Say the McCain/Palin ticket prevails. We remain in Iraq, Afghanistan, and/or get into it with Russia. There’s no way that’ll happen, you say. We don’t have the troops. True enough, from what I’ve heard.
What if there’s a draft?
Don’t say, “that’ll never happen, it’s too politically unpalatable. Besides, a Democratic Congress would have to approve of that.” Yeah, well, I can’t imagine why anyone would even consider a Republican President after the last 8 years of the failed ideology, incompetence, cronyism, and corruption of an administration that operates under the notion of contempt towards anyone with a brain and cruelty towards anyone unfortunate enough to be poor. But the latest polling indicates it could happen. And the Democrats have allowed themselves to be bullied for the last 8 years. Why wouldn’t they knuckle under again?
So don’t say a draft is impossible.
Here’s the thing. If there’s a draft, there will be a fairly strong voice in favor of drafting women. With Palin as VP (or worse, as President), many draft age men will conclude that women should be drafted as well. If they are not included in the draft, my guess is that many will use this unfair situation as justification to dodge the draft (leave the country, try to “disappear” in the U.S., feign mental or physical illness, declare themselves to be gay, etc.). Knowing this attitude is prevalent, the administration is likely to allow the drafting of women. I’m betting the administration will actually say that they oppose the drafting of women, but feel drafting only men would not survive a court challenge.
Bring me back a souvenir from the war zone, ladies…
No female draft happened in the coutries with a female head of state, either in peace or wartime. Not under UK’s Elizabeth during the Falkland war. Not under Wilhemina during the Second World War and the Indonesian war.
And I doubt if anything changed when Golda Meir was president of Israel, and the Yom Kippour war broke out. Or under Bhutto’s reign of Pakistan.
Not that I support Palin, but this isn’t really an argument.
I’ve been waiting for the “here comes the draft!” scare tactics, one of the perennial Democratic bogeymen in presidential elections. Social Security should be around any minute now. There will be no draft of any kind whoever gets elected. Everything I’ve read shows that the military doesn’t even want one–it is an anachronism in the modern military.
I think that if one sex is subject to the draft, then so should the other be subject. I don’t like the draft even the teensiest bit, but I don’t think that women should cherry pick as to which laws they will be equal under.
I totally agree. I also agree that the draft will not come back absent a sustained invasion of a NATO ally (or our own country). Not even a successful invasion of Israel would be likely to bring the draft back.
And even if the draft did by some horrifying miracle return, it would still not result in a draft of women. Ain’t gonna happen.
Polls aside, public opposition aside, campaign promises aside, and declarations of “it just ain’t gonna happen” aside, what if, by some completely out of left field, totally unimaginable and unforeseen set of circumstances takes place and the draft is suddenly imposed upon us once again, should women and men be drafted? Would women and men be drafted?
I’m old enough to remember statements declaring that women would never serve as first line troops; I remember hearing that women would never be allowed to serve in war zones and I remember a time when we were all assured that women pilots would never be allowed to fly combat missions. As such, I’m just a little skeptical that the draft will “never” come again.
I’m no fan of Palin, but this is a ridiculous argument. I don’t rule out the possibility of a draft with a McCain presidency (although I think it would be political suicide without a major event ala 9/11 making the majority want to go to war), but I seriously doubt that any draft would include women, and even if it did, suggesting that this is a reason for women to not vote for him assumes a cynical self-interest that I would find highly insulting if I was a woman.
If the draft does come back, women should be included. Even if they don’t serve in combat roles, there are lots and lots of support roles they can fill. Women are much more prevalent in the military now than they were in the 1960s, when the draft was in full force.
I’m not in favor of women being put on the front line against their will. My read of man’s natural ecology indicates that young gooms are supposed to be killed by violence, but young women get to die in childbirth.
But I’m not in favor of conscription for anyone, ever. Yeah, yeah, shared sacrifice, yadda yada. A government that can’t use propaganda to get troop numbers up high enough probably doesn’t need that many troops, is on the wrong mission, or deserves to go down in flames anyway.
Why assume that all women are against being drafted?
Almost 15% of the US military is female right now. 1 soldier in 7 in Iraq right now if female. Over 100 female American soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
With Palin in office, I’d think young women would be a lot more worried about losing their access to birth control and abortion than about getting drafted.
Put me down with the others who say that there definitely won’t be a draft, but that if there is, women should be included. With equal rights come equal responsibilities.
The modern U.S. military is just too expensive per capita to get enough high-tech equipment out to all draftees; if we had that many soldiers, we would have to go back to the old methods of war that had us losing hundreds of thousands of men per war, instead of the relatively tiny amount of about 3000 in Iraq. I mean, can you imagine the expense if we had to give the same level of equipment as in Iraq to ten times as many soldiers?
Indeed. Let’s get those equal rights. Do you suppose including women in the draft would happen before or after we finally ratify theEqual Rights Amendment?
I think the military would be pretty concerned about a draft. Considering the general unfitness of the population it would take a year of basic training a’la “Biggest Loser” style to get a large number of people in shape for combat - both male and female.
I agree…to a point. From what I’ve heard, the military is deteriorating to the point that unwilling conscripts might be better than riding the currently exhausted soldiers to death (literally and figuratively). Also, the military has changed their tune as to the necessary requirements for service. They’re letting in dimwits, criminals, etc… If they get fed up with those guys, where will they turn?
Uh, actually I make no mention of any “latest polling”. As for the poll you just cited, so? The current administration has been completely tone deaf over the last 8 years. What makes you think a McCain/Palin administration would be any better? Pole-wise, though, I have to mention the fact that the vast majority of Americans oppose the war itself.
Nonetheless, there we are. Maybe for 100 years…
Bingo. There’s no such thing as never.
I think people are missing my larger point: in addition to legal challenges, there’s the point that in case of a draft, I think you’d have to draft women too, to avoid giving men a reason to dodge the draft.
The last 8 years has been one episode after another of “cynical self-interest” on the part of the rich to avoid their share of taxes and punish the poor and middle class for being insufficiently ruthless and/or connected. All of this, I might add, under the guise of liberating them from the burden of regulation and the perils of a functional government.
You can bet that if a draft came, the rich would find a way to weasel out of their fair share of the burden. As such, since no one cares about the lower class, why shouldn’t they act in their own self-interest, cynically or otherwise?