"We say Iraq is Just like Viet Nam, even if we have to make it!"
By Jay Tea on The Looney Left
Wizbang
Every day, it seems, another anti-war twit on the left (which is not all of them, but apparently the most vocal) trots out the Viet Nam/Iraq connection. Never mind that this time we are not facing an organized government with support from two superpowers, skip the desert terrain vs. jungle, don't bother with the incremental level of our involvement in one with our diminishing presence in the other, omit the establishment of a freely elected native government, gloss over the casualty figures that are a fraction of the prior conflict, and a horde of other differences -- the important thing is that the Viet Nam war was bad, and the war in Iraq is bad, so we must make every single parallel we can.
This morning, one of the Boston Globe's pet whackos slipped out of her straightjacket and got access to a computer again. Joan Venocchi's grand idea? Bring back the draft!
Now I don't know much about Ms. Venocchi, but I'm pretty comfortable in assuming she was against the draft when it was actually a relevant topc 30 years ago. What's convinced her to switch her position? She believes that it will increase opposition to the war.
The unspoken presumption behind this is that if we send enough unwilling people to Iraq, eventually they and their families will rise up, join the anti-war side, and end the US involvement in Iraq. It's an interesting theory. "Interesting," as in the "I don't think I've seen so much concentrated stupidity in one place before" sense. Let's take a look at a couple of the problems with Ms. Venocchi's notion:
1) The idea of Iraq as a meat grinder that is destroying the heart and soul of our military is flagrantly false. One only need look at the reinlistment rates: they are higher among those serving in Iraq, on average, than among troops stationed elsewhere. The ones who are seeing and living with this war are among the most willing to continue to serve.
2) The abolition of the draft was, ultimately, one of the finest things that ever happened to our armed services. We ended up with the most professional, most competent, most skilled, and simply the finest, the best, the greatest military ever seen in history. Many knowledgable people attribute a direct causal relationship between the abolition of the draft and that result -- the services began to be populated with those who not only wanted to serve, but had to work hard and prove they were fit to wear our nation's uniform. No longer did they have to deal with those just looking to do their time and get out, those who did NOT want to be there, and wanted nothing more than to get the hell out.
3) One of the main points I've heard argued against the war in Iraq is that it is distracting us from fighting the real terrorist threats elsewhere in the world. Venocchi's plan to reinstate the draft will achieve her short-term goal of ending the war, but at the price of inflicting grave damage on our military as it stands today. How the hell are we to fight the "real terrorist threat" elsewhere if we cripple the armed forces in the process of ending the war in Iraq?
4) This is not a quick fix to the war. This strategy will take years to come to fruition. To endorse this as a plan is to acknowledge that the anti-war movement has given up on a quicker solution, such as swaying lawmakers or winning elections.
But that doesn't matter to Venocchi and her ilk. The only thing that matters is achieving their immediate goals. They won't have to deal with any fallout from their actions. It'll be up to the president (most likely the next one, as this is the sort of thing that'll take a few years to pull off) to repair the damage done by their "victory." The ones who are pushing for the draft will have a new cause by that point, and they'll leave it for others to clean up the mess their "solution" left behind.
As always.
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