Will the U.S. have to give serious consideration to a draft in the next two years?

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by FORD
I'm guessing the recent bankruptcy laws, and fascist policies toward marijuana use will have something to do with it.

Can we say "alternative sentencing"?? and since it will be a choice of prison or the military, they'll still be able to claim it as "voluntary"

And my guess is that if that doesn't produce enough "volunteers", there will be a lot of cases of planted drugs in areas where the courts are corrupt enough to convict on it.

And then they make sure they have plenty of safety-minded bullshit seatbelt laws so they can easily pull you over and take a sniff.

[academic punk]

From todays NY Times Op-Ed....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/opinion/27herbert.html?hp&oref=login

THE ARMY'S HARD SELL

The all-volunteer Army is not working. The problem with such an Army is that there are limited numbers of people who will freely choose to participate in an enterprise in which they may well be shot, blown up, burned to death or suffer some other excruciating fate.

The all-volunteer Army is fine in peacetime, and in military routs like the first gulf war. But when the troops are locked in a prolonged war that yields high casualties, and they look over their shoulders to see if reinforcements are coming from the general population, they find -as they're finding now - that no one is there.

Although it has been lowering standards, raising bonuses and all but begging on its knees, the Army hasn't reached its recruitment quota in months. There are always plenty of hawks in America. But the hawks want their wars fought with other people's children.

The problem now is that most Americans have had plenty of time to digest the images of people being blown up in Baghdad and mutilated in Fallujah, and they know that thousands of our troops are coming home in coffins, or without their arms, or without their legs, or paralyzed, or horribly burned.

War in the abstract can often seem like a good idea. Politicians get the patriotic blood flowing with their bombast and lies. But the flesh-and-blood reality of war is very different.

The war in Iraq was sold to the American public the way a cheap car salesman sells a lemon. Dick Cheney assured the nation that Americans in Iraq would be "greeted as liberators." Kenneth Adelman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board said the war would be a "cakewalk." And Donald Rumsfeld said on National Public Radio: "I can't say if the use of force would last five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."

The hot-for-war crowd never mentioned young men and women being shipped back to their families deceased or maimed. Nor was there any suggestion that a broad swath of the population should share in the sacrifice.

Now, with the war going badly and the Army chasing potential recruits with a ferocity that is alarming, a backlash is developing that could cripple the nation's ability to wage war without a draft. Even as the ranks of new recruits are dwindling, many parents and public school officials are battling the increasingly heavy-handed tactics being used by military recruiters who are desperately trying to sign up high school kids.

"I started getting calls and people coming to the school board meeting testifying that they were getting inundated with phone calls from military recruiters," said Sandra Lowe, a board member and former president of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District in California.

She said parents complained that in some schools "the military recruiters were on campus all the time," sometimes handing out "things that the parents did not want in their homes, including very violent video games."

Ms. Lowe said she was especially disturbed by a joint effort of the Defense Department and a private contractor, disclosed last week, to build a database of 30 million 16- to 25-year-olds, complete with Social Security numbers, racial and ethnic identification codes, grade point averages and phone numbers. The database is to be scoured for youngsters that the Pentagon believes can be persuaded to join the military.

"To have this national data collection is just over the top," Ms. Lowe said.

Like many other parents resisting aggressive recruitment measures, Ms. Lowe has turned to a Web site - leavemychildalone.org - that counsels parents on their rights and the rights of their children. She described the site as "wonderful."

What's not so wonderful is that this war with no end in sight is becoming an ever more divisive issue for Americans. A clear divide is developing between those who want to continue the present course and those who feel it's time to craft an exit strategy.

But with volunteers in extremely short supply, an even more emotional divide is occurring over the ways in which soldiers for this war are selected. Increasing numbers of Americans are recognizing the inherent unfairness of the all-volunteer force in a time of war. That emotional issue will become more heated as the war continues. And it is sure to resonate in the wars to come.

[academic punk]

Agree 100%...

"There are plenty of hawks in America, but the hawks want their wars fought with other people's children".

Sleep on that.

[FORD]

Originally posted by academic punk
Agree 100%...

"There are plenty of hawks in America, but the hawks want their wars fought with other people's children".

Sleep on that.

See #9 on this week's Top 10 Conservative Idiots

[academic punk]

Just went and read #9. Too fucking perfect.

But why don't they run that ad in every media they can? The NY Times? On-air football spots?

It would be perfect. and really force the issue.

[Nickdfresh]

Poll Finds Most Oppose Return to Draft
Associated Press
June 24, 2005

WASHINGTON - Americans overwhelmingly oppose reinstatement of the military draft and most say they wouldn't encourage their children to enlist in the service either, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

That resistance underscores the dilemma facing the Bush administration as it struggles to recruit a volunteer military in war time.

The Army is falling short of its recruiting goals this year at a time the country is fighting extended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has repeatedly missed its monthly recruiting goals this year, falling short by 42 percent in April.

And all four branches of military service are having trouble attracting recruits to their reserve forces.

Despite the recruiting problems, seven in 10 Americans say they oppose reinstatement of the draft, and almost half of those polled strongly oppose that step, the AP-Ipsos poll found. About a quarter of the people in this country say they favor reinstating the draft.

"Things have been working well with the all-volunteer army and that's how it should stay," said Kathy Fowler, a 44-year-old mother from Chillicothe, Ohio.

More than 1,700 members of the U.S. military have died since the start of the Iraq war and thousands more have been wounded. Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told members of Congress on Thursday that the Iraqi insurgency is as active as six months ago and more foreign fighters are flowing in all the time.

The shortfalls in military recruiting have led to speculation that the government might be forced to reinstitute the draft. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has ruled it out, saying the all-volunteer force has proved the wisdom of discontinuing the draft in 1973.

"There isn't a chance in the world that the draft will be brought back," Rumsfeld told a House hearing Thursday.

New York Congressman Charles Rangel introduced a bill in January 2003 to bring back the draft, and more than a year later he reintroduced it. The legislation went nowhere, which did not surprise the New York Democrat.

Rangel said he initially introduced the draft legislation because he thought people would think twice about going to war in Iraq if their own children might be required to serve. And he objects to the way the military is recruiting troops - offering cash bonuses to needy young people in poor neighborhoods.

The Army has responded to the recruiting slump by increasing the number of recruiters and offering bigger signup bonuses.

Some feel the military's recruitment problems will force a return to the draft.

"If we had more manpower in the Middle East we could get this over with," said James Puma, a retiree from Buffalo, N.Y. "I'm a Republican, I'm with the president. But things in Iraq are not going good at all."

However, Jeremy Miller, a sales manager from Denver, said the Iraq war is "a situation the president has gotten us into and should be able to get us out of" without bringing back the draft.

More than half of those polled said they would discourage a son who was the right age to serve from enlisting in the military, while two-thirds said they would discourage a daughter from joining.

If a military draft were reinstated, more than half in the poll, 54 percent, said they would oppose women being drafted.

The American public has strongly opposed reinstating the draft for the past couple of decades, according to various polls. And the decreasing support for the war in Iraq suggests that is unlikely to change anytime soon.



"People simply don't want their kids to be sent off to Iraq to be shot at in a situation in which the value of the war is becoming more and more questionable," said John Mueller, a political science professor at Ohio State University and author of "War, Presidents and Public Opinion."

Men were more likely than women to favor reinstating the draft, those over age 50 were more likely to favor it than younger adults. And Republicans were more likely than Democrats to support the idea. But a majority of each of those groups opposed the draft.

"The draft has never been popular and there's little reason to believe it would be popular now," public opinion analyst Karlyn Bowman said.

The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted June 20-22 for the AP by Ipsos, an international polling firm, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_poll_062405,00.html?ESRC=army.nl

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Warham]

Bringing back the draft is unnecessary.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Warham
Bringing back the draft is unnecessary.

So was the invasion and occupation of a country who never attacked us.

So was the loss of thousands of US Military in Iraq, and tens of thousands of wounded, both physically, and mentally

[Warham]

Islamic Extremism is unnecessary as well, but that isn't stopping them from carbombing Iraqi citizens and our troops.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
Islamic Extremism is unnecessary as well, but that isn't stopping them from carbombing Iraqi citizens and our troops.

SADDAM wasn't an Islamic extremist...

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine
So was the invasion and occupation of a country who never attacked us.

So was the loss of thousands of US Military in Iraq,

I don't think we've quite reached the "THOUSANDS" level yet.

[Warham]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
SADDAM wasn't an Islamic extremist...

Saddam's not one of the insurgents right now either.

[FORD]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
I don't think we've quite reached the "THOUSANDS" level yet.

There's been a lot in the news lately which suggests the official Pentagon death toll has been seriously underestimated. Even if you buy their numbers, it will be 2000 before Labor Day.

[Phil theStalker]

Originally posted by FORD
There's been a lot in the news lately which suggests the official Pentagon death toll has been seriously underestimated. Even if you buy their numbers, it will be 2000 before Labor Day.

FORD, i'm surprised at yoo..

you know dat count only counts KIA's on the field and does NOT count da KIA's in Afganyistan..

no

tit's a FAKE number

da o1nes unfortunate enuff t2o die on da helilocopter flight t2o da hoSPITal, at da hoSPITal, and back home in da U.S.A. don't git da HONOR aff being named on dat Bush/PNAC BLOOD LIST..

da U.S. dead (f4or NOTHING) is ALREEDY ova 2K, friend..

and causalties, DU, blown aff limbs, are thousands and thousands more..

and then da U.S. gov won't pay their benefits and CUT their benefits t2o them..

tit's going t2o be like da other stupid gulf war where there have been over 40,000 dead AFTER they came home and left da field..

Vietnam had 58,000 kia's and 40,000 f4or a thr3ee day war gives you an idea aff who bad dis o1ne is and is going t2o bee..

you must git reedy f4or da civil war..

tit's later than you... tit's t2oo late.

[Nickdfresh]

There are roughly 150 KIA's in Afghanistan according to the PENTAGON. (CNN this AM)