Reinstatement of the military draft, people say that Bush would never do that. VOF predicted over a year ago the draft could be reinstated.
There is not much support for a draft right now especially with an election just 11 months away. If we continue down Bush's path of policing the world, that may change.
President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld won't go near the subject -- at least not on the record. But in November the Pentagon placed a notice on its Web site seeking "men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board." Course, that is about as on record as you can get.
The notice was pulled from the Web site without explanation, after wind of the notice reached news media.
(Go figure, happens all the time with this admin, anyone remember the government "terrorist betting" that was pulled from the Pentagons website too?)
The explanation is easy to figure out. It is well documented that morale has been plummeting among troops being asked to serve long tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and National Guard and Reserve units forced to serve for long periods away from jobs and families. The threat of falling re-enlistment levels is very real.
Bush and military officials insist that enough soldiers are in Afghanistan and Iraq to stabilize and secure those countries and that the numbers involved actually can be reduced by next summer.
But the Pentagon recently alerted 43,000 National Guard troops not previously mobilized to be prepared for active duty. New orders will also send 85,000 new Army and Marine combat troops to combat zones.
The Army Reserve is about to send 160 soldiers back into combat after only 10 months at home following a one-year tour of duty overseas, a departure from past standards.
In a recent poll in Stars and Stripes, a respected newspaper for the military, roughly half the soldiers surveyed indicated they would not re-enlist when their tours end.
Colin Anderson, a junior at Stanford, believes that "reinstating the draft would be a second Vietnam for this country," because "Bush and his administration should not force anyone to fight and die in a war that they don't believe in."
Congress has become increasingly nervous about the strains on troop strength as an election approaches. Republicans as well as Democrats are calling for an increase, rather than a reduction, of troops on the ground -- particularly in Iraq.
American conscription was eliminated in 1973 following the Vietnam War, and draft boards, which had issued conscription summons, quickly lost their strength. The Defense department, Lindorff explains in a Salon.com article, is now calling for volunteers to join the understaffed groups, and experts deem this a step toward new draft policy. Americans do still volunteer for draft boards, Lindorff notes, but participation remains week, with 16 percent of spots remaining vacant.
The only other holdover of the former draft policy is the Selective Service System, which retains a reserve group of American males who can be called upon to serve, in case conscription resumes. Males, aged 18-25, both citizens and non-citizens, must register with the service, and over 49 million men are now members.
"If a military draft becomes necessary," the Defense Department states, "approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men ... receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service." If reinstatement of the draft was green-lighted, Lindorff notes, the Selective Service System would immediately need to establish a lottery system and order summons, and the draft boards would approve the conscripts. The system's formulation process could take as long as a year.
Lebow and others speculate numerous rationales behind possible new draft policy, all of which implicate problems in the American army currently in Iraq. Charles Pena, senior analyst for the Cato Institute, is in favor of a draft because, he claims, there is a dearth of troops available to fight in Iraq.
If our troops are already dangerously overstretched and we face a declining interest in voluntary military service, what do we do? The Bush Administration suggests we should enlarge the military by demanding that young men and women patriotically serve their country in uniform for at least a short period.
The voluntary military has worked well since President Nixon abolished the draft 30 years ago. The general consensus is that volunteers have improved the quality of the military, bringing fresh respect, higher educational levels, tangible career benefits and greater efficiency. Women have been encouraged to join, allowing the services to resemble society at large more than in the past.
The Bush administration, however, isn't working very hard to keep the troops happy. It has been trying to cut back benefits, seeking to reduce funding for military housing and aid to schools that educate the children of military families as well as threatening presidential vetoes of bills to expand health care for reservists. Wounded reservists awaiting medical care have been housed in tumbledown barracks, and are having to pay for their own toilet paper.
Two Democrats have introduced legislation calling for mandatory national service -- either in the military or civilian community causes -- of all men and women between the ages of 18 and 26.
Rep. Charles Rangel of New York has been the most aggressive booster because he thinks low-income minorities are more tempted to volunteer for military duty than richer, better-educated whites -- and are paying a disproportionate price in combat.
Sen. Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, a state with a heavy military presence, is the other sponsor. Hollings need not fear any political backlash; he is not seeking reelection next year.
President Bush called on each of us to make a lifetime commitment of at least two years to the service of others, and he created the USA Freedom Corps to help all Americans to answer his call. I am assuming that he is now going to DEMAND that we serve in the armed services also.
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