plot. "Not. Gonna. Happen," concludes conservative columnist Michelle Malkin.

Malkin is probably right. Even in the months after September 11, when Bush could have easily called upon young Americans to serve their country in both military and nonmilitary roles, he asked for no sacrifice. He knows that a draft would vaporize any remaining support for his Iraq policy. This would be of concern to him even as a second-term, lame-duck president. One thing we've learned about Bush is that he has never taken a position that he knew beforehand would be politically unpopular, including invading Iraq.

But the world is a strange and unpredictable place. While Bush has no plans to reinstate a draft, he could be forced into it by events. Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, a likely presidential candidate in 2008, says that a draft "might become necessary" in the years ahead. The threshold question before the election is this: which candidate is more likely to have so few international friends amid a crisis that he would have to move beyond the all-volunteer force? This question takes the seemingly arcane issue of burden-sharing and brings it home to the American heartland. If we need, God forbid, to occupy another country that truly threatens the United States, we will either do it with the help of our allies or with the conscription of our kids.

[jn2375]

1. Peeved or not I believe it will happen if Bush is reelected

[skylarmae]

3. You better believe it. Remember, he wasn't going to war with Iraq either.

As a matter of last resort. Right! He is such a liar. How can we
believe anything that he says? I don't anymore.

[Jacobin]

2. "urban myth".....my how Alter spins for Bushie

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Yep that is why the SSS is fully staffed now

and the FOIA document is out there.

Mebbe someone should send that to him.

Yep that's the ticket.

h

[Kanary]

7. "Mebbe someone should send that to him."

Do you think he's trainable?

:shrug:

Thanks to that article, we have that much more work to do. :nuke:

I wonder how much he was paid to write that shit, or ........ what threat he received.......

Kanary

[Kanary]

4. Well, if that isn't just chock full of "misspeak"

The last sentence sums up the RW stance....

"If we need, God forbid, to occupy another country that truly threatens the United States,......."

*ANOTHER* country that truly *THREATENS* the US?????

What was the first one?????

That is one horrendous article.

sigh........

Kanary

[Scooter24]

6. Yeah...

It was this last paragraph that caught me:

"Both Bush and Kerry insist they won't revive the draft. But someday a presidential candidate will come along who has the guts to propose national service, in which every young American serves his or her country either in the military or in community-service projects at home. Until then, beware categorical promises. "Not. Gonna. Happen." That's what President Bush's father used to say about raising taxes."