I usually do not post on serious topics here; but the more this war goes on the more apprehensive I am becoming. I need a place to vent.
From what I have read it seems we are losing the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq and as a result we are losing the possibility of leaving peacefully anytime soon. I fear we may need to start the draft again.
Is there anyone here who can paint a rosier picture for me?
I’m sorry, I did not see the rash of similar threads on this board.
Can a mod move the above to another thread and I will continue from there?
The draft?? Oh please. :rolleyes: You are fretting for nothing. For one thing it would be political suicide to anyone stupid enough to even suggest it. However and more importantly, our military is just not structured for conscripts anymore. We purposely structured it the way it is…all voluntary. After Vietnam we learned some hard lessons and the military restructured itself to be the way it is now. And doing so pretty much created what we have today…the finest military machine on the planet. Its not ALL the weapons, its the training and the esprite de corps too. You’d have to drag the military kicking and screaming to ever even consider a draft. Now, they might up recruitment levels, add enlistment or re-enlistment bonus’s, etc, if the numbers start to drop significantly (which I haven’t heard is happening).
The draft is NOT going to happen again in the US…certainly not because of whats going on in Iraq.
-XT
SEC. 7. INDUCTION OF CONSCRIPTS AND ACCEPTANCE OF VOLUNTEERS.
(a) IN GENERAL- Every person subject to induction for basic military training and education under section 3(a), except those whose training is deferred or postponed in accordance with this Act, shall be called, inducted, and delivered by his local board to the armed forces for such training at the time and place specified by the Director.
[/quote]
Never say never.
XT is right, the U.S. military does not want conscription.
HOWEVER, one has to wonder what Bush’s damn fool war in Iraq is going to do to the National Guard/Reserves. The Guard plays a very big role in the US military establishment.
A fairly large part of the Guard/Reserves is scheduled to be rotated through Iraq over the next year or so. What is this going to do to the re-enlistment rates? It will take several years before we know for sure.
Yeah, just make sure Bush’s daughters got drafted and sent to Iraq.
At a guess we’ll see a dip in recruitment over the next few years, unless they really up the bonus’s for enlistment or re-enlistment and possibly the pay. Especially in the Guard and Reserves. As you say though, we’ll probably not know for sure for a few years what effect this will have.
I’m saying it…it will NEVER happen. The caviot being that this assumes we don’t get into a long drawn out war MAJOR war of attrition somewhere…like in China or Russia say (something I find HIGHLY unlikely). What is happening in Iraq (as far as from a US military perspective) is hardly grounds to institute a draft for gods sake. Its certainly tieing down a large percentage of our current armed forces, no doubt, but we could easily ramp up using our current means of recruitment and training without having to resort to a draft. If we had 10 times the current number of casualties and if we had serious military commitments in another theater with a full blow war going on, we STILL wouldn’t need the draft, though we’d be closer than we are now.
Having people REGISTER from the draft is merely an insurance policy by the government…break glass in case of an emergency. Also I think it has more than a little bit of government inertia behind it…we always did this, so we’ll just keep on keeping on.
-XT
shrugs All I’m saying is that you said it would be political suicide for anyone to mention it. Well, two guys as recently as 2001 decided there was enough support for the idea to write up a bill and present it. There was some debate about it back then, but it died down. Was the bill likely to pass? No. But the fact that it was even brought up, without instant comdemnation (other than by them freaky liberals), and gained even a little support, shows that it is certainly possible.
In 1999, after the Clinton scandals, would you have believed the statement, “Within 5 years, America will invade a soverign country with the intent to build a puppet government and military base in the region using base lies as justification, and over half of the population will whole heartedly support it”?
I’m willing to put a complete unilateral withdrawal from Iraq at slightly better odds than reinstating the draft to support a contiuned occupation of Iraq.
I think surrender would have less political consequences than starting the draft for a war that is already rejected by a significant portion of the American public.
I’ll restate my offer:
I will bet any amount at any odds that we will not have a draft reinstated within the next 25 years. The only caveat being another World War.
To the OP: If you need to vent, you might consider the BBQ Pit. Isn’t that one of the main reasons for that forum???
Thank you for your thoughtful responses.
X- A lot of my concern is founded on the possibility that GWB will be “re-elected” and he can then do as he pleases (he does so anyway).
The Iraq situation looks to me like a 10 or 20 year problem plus who knows what other country we will need to “protect ourselves from?”
john- My original intent was to post this in the pit but after the first few lines I cooled down and the post seemed better suited to the GD.
After cut&paste to the GD I noticed a few other new threads to which this topic would be a near clone thread but maybe it can have a life of it’s own.
Well, I think the odds are about 50/50 he will be re-elected at this point, unfortunately. However, I disagree that he can do as he pleases. He has to work within the framework of our system. He didn’t go to war with Iraq all on his own, remember…he had Congressional support. He also had a lot of emotion behind him at the time…emotion thats cooled off considerably now. I don’t think any politician would dare touch the Draft third rail…especially not GW considering the Iraq war situation. Even if he’s re-elected he’d fry if he touched it IMO…and rightly so.
And of course this gets away from the two key issues. One is, there is no need for it, because we aren’t strapped for troops atm nor are we likely to be in the forseeable future, and our current recruitment practices are more than adaquate for any reasonable needs. Even if you think GW will pull another fast one AND get away with it as far as getting us into another foriegn war for no reason (something I find highly unlikely…Congress would have a fit if he went after say Iran or Syria, and that doesn’t even count the people. Thought the anti-war protest was loud last time? You ain’t seen nuffin yet if he tries again…even I’ll be out there with a sign! :)), we simply have no need for a draft to fill the ranks. Secondly, the military would absolutely go ape shit…they have zero DESIRE for a draft. It would seriously hurt our military capabilities to bring conscripts into the ranks…not to mention the fact that training a modern soldier is a bit more than handing him a gun and teaching him how to march pretty.
-XT
Hasn’t Congressman Charles Rangel been talking about this for over a year now?He’s for it. Don’t know if he’s got anyone else on his side. I agree that it’ll never happen, the American public won’t stand for it. If the military needs more bodies, they can raise the pay/benefits, a step that is sorely needed, and pick and choose from the tidal wave of volunteers they’ll undoubtedly get.
As noted above, Rep. Rangel has been talking up a renewed draft for awhile. His concern being that blacks, Latinos, along with poor whites, make up the overwhelming majority of those volunteering to serve in the rank and file US military. He wants to see the burden of military service distributed evenly among socio-economic classes and ethnic groups. Fat chance of that happening in the forseeable future.
Just heard a report on NPR this weekend that poor white guys from rural areas are dying in this war way out of proportion to their numbers in the US population. I got the impression from the report that rural America is proud to make the sacrifice, and still stands behind their President and still overwhelmingly supports the Republican party. One things for sure. If these folks turn against the war, the Pres and his party are in serious trouble.
XT- Thank you once again for your thoughtful reply.
After giving your posts some thought I do feel more optimistic, thank you.
The Iraq events of the last week or so have been giving me the awful feeling that things are going to get a lot worse befor they get better.
I hope you are right about not needing conscipts.
It’s total BS. Rangel (is that how to spell his name?) is pulling a political ploy to try and damage the adminstration. He knows there is ZERO chance of this getting thru Congress. What it does is get him invited onto talk shows-- makes him famous and he gets to lob bombs at Bush on national television for free.
This is because while the military as a whole has a large number of minorities, those opting for combat MOSs tend to be white boys.
http://rpc.senate.gov/releases/2003/df013103.htm
Well, I have to say I’ve had a pretty awful feeling about them as well. And I think they WILL get worse before they get better in all honesty. However, I see no way that they will get bad enough to warrent conscription. Nothing short of a total war in the World War sense is going to cause America to every got the conscription route again. Frankly our system works too good to screw with it.
You are VW. 
I’m not sure about a lot of things…but I’m pretty sure about this one. I rate the odds of the US activating the draft again in the next 10 years as fairly close to 0%. And belive me I have a vested interest…I have a son of that age.
-XT
It’s total BS. Rangel (is that how to spell his name?) is pulling a political ploy to try and damage the adminstration. He knows there is ZERO chance of this getting thru Congress. What it does is get him invited onto talk shows-- makes him famous and he gets to lob bombs at Bush on national television for free.
Rangel has been at this issue for a while, well before Bush baby was elected. Quite a few political theorists and academics have raised the issue as well. It’s not just about partisan politics.
I won’t rate the chances of a draft soon at zero, but I doubt there’s much chance. It would take 8-10 months after the draft was activated for significant numbers to come from that.
Right now the plans are to reduce the number of troops in Iraq to 100,000 sometime later this year(late summer I believe) and the domestic political forces are likely to put pressure to bring that quite a bit lower, to a point that the regular military could substain for a greater period than the public would wish.
Of course the country had a draft between Korean and Vietnam and there wasn’t all that much objection to it until Vietnam. It would take a major retooling to go back, but I think IF a draft returns, it would be after Iraq.
One aspect that is in the standby draft, the lottery based upon birthdays. This would greatly reduce the overall opposition if retained, as it would leave only a small fraction in the pool. But it does have the effect that might make it less likely–sons of the wealthy or powerful would have a much more difficult time getting out of it if their birthdate were drawn.