This way, most of us would potentially have a dog in whatever fight we get into. Even those of us who are too old to serve ourselves (or have already served) are likely to have loved ones who fall in the eligibility field.

Unfortunately, you and I both know that the very instant you create any kind of loophole to not serve, like a lottery, there will be a mad dash for people to charge through that loophole and escape service, a charge led by the rich and well connected. Universal service is the only antidote to the “full dinner jacket” as opposed to “full metal jacket” syndrome.

An idea that has been floating around a while is mandatory national service but opening it up to non-military service sectors, medical, educational, etc. It would be a huge program, not something I tend to favor, but there is a lot of merit to the concept. Whether the numbers add up is another question.

This way, most of us would potentially have a dog in whatever fight we get into. Even those of us who are too old to serve ourselves (or have already served) are likely to have loved ones who fall in the eligibility field.

OMG, no — I couldn’t imagine drafting EVERYONE eligible at any given time. Good heavens, we didn’t even do that during WWII. Having that many people in uniform with nothing to do would create logistical problems (and cost problems) of nightmarish proportions. I would support a return to the draft lottery and only taking as many people as we need. The lottery system would accommodate fluctuating needs. For example, if numbers 1-25 are drafted in any given year because that’s all we need, whoever is holding number 26 should be paying attention, because he will be the next to go if the need increases.

As far as your question regarding drafting women — absolutely! They’re citizens, too. As a woman, I can honestly say that I should get all the perks a man gets in our society, but I believe that I should be saddled with the same responsibilities, too.

And I agree with you completely about Blackwater.

One final point against the draft is you would in all likelihood wind up with more soldiers than you would want or could afford. If everyone did two years of mandatory service between ages 18-20, how many people would that be?

If you are generous in your demographics and say America is evenly distributed age-wise between people of 1 to 100 years, at any given time in this country there are 3 million people of any given age. So – that is 6 million draftees under arms at any given time, not including the older, more experienced soldiers who form your seargeants, pilots, medics, officers, etc. That is a monster force – is that really what you want?

Also – are women excused? Haven’t we reached a point in society where if we are going to force people to serve, both genders should do so? They could fill the logistical and medical roles that barfly mentioned.

My main point is you really don’t want WWII style armies anymore – HUGE numbers of men – because there is no enemy out there that fits that bill, saving only Russia or China and then we would need a draft and probably fall out shelters, too.

I googled “generals who support a draft” and a couple variations of that and got almost nothing that really applied. Some Generals have mused about it, none have called for it that I could find.

As far as Blackwater goes, it is obscene that such private armies pay their men 10 times what the nation pays theirs. It is the same tax dollar – why not give it to men who have taken the oath? If starting pay for a infantryman was $100,000, your recruiting problem would disappear overnight.

As usual, you raise intelligent points. And even though I don’t always agree with you, I have to say that you’re like a breath of fresh air after the infestation of trolls this morning.

I admit that my justification for reinstating the draft wasn’t entirely military-motivated. There were definitely political and social factors as well.

But let’s look at this from a military standpoint. Do we want the best qualified, best-trained people defending us? I think we do. So why not just hire a private outfit specializing in these skills and be done with it? Perhaps because we’ve seen that Blackwater has been a PR nightmare. I believe privatization is a poor idea, whether it’s actual combat troops, security forces, or supply and service contractors. Blackwater, KBR, and Halliburton haven’t done us any favors. (And let me acknowledge that you never suggested privatizing the actual military — you didn’t. I’m just pointing that out as a logical “next step” if we “professionalize” our military.)

You’re right that Vietnam was the last conflict where we used conscription. And that didn’t turn out so well. However, that’s not the fault of the troops. The troops were trained for what they had to do and they did what was asked of them — just as our all-volunteer force is doing what is asked of them in the ME today.

The other point I wanted to respond to was about how the use of technology necessitated professional soldiers. Yes, this requires specialized training. But combat infantry also required specialized training. All I see is that training of our soldiers needs to be different in content now than it was 30 years ago, but the principle of training someone for the job they have to do remains the same. And it can be done with draftees as well as volunteers.

Highly-motivated people are more desirable no matter what the job is, or how technical it is. But intelligence is also critical to any operation, particularly a technical one. A draft (with no deferment provisions) would pull in a greater cross-section of society — including many top brains who would otherwise be escaping off to college.

And this might be a good time to point out that not all people in the military are highly motivated. Many are just desperate. The economy back here on the homefront isn’t the best these days.

You won’t get an argument from me regarding how well our military performed during Desert Storm. They did an excellent job. However, that operation had a clear objective, and once that objective was achieved, it was ended. That WAS “actual war fighting” (as opposed to what’s going on in Iraq right now — I don’t know WHAT we should call that), and could be done by any well-trained force — volunteer or drafted. We still train our people to be the best in the world, as we always have, no matter how we get them.

You probably have a point that volunteer troops might be less likely to commit atrocities against locals — I honestly don’t know how that would play out. I see that out of the stories of such atrocities that I read about today, some are indeed caused by malcontents, which would support your theory. Others (and probably more) are caused by a general attitude of dehumanization of the indiginous people combined with superiors who look the other way — conditions that can exist no matter how the troops are obtained. Look at Abu Ghraib.

misshusseinmolly Says:

You both make good points relative to a re-instituted draft.

But a few points that jump out at me is the fact that we DON’T really have a true Volunteer military today; the extended misuse of National Guard troops and the danger that leaves the individual states in, the stop loss, repeat tours and the use of improperly trained troops doing tasks they did not sign up for or were not trained for all point to the fact the current structure is not only not working but has put at a a very risky position, as to our combat effectiveness.

The other point is best delineated by Bush’s atrocious comment a few years ago about ‘going shopping’ to support our war efforts. The fact that we now have a class distinction in that the elite start the conflicts and the less financially positioned do the majority of the fighting.

These things make for a much more manageable and balanced military.

While you raise valid points, I think you are nibbling at the margin as far as whether a Draft is really a good idea. Logistical support is as critical as front line war fighting, yes. A larger force would be good, and I believe both candidates have plans to increase the size of the military. But again, the issues you raise are not best served by conscription. I’d like to see soldiers salaries dramatically increased to increase recruitment.

The Plame grand jury did ok.

The use of technology in war is so critical now that you need highly motivated professionals who serve willingly more than you need masses of conscripts who don’t want to be there.

Except, when the “highly motivated professionals” are treated as conscripts. That does more severe damage, by showing soldiers that all the “support the troops” rhetoric is just that, and nothing else.

In Desert Storm, 500,000 coalition troops mopped the deck with around five times their number of Iraqi troops. In OIF, around 70,000 coalition troops went through a similar ratio of admittably demoralized Iraqis like a hot knife through butter. So in actual war fighting, all volunteer forces are elite enough to not need conscripts.

Except these elite soldiers need to constantly be resupplied – and when private contractors fill that need, it isn’t done, or in some cases done poorly. Without a rear echelon contingent, these elite soldiers are soon high and dry. No one can credibly argue that the armed services couldn’t have performed these tasks, if we hadn’t downsized, and at much less cost. So, it’s clear we need a larger service, who takes over the re-supply functions, because thwey have no financial incentive to deliver shoddy product.

Let all the piss-soaked, still living at home, idiotic trolls become directly involved in the killing they so admire.

McCain is Greg Stillson.

We call on our citizenry to serve on juries, instead of relying on an all-volunteer force for that service. This is part of the price we pay for being a citizen.

Honestly, missmolly? I look at some of the decisions made by juries in the last decade or so and wonder at times if a professional jurist position would not be a good idea.

As for your support of the draft, your top reasons

1. Every citizen has a stake in the security and defense of the United States. Responsibility for this should be shared.

3. With a draft, immoral wars would be protested immediately. People at risk of being drafted would get off their couches, leave their video games, and let our government know they will not support criminal wars.

These reasons seem to me to be primarily politically or socially motivated and do not take into account the military aspect, which is, IMHO, the paramount concern regarding the use of the draft.

The Industrial Revolution style of warfare typical of WWII and Korea is a thing of the past. The last war draftees fought in was Vietnam, and we know how that turned out. The use of technology in war is so critical now that you need highly motivated professionals who serve willingly more than you need masses of conscripts who don’t want to be there.

In Desert Storm, 500,000 coalition troops mopped the deck with around five times their number of Iraqi troops. In OIF, around 70,000 coalition troops went through a similar ratio of admittably demoralized Iraqis like a hot knife through butter. So in actual war fighting, all volunteer forces are elite enough to not need conscripts.

Likewise, if you are talking garrison troops or occupation troops, call it what you like, draftees who don’t want to be there are far more likely to commit atrocities against the local population and/or make the situation worse than people who volunteered to go.

But at any rate, you don’t want occupation troops because you are against occupation – so why provide the government the tool it needs to occupy? So as to bring about the fall of that government? I think that is the true reason, but I do not think the military should be used in this way.

I know of few if any military strategists who think a draft would be beneficial from a purely military standpoint. In such matters, pure military efficiency should trump all other concerns.

What’s his ‘real’ agenda?

Even McCain has grasped the concept that any advocating of a draft is political suicide. And especially so for someone who is actively pushing for war. Therefore, I would interpret ANYTHING McCain says on the subject to mean that he doesn’t support re-instating the draft.

Yet, while politicians treat the draft like toxic waste, I have to ask what’s wrong with requiring Americans to give some service to their country? Is it because it’s a lot easier to vote to invade someplace if you know that your own children and grandchildren aren’t going to be affected? Is it because it’s a lot easier to dismiss the troops as cannon fodder when you can say “after all, they volunteered”? Is it because people tend to be a lot more complacent about war when they know they’re not going to be asked to fight it?

We call on our citizenry to serve on juries, instead of relying on an all-volunteer force for that service. This is part of the price we pay for being a citizen.

Likewise, I support a draft. There are a variety of reasons for this, but here are three of them:

1. Every citizen has a stake in the security and defense of the United States. Responsibility for this should be shared.

2. With a draft that could possibly affect anybody’s loved ones, our politicians might not be so cavalier with our defense forces — keeping them readily available for genuinely needed defense, instead of invading the whole world.

3. With a draft, immoral wars would be protested immediately. People at risk of being drafted would get off their couches, leave their video games, and let our government know they will not support criminal wars.

Granted, it wouldn’t work perfectly. McCain has had sons in the military and that hasn’t stopped him from warmongering.

No, it wouldn’t be fun. That would mean the Republicans bringing out a fresh candidate two months before the election. I’m rather suspicious that has been their intention all along. Either that or they don’t want to win because they don’t want to have to clean up the mess they made.

Why? If the wars we fight are indeed just, why shouldn’t all segments of the population support them.

The answer of course is they aren’t just and by having them fought by poor working class men and women who have few opportunities other than the military, the warmongers have little fear that the rest of us will complain.

http://progressiveworldreview.com

My retard translator is broken. Does anyone else have their installed and operating?

I think roger uses an early model of the translator (thus, roger_roger) and, unfortunately, I think his is broken also. This seems to be a direct feed from roger’s brain, untranslated.

Oh well, brackometer and roger2 weren’t even up to their usual low standards this morning.

Seems like they are just mailing ‘em in now. Gotta be hard to be a 23%er at this point in time.

Maybe that potential draft idea has brackometer checking his bus schedules for that big move out of mom’s basement and off to Parts Unknown.