Posted on 12/29/2014 8:19:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
A veteran of the Cold War–era draft argues that once again sharing the burden of defending the country would produce better foreign policy—and better Americans.
The author doing his draft-time duty at a recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1960.
As the struggle with the Islamic State, or ISIS, grows more intense and the Obama administration’s air-attack strategy—if the experts turn out to be correct—proves unavailing, the calls for boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq are likely to become more insistent. Despite the coalition of nations aligned against ISIS and other terrorist groups, no one doubts that any such boots will be preponderantly American. Our current volunteer military will fill those boots.
Which prompts a question: Should the burden of defending America be exclusively theirs? When one watches those heartbreaking segments on the national news of men and women returning from Middle Eastern wars with missing limbs, and reads accounts of their suffering from mental-health problems as a result of their experiences in battle, one feels an essential unfairness about current military arrangements. True, these men and women volunteered for battle, yet in a democracy it somehow feels wrong for a small segment of the population to be charged with the responsibility of defending the country in foreign wars.
The remedy for this fundamental unfairness is of course at hand, and it goes by the name of the draft.
The draft was legally halted in 1973, toward the close of the Vietnam War. The effect was to relieve citizens of having to fight their country’s battles. A reinstated draft, or compulsory military service, would redistribute the burden of the responsibility for fighting wars, and engage the nation in military conflicts in a more immediate and democratic way....
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Good War is worthy of a Good Draft!
Is the author a Leftist?
I don’t know of any Conservative who is actively calling for a reinstatement of the Draft (even though the basic principle of a militia is a Conservative axiom); AFAIK the Left wants the Draft reinstated just so they can use it to beat up the Right.
Bring back the draft.
If a wars worth fighting, everyone should fight it.
If it isnt, everyone will oppose it as unjust.
Thats the way it should be in a democracy.
Did I purposefully not include females? Yes!
I served over twenty five years in our Armed Forces. No thank you to the draft!!!
Since we don't have the money to support a military large enough to draft every eighteen year old, there will still be picking and choosing who gets drafted. Even in WW II my grandfathers were on the high end of the age limit and were determined to have jobs necessary for the war effort so they stayed home.
I will take your expert opinion as more informed than my own and admit that a draft is best as a measure of last resort, like war.
Did not read the article (but I might, I like Joe Epstein), but bear in mind that if a draft if reinstated without a lot of other things changing (or changing back maybe I should say) the WILL be drafting women.
I, myself, do not support that.
What does AFAIK stand for please?
I may get a lot of flack for saying this, but one of the lessons of my life is that we shouldn't be fighting wars as anything other than the last resort.
Unfortunately, much too high a percentage of 18 year-olds just simply aren't of a high enough quality, educationally, emotionally, or morally, to fight a modern war.
Instead of preparing for combat, a large portion of the Defense budget would go to either correcting the deficiencies of the draftees or finding make work for them to do until their enlistments are over.
"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
As
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True. On another note, UMT seems to work well enough for the Israelis, men and women alike.
We’ve got enough discipline problems with a volunteer force.
then there’s that whole “involuntary servitude” thing.
The left wants the draft to help discredit the military. By forcing young men to serve, they can be subject to all forms of abuse without being able to say no.
I agree, for those reasons and more. Many kids straight out of high school could use at minimum, two years to experience working and cooperating in a variety of conditions, not all of them preferred conditions. This would help many to develop better coping skills for temporary set backs or frustrations.
It would take a democrat president to do this unless we got into dire circumstances. I say democrat pres. because most republicans are over cautious about acting against what the polls say is popular. Obama couldn’t give a damn how we felt about some of his decisions, and most of the time, he still doesn’t.
The draft might work, but ONLY if the methods that were allowed back in the 60’s were in use. That is, the ability of a drill instructor to beat the living s**t out of the snot-nosed punks who don’t want to conform. They’d either shape up or end up dead.
Given the way many of our so-called ‘children’ are these days, many would end up dead. Not saying that’s a GOOD thing, just the way I see it.
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