Posted on 08/11/2007 6:43:07 AM PDT by stm
WASHINGTON — 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."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If our troops were actually allowed to shoot and kill the enemy without running the risk of being labeled as war criminals and having their military careers destroyed, then we would have wiped out the insurgency in months, not years, and would not have to have any talk of needing more troops.
You're absolutely correct about the degradation to the military that a draft will bring. The military would have to waste even more time and resources motivating the people to do something they were not interested in doing. I would dare say that conscripts would put our regular forces in even more danger because of the fact that they simply don't want to be in combat but are placed there anyway.
Any nation that can’t raise enough volunteers doesn’t deserve to survive.
Should have started drafting right after 9-11. No president is bound by the choices made by previous presidents, especially those by Nixon. Our history shows that a volunteer military is sufficient for the occasional Panamas and Granada but never sufficient during major conflicts. If we had 500,000 troops in Iraq from the get go, it would be over and done with years ago. The decision making of the CinC is decidedly poor.
Our finest are enlisting over expectation, so why reinstall the draft and pull in the dregs? Sorry, but Bush has lost my respect with his open border stance. Protecting the country is not on his agenda.
If we did not have spineless, anti-war liberal POS pantywaists and the MSM doing everything they know how to sabotage the military’s recruiting efforts (banning recruiters from schools and campuses, etc) we would most likely not have the shortfalls we are experiencing.
BS
See post #2. Proven fact.
The predictions are this war will last for decades. A nation that supports this war, will support a draft. End the ignorance about the ability or motivation of draftees. I was drafted in WW II. We did not have enough regular army men. It was draftees who won the battle of the bulge and invaded and conquered Germany. When you have to kill or be killed, everyone is motivated.
“A nation that supports this war, will support a draft.”
The majority of people that you know probably do support the war. Let me know when you find a nation that does.
Amen to that. We have a technologically advanced military that can do the same job that would have required millions of troops from a draft beforehand. Why Bush continues to not exploit our advantage and fight with 2 hands tied behind our back is beyond me.
If we had had nukes at the outset of WW2, the Nazis would have been defeated in hours, not years. In a sense, our nuking of Japan proves my hypothesis to be correct.
3 points.
1. The Draft is Slavery
2. Professionals are worth 100-1 over draftees in the field.
3. Without a draft the pro-enemy protesters get zero momentum.
Comparing the mindset of our country during WWII and today is like comparing apples to oranges. Our country was unified in 1941, today there is a chasm you could hide the MOON in.
There is no comparison between the young generations then and now. Kids nowadays are lazy compared to 60 years ago, addicted to games, have very little respect for authority and are the objects of a huge liberal anti-war campaign. When I came on active duty in 1981, a smart mouthed soldier who mouthed off to an NCO would have gotten the ever loving shit beaten out of him and no one would have so much as blinked. Full contact, wall to wall counseling was a very effective motivation tool but not anymore. Political correctness is destroying our military as well as our society.
It worked before and will work again. I will concede that its too late now to start drafting now because of how ineptly andbadly the civilian leadership has conducted Iraq.
Operation Iraqi Freedom - bringing higher taxes, socialized medicine, the homosexuual agenda and the draft to America.
That I agree with.
There are/were two wars here:
1. The overthrow of the Saddam regime
2. Cleaning up the mess afterwards
The first was executed brilliantly. Hyperwar, within its natural bounds, works.
The second is the problem at hand. Having eradicated an entire major regime and military in mere weeks (days?), we were unable to roll in a functioning government & political infrastructure in time. Now there is the door-to-door, boots-on-ground, subjugation of opposition and installment of a new regime.
The second has also been blurring into a larger covert operation against other nations who also have an interest in political takeover of Iraq. This is where things currently get interesting.
Should there be a draft?
Our Founding Fathers intended an armed populace which could be called up for defensive military service (draft). The question becomes: what are the limits of militia callup?
Time for me to touch up my long-range rifle skills, and take a sniper course or two. If I'm gonna be drafted, I'd better have exercised my part of "well-regulated" and have my tools & talents ready.
Gotta say that a Bush operative openly opining about a draft is, well, dumb.
Apples and oranges. In WW2, the country had a tremendous support movement once entering the war; movies, ads, posters, and the entire effort to produce materiel to defeat our enemy. There were the antis but not to the extent of today. As a WHOLE, we just don’t have the motivation, the will power, the grit to repeat that, not now at least. In your generation, when we might lose THOUSANDS in a single day, they would persevere and keep slogging forward, do you think these wusses would support this war with a draft if it had those losses today?
I’m speaking in generalities of course, but this wussy nation will not sacrifice it’s hedonistic lifestyle to chance being drafted, no way.
My generation had the rug pulled out from under it in VN and now my son and his buddies are experiencing the same thing. This Congress/Senate is filled with treasonous slime and scumbags and no one does anything about it even though there are laws on the books for such behavior. I say NO, NO, NO, NO DRAFT! IMPEACH THE CONGRESS/SENATE, DRIVE THEM OUT OF OFFICE!! They deserve NOTHING from us but to be run off.
When our enemy emerge from it’s mosques and begin setting off IEDs in our streets, then we will realize the extent of this movement. We have already chosen to forget no less than two of the tallest towers IN THE WORLD, collapsing upon themselves creating a hole in NYC caused by jetliner “missles”, killing thousands; the Pentagon being knifed through by the same technique; our fellow citizens causing the Isamofacists to fail and crash in a field making the conscious choice to willingly sacrifice themselves in order that OTHERS MAY LIVE. There are no words to describe our shameful, cowardly behavior to this threat. We dishonor our fellow citizens who made those sacrifies AND OUR FIGHTING MILITARY by sitting on our hands not taking action against these pathetic defeatists/cowards/traitors and we shall reap what we sow without a doubt.
“Kids nowadays are lazy compared to 60 years ago, addicted to games,...”
How about these reasons:
Kids try to enlist but get turned down due to (1)asthma (2)ADHD perscription drug use.
Standards are high now because of the technology these guys need to use.
The draft would only pull in people with bad attitudes. (And more moms like Sheehan)
We should not have a draft. Bush needs to call Lute into the oval office and bitch him up one side and down the other for ever even using the word DRAFT.
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