Posted on 11/19/2006 10:30:36 AM PST by Brilliant
A senior House Democrat said Sunday he will introduce legislation to reinstate the military draft, asserting that current troop levels are insufficient to sustain possible challenges against Iran, North Korea and Iraq.
"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," said Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y.
Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, said he will propose the measure early next year.
At a time when some lawmakers are urging the military to send more troops to Iraq, "I don't see how anyone can support the war and not support the draft," he said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), a South Carolina Republican who is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Standby Reserve, said he agreed that the U.S. does not have enough people in the military.
"I think we can do this with an all-voluntary service, all-voluntary Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. And if we can't, then we'll look for some other option," said Graham, who is assigned as a reserve judge to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals.
Rangel, incoming chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he worried the military was being strained by its overseas commitments.
"If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft," Rangel said.
He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, "young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals," with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.
Graham said he believes the all-voluntary military "represents the country pretty well in terms of ethnic makeup, economic background."
Repeated polls have shown that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of the draft and officials say they do not expect to restart conscription.
Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress in June 2005 that "there isn't a chance in the world that the draft will be brought back."
Yet the prospect of the long global fight against terrorism and the continuing U.S. commitment to stabilizing Iraq have kept the idea in the public's mind.
The military drafted conscripts during the Civil War, both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. An agency independent of the Defense Department, the Selective Service System trains, keeps an updated registry of men age 18-25 — now about 16 million — from which to supply untrained draftees that would supplement the professional all-volunteer armed forces.
Rangel and Graham appeared on "Face the Nation" on CBS.
I understand your point completely, and I believe a large number might respond well to the military culture of obedience, discipline, hard work and achievement.
However, if you have ever spent any time in a classroom you will understand that even one disrupter can prevent the other 20-some classmates from learning anything that class period. Under compulsory education, it's difficult to get rid of that person so the others can thrive.
If you carry that analogy to a military setting, you will have training/missions compromised because there's one or more whiner/lightweight in the bunch that distracts the others from sucessfully learning/completing their jobs. Under the draft, that person is there for 2 years and the military must identify and weed those people into non-critical jobs. Under today's voluntary military, that doesn't happen on the scale it would in a draft military.
That said, I also think that trying to instil a love of country at age 18 or later is an impossible task. It's one that rightfully belongs at home and in the K-12 setting. When dis all the books about our country's heros disappear from our public schools ? Why does today's US History curriculum portray us in such a bad light that no child can feel proud of this country ?
IMO until we fix the K-12 schools, there's no hope the military will fare any better.
I Repeat:
Government Social Engineering Doesn't Work.
(thought there is a support site for people who think it does)
Wow, who knew that you would post here, of all places?
I gotta ask:
1. Does it bug you that people accuse you of being a lesbian and/or a frigid beotch?
2. When you found out about the Monica thing, were you tempted to bounce an ashtray off Bubba's head?
2a. If so, did you yield to that temptation?
3. Come on, make it official: you're running in 2008, right?
Nonsense.
The government orders you to do something. You tell them to get bent. The government sends men with guns. If you tell the men with guns to get bent, they kill you. QED.
Smart kids -- probably got double their money back on eBay.
What do you have against capitalist entrepeneurship?
*** DING DING DING *** No more calls; we have a winner!
Rangel wants our servicepeople and their families to live on dog food while he spends the savings on more vote-buying bread and circuses.
With a draft, you can just cut them both down to starvation wages (and prevent the suckers who volunteered before from quitting via "stop loss").
Yep -- and it is, frankly, disgraceful that neither Reagan, nor Bush, nor Bush swept the federal regulations clean of Peanut Head's legacy.
Which branch did you join?
The fact that it took a knucklehead like Jimmy Carter to restore registration after Richard Nixon (arguably the most competent President at foreign/defense matters of the last half of the 20th century) got rid of it tells you all you need to know about the merits of the idea.
I remember all the suspicions that after the 2004 elections, W would reinstate the draft. Could that be projection?
Rangel is a clown an an idiot.
If he married Bill Maher which one would be the bitch?
The group was likely to recommend a combination of a small short-term increase of U.S. troops and long-term training for Iraqi forces, the newspaper reported, citing senior defense officials.
The options have been dubbed "Go Home," "Go Big" and "Go Longer" by insiders.
Sources who have been briefed on the review, led by Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the group had concluded there were not enough U.S. forces to "Go Big," sending in thousands more troops, the Post said.
"Go Home," the quick pullout option, was rejected as likely to push Iraq directly into a full-blown civil war, the Post said.
The Pentagon group devised a hybrid plan, "Go Long," which calls for cutting the U.S. combat presence combined with a long-term expansion of the training and advising of Iraqi forces, the newspaper said.
http://www.abc4.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=154DBAAA-6ED2-4643-BD9C-5621B398A9A4
Under the table with his hand up Rangel's butt.
LOL -- while the action is certainly shameful, I doubt that the Democrats are capable of feeling shame.
And another thing -- I suspect that the majority of people standing in line to get the consoles right away are planning to resell them at a profit. Sneers at such entrepeneurship belongs on DU, not here.
Everyone who earns an honest living serves their country.
You appear to have fallen into the socialist fallacy that only government-directed activities are valid or useful.
Are you talking about Americans specifically, or in general? (IIRC, some of the Japanese guys who got stuck on South Pacific islands and never got the word that the war was over were effectively on war footing for about 30 years.)
LOL -- Charlie Rangel's desire to screw young men far exceeds that of Mark Foley....
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