Joe Public doesn’t decide policy issues.
Yeah. I’m going to disapprove just as soon as I stop snickering.
But to the point: not everyone is “cut out” for military service, which is part of why a volunteer service is so much better than a drafted one. It permits the individual to assess himself accordingly. The wrong person in the wrong place is a more a threat to himself and others than to the enemy.
That depends. Do you want John Goodman running the country? 
They should not be allowed to enlist even if they wanted to. The risk of them being kidnapped is too high of a price to pay for a small moral boost.
I would certainly hope that, if the situation were to arise, that there’d be somebody willing to say, “I’m sorry about your daughter, Mr. President, but we can’t allow you to nuke Inconsequentialistan in retaliation.”
Isn’t that kinda what our government’s about? That one man can’t irrevocably screw it all up for the rest of us? (Of course, we’ll just have to wait and see what Bush’s eventual legacy is going to be for the rest of us.)
And doesn’t your argument tend to imply that we should only elect politicians who don’t have any family at all? After all, if they’re going to be slaves to their emotions, bowing into the demands of terrorists and kidnappers who target their kids, while everyone else’s kids can go hang, then they’re a risk we can’t afford to take.
Should polls be posted to Great Debates?
IMHO, no.
[ /Moderating ]
Couldn’t the same be said for an English prince? Sure, England’s not as big a world power as the US… but why’s it safe for him to serve, but not Bush’s spawn?
No, it implies the opposite - that should his daughters go to Iraq, military or not, and be captured or kidnapped, he’s more likely to unwisely escalate matters to get them back.
I would hope so too, but it’s not realistic, especially given this particular President’s stated disinterest in hearing dissenting viewpoints. He doesn’t HAVE to get anyone’s permission to send troops anywhere within Iraq, that’s part of the problem. Take a larger picture look: isn’t this why the immediate family of the President is given Secret Service detail even in times of peace? Because they are greater targets to danger and because that danger could endanger not just them but the President and his decision making?
Absolutely the same can be said and no it’s not safe for him and all these arguments have been presented in the British press and I have no idea why they’re letting him go.
IF an immediate family member of the President wants to enlist, then I think they should be able to, just like anyone else. But they should not be deployed overseas in a time of war, IMHO.
Right, because if there’s one thing you can’t have happen to a soldier, it’s being at risk!
That one with the really wide face shouldn’t enlist, that noggin would make too easy a target.
They would be at risk more than the average soldier, and the powers that be would ensure that they were put into units where they would face little danger. Doing so would lessen their utility as soldiers, and reduce greatly the whole productive purpose of this enterprise.
Nobody can make them enlist, and they’re not going to enlist of their own free will, so this is all just an exercise in “what if…,” but…
If they were compelled, out of a sense of the WAR on TERROR actually being anywhere near as important as their father would have us believe it is, to enlist and serve in near-combat roles, they could certainly do it and be incorporated into the Army without the public or the media knowing what unit they were in or where they were deployed. My experience with the Army tells me that the Army would tell the Secret Service, politely, to go hang, and Jenna (the one with the wide face) and Barbara (the other one) would sign off on it and it would be a done deal.
There’d be no added danger of THE EVILDOERS capturing the Bush twins because they’d be anonymous soldiers just like Pat Tillman was.
If we had anyone peripherally connected to the Bush administration who had the courage to serve in the military, he or she would do so.
If they enlisted today, they could be dead in Iraq by the end of April. I think the record around here is 5 weeks. Five weeks after completing Basic, a soldier has died in Iraq. I dont think that was the Army’s record either. It could easily come faster than that.
The OP might make slightly more sense if it were one of Tony Blair’s children heading for Iraq. I am not aware of any surge in support for the government’s position due to young princes joining the armed forces. Government is separate from crown here, remember.
No, because the prince isn’t Tony Blair’s offspring. It is safe for him because his capture does not affect Blair’s judgment as much as if it were Blair’s own children.
They would just endanger their fellow soldiers. It would be impossible to keep secret which unit they served in, and that unit would be singled out by insurgents for massive attack. So (though I am a good liberal) I think liberals who sneeringly say the Bush daughters should enlist need to think more about the welfare of other, non-famous soldiers.
How about they calculate the odds of a soldier going to Iraq getting killed, then the Bush daughters volunteer to do something with an equal risk of dying? For example, if it turns out to be five percent, they lay 20 guns on a table, only one of which is loaded. The girls then each pick a gun at random (they each get their own table of guns) and fire it against their heads.
Actually, I think this type of system would be better put to use by forcing every politician who votes for war to take the chance. Maybe add to the percentage of dying to take into account the rick of being maimed, too.
I think this is all very unfortunate.
Bush himself has a distinguished war record, so why do his daughters have to do anything?
Maybe Paris Hilton should enlist, too?
I can’t imagine the OP saying “Should Eisenhower have forced his children to enlist before approving D-Day?” I think most would agree that this would have needlessly crippled his ability to make tough decisions.
I think there’s a huge assumption that a person involved in war mechanics cares only about his own children. I believe Gen. Eisenhower cared deeply about his soldiers and his country and was tortured by the huge casualties suffered on Omaha Beach. I also believe Bush cares about his country and thinks he is doing the right thing. You may not agree but no matter what you believe, his daughters have no say in their father’s foreign policy. As long as there is a volunteer army in this country, the OP is ridiculous. NO ONE should be forced to enlist.
Since I wrote the OP I would like to point out that nowhere in it did I even hint at the phrase “forced to enlist.” While what I said may well be rediculous (isn’t almost everything in the long run?), it should at least be correctly phrased.