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

To: LindyBill who wrote (215967)	8/17/2007 6:25:11 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 794011

there are two reasonable solutions: 1) take the troops out of Iraq; or 2) compensate soldiers well enough that they are willing to enlist. Today's Zogby poll asked that very question.

To: LindyBill who wrote (215967)	8/17/2007 8:38:09 PM
From: Steve Lokness	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 794011

LindyBill; Milton Friedman must be turning over his grave at the mere suggestion of a draft. If the problem is that not enough young people are volunteering to fight in Iraq, there are two reasonable solutions: 1) take the troops out of Iraq; or 2) compensate soldiers well enough that they are willing to enlist. What a great sobering statement. For those people so content to let the volunteer army do their dirty work - be prepared to pay the price! The insanity of fighting a war while the rest of the country parties on will never result in a victory. steve

To: LindyBill who wrote (215967)	8/18/2007 4:45:41 AM
From: unclewest	Respond to of 794011

From an economic perspective, those are all decent reasons for not wanting to be in the military. Economic Perspective? Beginning with those who conducted the Boston Tea Party, our forefathers recognized that a strong military is essential to the maintenance of an economic perspective. President Wilson and his advisors settled on the draft as the only efficient and democratic way to raise a large army. We did the same in WWII. In both instances we used the draft to raise an army sufficient to prevail. Those were the only significant wars we won in the last 100 years. The problems we now have are three fold. 1. In conventional warfare, we continue to attempt to replace conventional soldiers with technology. That attempt has failed. Technology has made a soldier's task less hazardous. It has not replaced him. 2. In asymmetrical warfare, as we are presently in, our strategy and tactics fail to heed prior lessons learned. This has been true for the first 4 1/2 years of this war. 3. We failed to raise an army sufficient to prevail. General Shinseki pointed out 5 years ago, we do not have sufficient soldiers to support our selected battlefield strategy. That was not a WAG. Shinseki knew the results of a high level DOD war game exercise that proved his assertion was accurate. I don't care how we get more soldiers...draft or wage increases are both OK by me. I am troubled by the fact we have failed to use either technique to raise the army we need today.