Washington Monthly Makes The Case For A Military Draft

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
March 28, 2005

Pray for the Collapse of the Dollar
A Bail Out Draft for a Cakewalk War?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.

-------------------------------------------------------------------


.... it is the March issue of the Washington Monthly, a magazine with a liberal Democratic audience, which makes a case for the draft as the only way "America can remain the world's superpower."

The authors, Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris, take it for granted that America's duty is to make the rest of the world conform to America. They regard this virtuous calling to be so great that a draft is a small price to pay.

The authors try to devise a draft proposal that "would create a cascading series of benefits for society" by instilling "a new ethic of service" among college-bound youth. Before America's youth could be admitted to college, they would first have to serve either in the military or in tutoring disadvantaged children or by helping old folks, or in homeland security by guarding ports.

The authors mean "nationalism," when they say "patriotism." True patriots would oppose the Jacobin agenda of Global Cop and demand that America stick to its founding principles. But the authors cannot imagine America without "its mantle of global leadership" and regard enslaving youth in the service of the state as a small price to pay.


http://www.counterpunch.org/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0503.carter.html

[American in Asia]

1. not good....

someone please tell me this is just a trial balloon that will never fly?

My stomach clenched enough when our oldest had to register on his 18th birthday a year ago. This article gave me a cold chill.

:scared:

[Athame]

2. Me, too, A in A. My son is 20 now,

right in line for the first wave if it comes about this year. I do think there have been more than a few trial balloons recently, including the "leaking" of the military not making recruiting goals, the filling of the draft boards, the Selective Service commission readiness report (due out on Thursday), and now this for the liberal Democrats. I just checked my son's passport and it expires this year, we are getting it renewed tomorrow and I am scoping out places he can go to be out of the country this summer.

[Warpy]

3. Very good ideas

If I had children I would be doing the same. I know my best friend's daughter has a valid passport. I just hope she's willing to use it should that "special skills draft" be sneaked through Congress during some manufactured media circus like all the Schiavo hooplah.

There is no way any child should be sacrificed on the altar of PNAC ambition.