Yes along with other regional powers, its not a questions of Nukes, even though they play a part, but of a willingness to carry out threats. Bush delivered without a second thought.
Or, indeed, a first.
I think that’s a bit misleading. From the information I’ve been able to gather, military recruiters are meeting their recruitment quotas. If “the powers that be” insist we don’t need more people, then “recruitment is down.” Of course it’s down. We’ve decided we can get by with a meaner, leaner, higher-tech, quick response force.
Whether we need 20,000 additional troops is still up for debate, and the military hasn’t committed to that. We’re making due with Reserves, National Guard, stop losses, etc. Iraq is still being viewed as a temporary action. Why add 20,000 troops when this Iraq thing could be over in year?
If we ever admit we need two new divisions and 20,000 new bullet-catchers, we’ll have no problem doing it without resorting to a draft. Just up the enlistment bonuses a little, and advertise it. If we do that, and we still can’t get 20K additional troops, then we can start thinking about a draft.
It’s not that we can’t get more recruits, it’s that we really haven’t asked yet.
If we are just in Iraq, no draft. But if the terrorists in East Koreastan are an imminent threat (and even the boy who cried wolf was right once) I think the draft would be a patriotic mandate. If we still had depth, then no draft would be necessary. If some country was looking like a threat, they’d have to do one early because of the lag time.
You either overestimate the intelligence of the American public or underestimate the propaganda abilities of the Bushies. “The country’s in peril, send the kids.” You really think the people who brought you the Patriot Act and torture of prisoners with few ill effects can’t bring it off?
That’s assuming that they’d even be willing to be bothered with East Koreastan before that nation attacked us. We didn’t pay much attention to Bin Laden until after 9/11, even though the Administration had ample evidence that he was up to something. Why should the Administration change it’s MO now?
Well, I, for one, am not going to call the entire populace of America stupid. If you’ll recall, most of the Democratic members of Congress as well as the Republican ones didn’t bother to read the Patriot Act before they voted on it, so I don’t think that you can lame the blame for that at the feet of the American populace. As for the Bushies propoganda machine, if it’s so good, then why is he currently tied with Kerry in the polls? If it’s not good enough to get him well-ahead of Kerry in the polls, then it’s not good enough to get a draft in place with no objections in the event of another 9/11 style attack on US soil.
Tell you what, I am so confident that there won’t be a draft, no matter what happens that I’ll pledge $100 of support to one of the anti-draft organizations if a draft is enacted. I’ll pay it to them even if the draft is predicated by an attack on US soil, and if the majority of Americans support the draft. You willing to do the same?
Have you forgotten the third lesson of 9/11?
President’s Remarks at an Ask President Bush Event Oct 4, 2004
If we fail to deal with unmaterialized threats, then we leave ourselves open to the ultimate threat:
Remember, we have to be right every time. The terrorists only have to be right once.
It’s too bad we fucked up by invading Iraq over a paranoid fantasy. Sure, our troops are all tied up, but that doesn’t mean we have the option of slacking off. If another preventative war is deemed necessary (even in error), we’ll have to get more troops to fight it from somewhere. The only alternative, nuclear or biological annihilation of American cities, is simply too high a price to pay.
-BTW, I think you’re right that they’d dress a return of the draft up in such a way that technically they could call it “not a draft.” That’s likely the only possible way to handle it politically.
And have you forgotten that the justification for invading Iraq was that it presented a clear and present threat to the US? Of course, the Administration has been unwilling to admit that the evidence of that threat exsisted solely in their minds. I see Bush’s blather about the “third lesson” as being more of a way to justify our presence in Iraq than to wage war on someone else (You know, like North Korea which really does have a WMD program.).
Ah, yes, more “the boogeyman’s gonna getcha!” rhetoric. This is the Administration which responded to states plans for importing cheaper drugs from Canada with, “The terrorist are plotting to put bioweapons and poisons in the drugs!”
Nope, we only have to be right most of the time. It’s impossible to be right every time. If we’re right on the big stuff, then eventually people will forgive for the little mistakes we’ve made. Mind you, the way the invasion of Iraq was handled was a big fuck up.
Bioweapons pretty much suck, for a variety of reasons, and no one’s been able to provide any evidence of the terrorists being able to get their hands on a nuke, they haven’t even been able to come close, so while I doubt that there’s much to worry about from that, it is possible that AQ could set up a major operation in some other Mid-East state that we would have to take out. I don’t think that we’d let Iraq go to hell in a handbasket immediately, I think that we’d pull our forces out of Afghanistan first, and then start thinning the ranks of troops in Iraq. Meanwhile, we’d be on the horn to Germany, France, Russia, and any of the other major powers we can think of, begging them to send troops to Iraq. Shouldn’t be all that hard to convince them, seeing as how Iraq’s home to the world’s second largest oil reserves. And if we do get nuked, then it’ll be even easier to get everybody else to clean up our mess, since we’ve already said that we’ll nuke back, and all we have to do is promise not to nuke if someone relieves us in Iraq, and they’ll come a runnin’.
Well, if they say, “Look, you do a two year stint in the military and we’ll pay off all your student loans.” that’s not really such a bad thing is it? Yeah, there’s a chance that they’ll get killed or horribly injured, but it’s still voluntary and at least those who survive (which would be the vast majority of enlistees) wouldn’t be burdened with massive amounts of debt that they might not be able to repay because of a crappy job market. If it’s continued during peace time, that’s even better. (Not to mention, they’d get all the benefits that go with being ex-military.)
The United Nations identified gaps in the accounting for more than two tons of the raw materials needed to produce thousands of gallons of anthrax and other biological weapons.
They don’t have to be stupid to be underinformed or uninformed.
Anyways, you’re talking yourself in a circle. Reconcile these two thoughts for me:
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Bush would never reinstate the draft because it would be political suicide, which would not be in his best interests
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Democrats didn’t even read the Patriot Act before signing it because they knew any attempt to impose it would be political suicide.
You seem to have expected the Democrats to oppose something when doing so would obviously destroy them while you don’t expect Bush to do something that would have the same effect.
-Joe
Eh, I’m guessing penal battallions. Almost totally disposable troops.
-Joe, has read too much nihilistic stuff lately
“clear and present threat” != “may someday be able to make biological weapons”
What is your quotation “clear and present threat” from?
In order for Iraq to represent a real serious threat to us several things had to be true:
(1) They had to have the weapons.
(2) They had to have the connections to Al Qaeda or similar groups…
(3) They had to have the willingness to give them to Al Qaeda or similar groups OR have the willingness and capability to directly use them against us.
(4) There had to be no other way to make further progress in finding out if they had the weapons and disarming them if they did.
The fact that we weren’t sure if (1) were true or not does not make them a serious threat to us, particularly given that there was ways to find out if they likely had these…which was to let the weapons inspectors do their job. And, in fact, we had made considerable progress in determining if (1) was the case. Of course, it is hard to prove for sure that no weapons exist but what we were learning was that the U.S. intelligence that pointed to them having these weapons was complete and utter garbage.
And, of course, if the Administration did believe that they had these weapons and that them getting into terrorist hands was such a serious threat, it becomes very hard to explain their rather lackadaisical approach to securing potential weapons sites and sites known by the IAEA to contain nuclear materials.
Well, it’s kind of hard to call for a draft and not have people notice it. You think that Michael Moore is going to be quiet if there’s plans for a draft?
Note I said that both parties didn’t bother to read the Patriot Act before passing it. Legislation to reenact the draft is going to be examined a lot more closely, if not by the people in Congress, than by folks like Moore and those organizations who oppose the draft.
Actually, the Democrats could have opposed provisions in the Patriot Act and not destroyed themselves. They could have proposed their own act and made all the various promises about it keeping us safe, while protecting our basic freedoms.
And penal battalions wouldn’t work. Even if the guy’s going to be a grunt, he still requires a lot of training. Footsoldiers are routinely equiped with high tech gear, that can be a bitch to maintain.
Oh, bullshit. Remember Clellan? How many Dems are STILL suffering under the “He voted against body armor for our troops” bullshit label?
“Senator Dave, why is it you’re voting against the Patriot Act, the greatest defense we have against them Ay-Rab terrorists?”
“Because it’s a violation of our civil rights and a slippery slope to further erosion of our civil rights.”
“Senator Dave, if people have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear, isn’t that correct?”
[Headline]
SENATOR DAVE VALUES TERRORST RIGHTS MORE THAN AMERICAN CHILDREN LIVES
[/Headline]
Unless you think I’m actually wrong on this.
Eh, I was only semi-serious, but I can see it happening in the future. Besides, all you really need are some guys with rifles, a remote detonated collar, and a deadman switch on their boss. We’re not looking for someone to do anything special - besides, they spend alllll that time doing nothing in prison for all those years - may as well make them productive, right? Capitalism in action!
A little disciplineThey’re just there as bullet catchers - almost literally.
-Joe
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) is the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act (although he agreed with 90% of it). And going by the polls, he’s having no problems getting re-elected.
Man, you’ve obviously got no idea of what it takes to be a soldier these days. Damn near everything a grunt carries is computerized, and what isn’t now, will be in the future. You can’t stick some semi-literate convict with a bunch of computerized gear into a combat situation and expect to gain anything other than a very expensive corpse. As Gen. Patton once said, “The object of war is not to die for your country, it’s to make the other son of a bitch die for his!”
Again, I was only being semi-serious, but good job ignoring the first part of my post.
Anyways, what about all the Iraqi security forces that are being trained. They’re being whipped out in less than a year, and I doubt they have GPS-equipped shaving kits.
I’m not talking about our new fangled Land Warrior troops, here. I’m talking about schmuck with gun and minimal training. Like the Iraqi security forces that are taking it all over for us ASAMFP.
-Joe
Oops. Missed this one.
Feingold, unless he gets caught in a major fuckup (say, video of he and Saddam Hussein selling heroin to school children while dressed as nuns) pretty much has a job for life.
I was in Wisconsin when he first ran for election, and because of the way he did it, he is, IMO, pretty close to bulletproof.
You know how he did it? He managed to convince people that he’d be an honest politician (gasp!) that absolutely would not go negative (impossible!).
His opponent would run ads attacking him, and his countering ads would just be mocking his opponent’s attack ads. The piece of legislation he’s most famous for was a campaign finance reform bill which, while a near-total failure (again, IMO) is something people wanted to see.
He figured out what people wanted and gave it to them. Who knows, maybe it’s even what he’s really like.
Feingold isn’t going anywhere, Patriot Act or no. I don’t think many other Senators are that secure, however.
-Joe, voted for him
As someone who develops computerized gear for the soldiers, I should point out that we bend over backwards to make this stuff easy enough for anyone to use. I mean, fully-illustrated-fourteen-step-instructions-to-change-a-battery easy here. The suggestion that a “semi-literate convict” has no hope ot learning how to use this stuff is rather far-fetched.
(Maintaining the stuff’s harder, but that’s a different matter)