Posted on 04/15/2007 3:02:41 AM PDT by Liz
Even liberals can be right sometimes. The information contained in the article is factual. Rudy obtained a very questionable deferment and he did say through his spokesman that he objected to the war in Vietnam.
You seem to have missed the time since Mogodishu. The perception that you cite is the reason why we were attacked in the first place (BEFORE the full re-engagement with Iraq). To the extent this effort has been lost, it has been lost here at home as a political movement has been opportunistic in choosing their own power over success in the war. Really though, the accomplishments have still been tremendous. Just what happened with Libya was easily worth it all. BEFORE Iraq round 2, the world had learned not to respect our word and our threats.I agree wrt Somalia. However, regarding Iraq, accomplishments don't cut it. We needed a decisive victory and a stable and friendly government. We didn't get that. And we're going to pay for those mistakes for a long time.
No, you made a factual statement about the condition of the Middle East. Period. You were wrong. You were sloppy. You were inaccurate. But, of course, you are a master of world geopolitical economic forces over time. Right, sure. As to oil, or anything else getting anywhere. Two words, American Navy. It and it alone decides in pure power politics what sails the sea, and will so for at least the next twenty years.A little reading might help your worldview: web.mit.edu/SSP/Publications/ navy_report/intro_execsumm.pdf
Iraq, as far as oil, trade or any other substance is a non entity to this physical reality of multi thousand mile ocean routes and the US Navy.
President Bush was a decorated fighter pilot. Vice President Cheney had valid legal deferments. Rush had a serious medical condition that prevented him from serving. The only one that fits the title of Draft Dodger is Clinton. Your liberalism is showing.As much as it pains me to defend slick willy:
President Bush was a decorated fighter pilot. Vice President Cheney had valid legal deferments. Rush had a serious medical condition that prevented him from serving. The only one that fits the title of Draft Dodger is Clinton. Your liberalism is showing.As much as it pains me to defend slick willy:
If half the current active-duty people would be draftees, you would be drafting about 1/2 x 400,000 = 200,000 a year and if there are indeed 4 million eligible, that would be 200,000 ÷ 4,000,000 = 5%.
At present, I believe we recruit about 80,000 a year into the military. If that were all you wanted to draft, the percentage of people 19 years old being drafted would be 80,000 ÷ 4,000,000 = 2%. So the average eligible person would have 98% probability of not being drafted.
The idea of a draft is unpopular; however, with the military having to continuously drop entrance standards, raise the age limit on recruits, and even go so far as to actively recruit from prisons, it appears that the armed forces are not meeting the demand for recruits.
At any rate, I'm tired of debating this issue with you and would close the debate with a little humor.
Teenage males are singled out for registration [for what else other than a potential draft]. Some believe it's due to teenagers being most physically fit, but they'd be wrong. If physical fitness were the main reason, we would register professional athletes first. The truth is that we register teenage males because:
1-We always have.
2-Many teenage males are sullen and snotty and could use a little discipline.
3-There are fewer of them than there are of us.
4-If we tried to register older people, they would write letters to their congressmen and hire sharp lawyers, and we'd never be able to get anybody into the Army
Wow. Key word searches on Google. Who would of thought? Our very own Mahan, right here on FR.translation: I have no idea what I'm talking about.
A lottery based draft is different than mandatory or compulsory universal military service, which you initially suggested.
At present, I believe we recruit about 80,000 a year into the military. If that were all you wanted to draft, the percentage of people 19 years old being drafted would be 80,000 ÷ 4,000,000 = 2%. So the average eligible person would have 98% probability of not being drafted.
So what is fair about that? Why would you want to force people to join rather than offer them a reason to join voluntarily?
At any rate, I'm tired of debating this issue with you and would close the debate with a little humor.
A "debate" requires the exchange of some ideas and addressing one another's points. You just keep repeating the same nonsense over and over without addressing the very real problems with your approach that I have enumerated. I am tired as well.
Your "humor" is lost on me. Cheers and good day.
I’ll bite.
I agree, I don’t think you could have 8 million people in the military. It would be wasteful and many of the people drafted(like obese people, or people mentally unfit for service) wouldn’t be suited for the military.
I think the German model is better. You can join the military *if you want to*. At the same time you can do other productive things, like social work or public works construction, similiar to Americorps or the CCC.
Your thoughts?
I was under the impression that in Germany there was, for males, universal military service, but there was non-military National Service for Conscientious Objectors. In any event, we are not Germany. The German spending on defense is declining and they are not the world's lone superpower. It has a much smaller military and cannot project power globally. The Bundeswehr has some 250,000 military personnel, 50,000 of whom are 18 to 25 year-old conscripts who serve for at least nine months under current rules.
We are a nation of 301 million and growing. Our spending on defense exceeds the rest of NATO [including German] combined. In fact, we spend almost more than the rest of the world combined. The bottom line on compulsory military service is does it help or hurt our war fighting capability? Today, we have a high tech, professional military that is the best in the world. To maintain its professionalism, we invest a significant amount of resources in training. Do we want to increase personnel turnover and costs by having shorter tours of service? Do we want people who must be forced to join? The answer is obvious.
Patriotism, love of country, a sense of duty are the responsibility of parents, the schools, churches, etc., not the military. In terms of compulsory national service,we don't need another huge government bureaucracy to administer it.
The US faces two major domestic problems, out of control entitlement programs that will seriously impact every other federal program, including defense, and immigration, legal and illegal, that is affecting us materially and culturally. We can't continue to absorb 1 million legal immigrants and 500,000 to one million illegal aliens annually. Since 1970, we have added 100 million people to our population, since 1990, 53 million, and since 2000, 20 million [or the equivalent of our seven largest cities.] The Census Bureau projects we will have 364 million by 2030 and over 400 million by 2050. 3/4 of this increase is attributable to immigration, legal and illegal.
“Even liberals can be right sometimes.”
That’s only because they know that a lie succeeds best when she baits her hook with a little truth.
“The information contained in the article is factual.”
If by factual one means, “Presenting a correct picture,” then no, it isn’t. Such facts as are presented are distorted through interpretation to give a false picture.
“Rudy obtained a very questionable deferment”
Why is it “very questionable?” And what does “questionable” mean, anyway? In the liberal lexicon, the word just means, “We can fool people into thinking there’s something wrong with this.”
I explained why there’s no reason to think the deferment was bogus in one of my notes above.
“and he did say through his spokesman that he objected to the war in Vietnam.”
And I’ll object to it right now: LBJ should never have sent all those men over there to fight if he wasn’t going to fight to win. He should have just called the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and said, “I’ll be in the west wing screwing one of my dogs. Take care of this Viet Nam thing and get back to me when you’re done.”
So, does that make me a draft dodger?
Rudy is not morally fit to be president, but he’s not a draft dodger, and the liberals are lying truth out of Texas when they say he is.
“I guess we will have to agree to disagree”
No, I don’t agree that your position has the slightest merit.
“Rudy was...not in a job that should have been deferrable”
According to whom? FDR went as far as telling actors that they should not enlist in WWII. Seems to me that a member of the judiciary is doing more for the country than an actor.
“and he did not do any alternate service for his country.”
According to his draft board, his work as a clerk to a judge was service to his country. It was their call to make, and they did.
“He actively dodged the draft.”
That is a vile charge, and completely unfounded. Whether or not you agree with the decision of the draft board, he requested a deferment and got it. If a mistake was made, or if the decision of the draft board was improper (though there is no indication that either of these propositions is true), the responsibility lies with the draft board that issued the decision, not with Rudy.
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