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.
Why don't these stories ever mention the fact that when this nutjob introduced this before, he voted AGAINST it when it came to a vote? Yeesh!
And he's all over the board on all of this stuff. He voted FOR the use of force in Iraq...before he voted against it! Double Yeesh!
http://www.vote-smart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=H2690103
The reason the draft is a winner is that you can pay draftees $78 per month. That makes the war a lot cheaper to fight.
Rangle is a likeable person. He is also smart and served our country well. However, his pandering and politics are very distasteful to me.
Of course. Government can force people to do a lot of things, and a lot of jobs, if government assumes dictatorial control over people's lives. They did it in the Soviet Union for 70 years - telling people what jobs they had to take for the "good of the fatherland."
Well when it comes to Armies, you need Big Numbers and if there is an associated headache.....well, take some asprin.
Bottom line, a sneaky and very creative new form of welfare.
This guy is a Socialist's socialist!
The only group more useless than a regular government bureaucracy, is a do-nothing welfare program masquerading as a "service" bureaucracy.
Incompetence legitemized forever...
Where does Jesus advocate a draft? Please give me chapter and verse. Jesus is my Lord and Savior. If you're talking Biblical, He's the Authority I look to.
No you can't. Draftees come under the same pay scales as enlistees.
"Isn't it just like Rengel's generation of socialist democrats to protest the most when they were of draft age, but as soon as they have power, insist younger generations give more than they did?"
Great point, except Rangel served in Korea.
"A draft doesn't have to be limited to military personnel."
I disagree. If the government is going to coerce people to put their lives on the line, all draftees should have to take the same risk. I am not in favor of a draft, but if there is one, there should be no exceptions. Let's have no more Vietnam crap, where good young kids get killed and we get stuck 30 years later with Bill Clinton.
You got it. By making military service wildly unpopular, by painting it as a tool of the wealthy to further persecute the poor, and by assuring that the quality of the military will plummet, rangel hopes to destroy our military.
Sorry, my speel cheker screwed up.
A draft is certainly UNbiblical. According to OT law, those who had no stomach for fighting were excused from war.
A draft called for by democrats and passed in a Democrat majority should sink their ship in 2008 . Especially when the NOW cows find that women will be subject to the new draft.
: )
I think the Muslim world looks at us as paper tigers who will run at the first hint of resistance. I think that the reinstatement of the draft says that we're in it for the long haul and will pay the price to win. We need a bigger footprint in the region. Dismantel the boutique brigades and raise an Army Strong not an Army of one.
Given that a common defense is one the few things the Constitution specifically authorizes the federal government to do, is 5% enough?
The only reason this is important is that, in order to actually start the draft again, and go back to a 2-year cycle-in, cycle-out routine, the number of training facilities would have to be expanded dramatically, along with all the other overhead that would come from a larger force of people who most likely do not consider this to be a career opportunity.
After all that, then you can have the discussion about how to fairly administer draft obligations, and that would be a long, interesting debate. I still have my field jacket, with no insignia. I've told my children that it was my door prize from Mr. Nixon's lottery, and then I found out how much American history they learned in school.
General William Westmoreland, testifying before President Nixon's Commission on an All-Volunteer [Military] Force, denounced the idea, saying that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries.
Milton Friedman interrupted him: "General, would you rather command an army of slaves?"
Hit a nerve did he?
You wouldn't be what is euphemistically called a "gamer"?
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