Posted on 08/10/2007 4:12:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday. "I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
"And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another," Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.
President Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Restoring it, Lute said, would be a "major policy shift" and Bush has made it clear that he doesn't think it's necessary.
The repeated deployments affect not only the troops but their families, who can influence whether a service member decides to stay in the military, Lute said.
"There's both a personal dimension of this, where this kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living room conversations within these families," he said. "And ultimately, the health of the all- volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions."
The military conducted a draft during the Civil War and both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. The Selective Service System, re- established in 1980, maintains a registry of 18-year-old men.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has called for reinstating the draft as a way to end the Iraq war.
Bush picked Lute in mid-May as a deputy national security adviser with responsibility for ensuring efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are coordinated with policymakers in Washington. Lute, an active-duty general, was chosen after several retired generals turned down the job.
Bad idea.
Note to the bashers: I enlisted in the Navy in 1990.
The draft made it too easy for LBJ to ratchet up a war we should never have been in.
This guy clearly isn’t a politician. He shouldn’t have suggested that it was even being considered. The MSM vultures and the Dems will go after this like fresh meat.
Not only do we want the best, brightest and most qualified, but the military needs those who really want to serve and defend the US. I wouldn’t want a moron watching my back in a crisis.
I think it’s a good idea. Right now you’ve got the luxury of training them thoroughly. Later we may very well be in too much of a hurry for that. We need a bigger military. The answer to a stretched out force is not to back off from our obligations, but to build up what we need.
I think we’re re-activating 3-4 divisions at Ft. Bragg, so that’s a good thing.
Memo to Rangel: Soldiers exist to fight, not to protest.
Why do you say we should have never been in Vietnam? Should we leave the S. Koreans to the same fate we left the Vietnamese? The Taiwanese? The Iraqis?
You see the problems we had with just one Beauchamp,, now imagine hundreds of them.
Because of the technology used in a lot of the services now, it would take too much time and effort to train some draftee—who didn’t want to be there and would fight every step of the way.
Bad idea.
The only time a draft would be useful is if we were engaged in a land battle in Asia. And what idiot would do that.
With Hillary tying to take the reigns, a draft would be a bad idea. ............. With Hillary, it’s going to be a recruiter’s nightmare. Then again, we may not need anymore troops since they’ll be withdrawn from everywhere.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a complete fabrication. Why should we have been there? The only thing accomplished was obscene profits for the military industrial complex, and 58,000 killed. The end result was the same as if we had never been there.
Lute knew going in he was to be thrown under the bus at the first moment necessary by the Bush inner circle.
The guy is brilliant for coming out with this, it increases his post-retirement speaking fee value considerably, and makes him much much more visible going into the ‘08 election season, one which he is absolutely certain he will be a working as a civilian well before the general election.
Lute is thinking outside the box, he’s probably hoping he gets fired for discussing bringing back the draft, so he doesn’t become the whipping boy for some worse situation thatwas actually outside his control.
“Because of the technology used in a lot of the services now, it would take too much time and effort to train some draftee—who didn’t want to be there and would fight every step of the way.”
Yeah, you got that right, just like they did in WWI WWII and Korea?
Hillary would insure our troops end up dead.
Warrior Queen Hillary, even the thought of it makes me gag.
True, those who are in the military against their will don't make good soldiers, I witnessed that first hand.
First question: Why give an interview to NPR? Second question: Didn't Democrats pull this from their playbook during a previous election?
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