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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (118640)	6/7/2005 1:04:16 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793890

"If the elder bush thought iraq would be a mess, he certainly would have been hesitant about going into afganistan as well?" Afghanistan is not Iraq. The basis for going into Afghanistan was well understood and accepted by the world, although the methods we used to destroy the Taliban might have been better and the methods we're using now could be better, but then that's a trademark of this new "yes sir!" military. With regard to your question concerning the draft, I suspect that Uncle and I came away from Vietnam with many of the same viewpoints, we just see the solutions differently at times. With respect to the need for a draft, however, we do not see the solutions differently. As the Afaghanistani war revealed, Americans will get their backs up and volunteer to fight for a cause they see as just and necessary. As the Iraqi war reveals, however, Americans will not volunteer to fight when they see their sacrifice as wasteful and the cause as less than compelling. I helped out my nephew last week on some roadwork and brush cutting. One of the guys working had a bumper sticker that said "proud father of a U.S. Marine." His other sticker was an American flag. It was hot and he couldn't take the heat so his son, the ex-marine drove out and took his place. His son had served in Iraq and I asked him what he thought about it. He said, "It's a fucking mess. Those people are ignorant and they don't even know what democracy is. They hate us." That doesn't sound like a guy who would have stayed in the Marines for the pleasure of spending half of his life for the next few years facing death in Iraq. So do we need a draft? I think on a sliding scale that factors in the public's view of the amount of compensation paid, the need for the conflict, the winnability of the conflict, the length of the conflict and the death toll, you can look at any situation and see whether you'll get enough volunteers. In a peacetime army of rising pay and benefits, volunteers will suffice. If you have a war with an ending in sight and the public is behind the "cause," you'll have enough volunteers unless the death toll is going to be really heavy. With a protracted war fought by those who will be called into the theatre of conflict often and for a cause that looks more and more to be questionable and possibly futile, however, the volunteers will not replace the ranks of those who leave. So yes, if we continue in Iraq with a substantial force we will unquestionably, without a doubt need a draft. Even if we don't continue in Iraq we may need a draft, or a substantial increase in the amount we pay soldiers, or a change in the terms of the their enlistment. The damage done to the type of image the recruiters wanted to create has been shattered and many will not join up because they've seen what we've done to the lives of the soldiers we're overusing in Iraq and they know it could happen again. The other question is whether this country has the leadership to institute a draft and, if we do, whether the country would tolerate it. I think the answers to those questions are "no" and "no." Our politicians have shown that when it comes to making decisions that will get them reelected they have tremendous resolve and if they instituted a draft to create bodies to feed into an unpopular war, they would likely be faced with the prospect of losing power and maybe having to find real work. If somehow they did find the resolve to create a draft, then all of those "they're volunteers and they asked to risk their lives" American parents would take a long, hard look at whether "giving freedom" to the Iraqis that are allowing their countrymen to kill our soldiers was worth the lives of THEIR kids. Who knows, a truly fair draft might make some of the powerful wonder whether it was worth lives of their own little Biden the 3rds or Hasworth the 2nds. The "war" in Iraq would likely be brought to an ignoble end before this administration and this congress created a draft. Even after it ends, however, we may find that we need a draft to supplement the drop in volunteers and the breaking of the national guard forces, especially if we intend to increase the number of our forces. I don't have anything against a draft. I'd like to see a truly random draft that took the powerful and the underprivileged alike and placed them without allowing anyone to "pull strings." I'd like to see the janitor's kids serving alongside the chairman of IBM's kid and a congressman's kid in a combat unit. That would be fair and that would guarantee that the powerful people who make policy decisions weighed the costs of war properly. Of course I'd like to see the wealthy pay at least the same share of their income in taxes that the middle class pays. What are the odds that either one of those things will happen? Ed