I like it when they speak their mind! 
As for Rangel voting against it, I thought he did it because there were no hearings nor the ability to make amendments… I don’t think he would have voted aginst it otherwise.
This cuts both ways - if Rangel thinks a draft is a good idea, why hasn’t he volunteered for the military, or pushed his family or his constituents to join?
The military made its recruiting goals in 2006, so a draft to fill the ranks isn’t necessary. So this is more or less a form of trolling - Rangel thinks this will bring about a cut and run, and/or keep the protests going. Eliminating the draft eliminated the urgency of the Viet Nam protests; Rangel hopes to up the ante by instituting one.
Then if we implemented a draft, Rangel would complain that it disproportionately targetted blacks and minorities, until we recruited more whites, whereupon he would complain that the military was discriminating. C’mon, he’s a black Democrat - it’s not like he has anything new to say.
Regards,
Shodan
He served in Korea.
Nothing new to say, is that because of his race or his political affiliation?
In any case, the draft is an excellent idea. We ought to have done it years ago.
You forgot to call him uppity.
If your objective is to degrade the military, yes. Otherwise, not so much.
Wasn’t there a draft in the USA in World War I and World War II?
Yes – and they went up against other conscripts. But the technology of war has changed. It’s no longer just a question of who can put more men in the field.
That has to be about one of the strangest questions I’ve heard in a long time. The man is advocating a draft, and you say that to prove he’s serious, he and people he encourages should do the exact opposite of a draft, and volunteer selectively?
That makes sense… how?
That depends on what you mean by “necessary.” There are a heck of a lot of people who insisted that we needed more troops to successfully stabilize Iraq back when we started, and clearly many right now. The current McCain/administration strategy is basically to send around 20,000 more troops: a drop in the bucket in terms of the force many generals were talking about… and yet whatisname general says it isn’t possible: we don’t reasonably have that many troops to send over there in reality. It’s looking now more like they are going to have to play some kooky accounting games to even make it look like we’re sending a sizeable force.
The military can set its goals closer to whatever level it hopes will help it make them. That has jackall to do with the issue of whether we have enough troops . And bringing it up in response to Rangel’s push, which is at least on the surface premised on the idea that we need a much larger military asap than the one we are recruiting for now, is flat out dishonest of you.
Of course! When Shodan gets to imagine his enemies cavorting in his imagination, they do all sorts of silly and horrible things! Who would have thought that would be the case!
I echo the rest: what is it about him being a BLACK Democrat that makes him not have anything new to say?
It’s not relevant to the fact that he’s a broken record, no.
It does, however, seem to be relevant to the race-baiting portion of his rationale (that minorities are allegedly* overrepresented in the all-volunteer force).
*This turns out not to be the case to a significant degree when you crunch the numbers.
I tend to agree that you can overplay the difference in quality between conscripts and volunteers. It’s not like our marines and soldiers go thru years and years of training before they’re sent over to Iraq. In fact, that’s part of the problem-- they don’t. If we had a draft, we could make it work just as we did in the past. But that’s not the issue. The issue is whether or not a draft is good public policy for the US. I have yet to see a convincing argument that it is. While I agree with Rangle that a draft would make wars like Iraq less likely to occur, there are other more politically feasible ways of accomplishing the same goal.
He wants to distribute the burden of serving in foreign wars - on other people. If he thinks the military needs more people, he should volunteer, or get people to join.
If he is not serious, and just wants to stir up trouble and try to make the war unpopular by removing the choice as to whether or not to serve in the military, then he should encourage a draft rather than a volunteer army.
I can’t tell - are you suggesting sending more troops, or are you saying Rangel wants to send more troops?
At any rate, I doubt rather strongly that Rangel wants a draft so as to increase troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you have evidence to the contrary, feel free.
Right, right - reluctance to agree with the supposed motives of this dim-witted fat head is dishonest.
Trouble is, Rangel’s stated reason for the draft is not merely to enhance troop levels (not that more semi-trained recruits is anything a reasonable military commander is asking for at this point) -
He is trying to make the Iraq and Afghanistan wars unpopular.
:shrugs: See SteveMB’s post if you can’t bring yourself to read mine.
Mostly the fact that they so rarely do. Race-baiting from Rangel - go figure.
Anyway, have a quick peek at this if you believe a word that this Rangel clown says.
Regards,
Shodan
Not much of a challenge.
Either he’s serious, in which case he’s incredibly stupid, or he’s trying to get an issue going that people from both parties can agree on- that a draft would be bad. It is, after all, an issue that Nancy Pelosi and Bush can agree on- how many of those are there? And now, Democratic and Republican Dopers can agree that Rangel is an assclown.
Eh, I don’t think he’s that smart.
Against Iran, it is. The Islamic Republic took cannon-fodder strategy to new heights (or depths) in the Iran-Iraq War. They sent lower-class school-children into the front lines with no weapons.
I heard him on the radio say that the whole point was to jump-start discussion about military recruitment for the war, more than anything else. It’s not so much as he really wants a draft as much as it’s a hook to start asking “Just where are we getting all these conscripts from?”
But since he’s a Democrat, it’s open season from the peanut-throwing righties…
And how is this relevant? Those schoolkids got mowed down by the thousands. They were martyred for no military purpose whatsoever. The way to defeat those schoolkids marching into battle is not by getting your own army of schoolkids, but rather get a few machine guns. The strategy of defeating the enemy by soaking up machine gun bullets isn’t exactly an effective one, Iran is going to run out of schoolchildren long before we run out of machine gun ammo. And this is the way Saddam countered those martyr brigades, the way infantry pushes “over the top” were defeated in WWI. The mass infantry charge was obsolete by the American Civil War.
This is only a sensible military tactic in the sense that sending trained and equipped veteran soldiers to certain death for no reason is even more of a waste than sending unarmed schoolkids.
So, you’re opting for “stupid”, then?
Wow, I didn’t realize that the NYT Editorial Page was considered “peanut throwing righties”. :rolleyes:
Don’t tell me you think the NYT is a bastilion of left-wing radicals?
So what exactly is your point, Rjung?
Is it possible that the New York Times isn’t a “bastilion of left-wing radicals”, and yet neither is are “peanut throwing righties”?
You do know that the New York Times does not have the reputation of being the house organ of the Republican Party, right? And your retort serves what purpose, exactly?
John Mace provided a cite that people other than peanut throwing righties were disappointed by Rangell’s comments. How does pointing out that some right-wingers think the NYT is a bunch of left-wing radicals do anything to disprove him? It actually strengthens his point, which you should realize if you gave it a moment’s thought.