Over the centuries armies have used a lot of methods to fill their ranks, including kidnapping children (still done in parts of Africa). If drafting prisoners was a good idea it would have been done more often. AFAIK it’s only done when nations are scraping the absolute bottom of the personnel barrel, as in the Confederacy in the last months of the Civil War. It’s a very last resort.
The only other time prisoners are called up is for special-tasks units, an even more unwholesome situation. The Soviet army in WWII had special “penal” units, which also contained deserters and other offenders against military law; they were given jobs like clearing minefields by joining arms and marching across them. I have also heard that some of the “militia” units that committed the bulk of the atrocities in the Balkan wars in the 90s were recruited in prisons or, in the case of Arkan’s “Tigers”, from among Belgrade’s soccer thugs. (Arkan himself had several warrants waiting for him at Interpol.)
Summary: by the time this country is drafting prisoners, the military’s manpower shortages will probably be the very least of our problems.
As for a regular draft: I can’t see it happening. Two reasons: 1. There’s no obvious place for the rich kids to hide this time, and you know Bush isn’t going to put the children of his friends and campaign donors in the line of fire. When it was W.'s own time to go he stayed safe in the National Guard, but the Pentagon deliberately rearranged things after Vietnam to ensure the Guard couldn’t be used as a hideout again. Reviving the Civil War expedient of hiring substitutes is a bit too blatant for even Fox News to endorse. I hope.
(This is the real deal breaker IMHO) What about gays? The Pentagon doesn’t want them. Bush’s religious base would have mass hysteria at the very thought of including them in the ranks. They were excluded from the draft in our previous wars. However, as recently as Vietnam gays were still being jailed and locked in mental hospitals for being gay; this was a strong deterrent to claiming you were gay in order to beat the draft. That deterrent no longer exists in much of the country. Reinstate a draft, with gays excluded, and you’ll be amazed at who comes leaping out of the closet. Bush’s base will be more than amazed.
True, alot of straight boys I know would to to extreme lengths to avoid a draft. They could also do more to convice MEPS than their Vietman era counterparts. Of course this is why if the draft was reinstated Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would go out the window (which raises alot of issues for the DoD).
BEar in mind, the ONLY people calling for a draft today are on the Left, not the Right. And those draft advocates are trying to UNDERMINE U.S. military action, not assist it.
People like Charles Rangel like to introduce draft resolutions because they HOPE fear of a pending draft will lead rich and middle class Americans to OPPOSE American military action overseas. They think that, while most Americans won’t take to the streets against the war in Iraq as long as rednecks and blacks are doing most of the dying, they’d turn against Bush in a heartbeat if their own kids were at risk.
At present, a traditional draft is not needed. The back door draft is keeping enough people in the Army ranks. From my personal experience, those that are serving as a result of the “stop loss,” or Inactive Ready Reserve call ups are proudly and bravely serving their country. They are however serving unwillingly, and therefore are generally not seeking excellance in the same manner as those who chose to be in uniform. I can imagine it would be ten times worse if a young man with no military experience was told he had to serve. At least it would be that way when the draft was initially unfolded.
As the draft became commonplace (if it was used for that long) young men would expect it, and not try to hide. From my time in Korea, I saw very few who were not proud to serve. But South Korea has had the draft in place for a lot longer than the US ever has.
Inmates in active service? Never happen. The Army already has enough problems with people who were told by a parent, guidance counselor, or friend to try the Army to get some discipline. Not all, and probibly not many, but a some of these people cannot conform to the Army standards. The selection process to find those who could would be more difficult than general recruiting.
The English comedy TV programme Yes, Prime Minister came out with some startlingly good logic in favour of the draft (who cares if the military likes the materiale they’re given to train, and no one will use nuclear weapons in a sovereign nations conflict) and other democratic countries have the draft - Sweden, Singapore, Switzerland, Germany - and so can call upon a trained and disciplined citizenry in times of emergency (generally, not just in war) to assist.
But in countries which participated in the Vietnam War (the US, Australia and New Zealand) there is a massive cultural cringe against the idea of compelling non-volunteer youths to their deaths in unsavoury wars there is unlikely to be a draft for another generation or so, once everyone has forgotten.
The major trouble with the draft from the military’s point of view is that it will require a total reworking of the way discipline is handled.
In today’s military the main threat to screw-ups is that they’ll kick you out. Fail your fitness too many times and you’re out. Smoke pole too many times and you’re out. Flunk a drug test too many times and you’re out.
Bring back the draft and you’re gonna have to throw these guys in the stockade rather than discharge them, otherwise everyone’s gonna be overeating, taking
drugs and smoking pole if that’s the way to get out of the army.
Countries that have the draft don’t send those draftees overseas. Countries that have a draft don’t have very high standards for their draftees…show up, do what you’re told for 18 months, and don’t let the door hit you on the ass when you leave.
America’s military today is geared to fight wars on other continents, not defend the homeland against border incursions. Of course, that’s the whole point of all this draft talk. If we had a draft it would be politically impossible to send the draftees off to Iraq or on some other foreign adventure, which is what the draft proponents want. Or they hope Bush will reinstate the draft because that would drop his approval rating even farther than it already is.
That last point is not true (Israel has very high standards), but I do agree that none of those countries AFAIK send draftees on overseas adventures. The draft is mainly in place to train citizens against invasion.
But if the draft was reintroduced with a guarantee that draftees were not sent abroad, or if were only done so if used in non-combatant roles, then this seems to me to be a good use of the draft - if only because it would free up other professional soldiers for deployment in combatant roles, as well as provide training in a skillset to otherwise disadvantaged young men and women.
Out of idle curiosity, how can Bush reinstate the draft? I’m fairly certain that would require some kind of legislation. Last time I checked, the US is a democracy.
Right now, we have a President who is trying to claim , more or less, the right to sieze anybody anywhere in the world without evidence, & hold them indefinately, without charges, legal consel, or outside oversight & review.
Then there are the irregularities in voting in the last two elections.
I’d say that any personal liberties could be annihilated whenever the Administration wanted to. So our status as either a democracy or a republic is up for grabs.
More simply–Neither Republics nor Democracies behave the way we are currently behaving, or at least not for long.
IMHO, there’s no better way to derail whatever argument you may have in your favor than injecting that garbabe (“he stole the election”) into the issue.
In fairness, the 2000 election cannot be said to inspire confidence in the result. The margin of error was simply larger than the margin of victory. I don’t consider that anyone “stole” anything, but neither do I have definitive confidence that the guy who received the most votes in Florida won Florida’s electoral votes. Not saying he DIDN’T – just saying that the margin was too close to call. A coin toss would have had as much validity.
I think the 2004 election did not suffer from any such infirmity, and anyone who’s still claiming it was stolen is simply exhibiting his extreme willingness to ignore facts in favor of ideology. 500 Florida votes is one thing; 120,000 Ohio votes is quite another.
Perhaps you should examine–as the justices did–the actual law, instead of the way so many people wish things were. Kind of like I’m suggesting to those who are whinging about “Bush will reinstate the draft!”–perhaps they should examine the actual law.
