My nuanced reasons for opposing any reinstitution of the draft

bluestateguy

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Sat Nov-25-06 10:02 PM
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My nuanced reasons for opposing any reinstitution of the draft

Much of this post is copied and pasted from other posts I have made on this topic in the past.

Rangel argument in favor of a draft is filled with holes. The road to hell is paved with bad intentions. Rangel says that a draft will make our leaders more cautious about taking the nation to war, especially if many members of the ruling class also face the prospect of their kids and grandkids having to serve. To make sure that this is the case, Rangel claims there will be "no exceptions" to his draft, er, national service bill. Furthermore, Rangel says that a draft will give us more of a "citizen" military that is more representative of the US population at large, rather than the current all-volunteer military, which is currently disproportionately non-white and lower income (at least at the enlisted level). The argument advanced by Rangel asserts that in wartime, sacrifice should be shared, spread across all strata of society and not just dumped upon the least well off among us. A noble goal, perhaps, but would it work this way in practice? I doubt it, and there are plenty of other reasons to oppose this terrible idea as well, regardless of Rangel's' intentions.

You can try to put in a draft with "no exceptions", but it won't work. The well to do chickenhawks WILL FIND A WAY to get their kids out. They have good lawyers who know how to do this, or powerful friends who are just a phone call away. Or there is always the extended "study abroad" for little Dylan and Kaitlin or perhaps the family doctor (one of Daddy's golfing buddies) can be paid to find a long un-noticed bum knee. Or maybe the Hilton twins can convice their draft board that designing a new fashion line is "national service". You get the drift. Rangel can write whatever he wants to in his bill, this kind of Good Ole' Boy stuff will make a mockery of his "universal" service plans.

Would a draft stimulate anti-war activism and resistance? I'm sure that some of that would result. Sure, there would be more protests in the streets and on the campuses, and a few highly publicized cases of draft card burnings or turn-ins. But don't get too excited. Most kids in this country are not politically conscious. A draft will not necessarily change that. So many more young people are raised to obey authority, rather than question it. You put a draft in place, and a lot of those kids will just go because the government says they have to go. You can't honestly expect that a draft will suddenly result in millions of kids reading up on the finer points of the Downing Street Memo. It won't work that way. A draft only results in more poor and minority kids becoming the property of the state. OK, some young people will resist, I don't doubt that, but far more will not because they have been raised to obey, rather than question authority. These young people will go because they are told to, and they won't have the connections to get out, or the political sophistication to protest. Then the military establishment will be more powerful than ever, both at home and abroad.The practical reality of such a policy is more young people are sent off to war and come home dead or wounded. That may not be what you would mean to have happen, but that is what would happen.

And do you really want this president to have an unlimited supply of cannon fodder for more wars of aggression? The only reason we have not gone to war with Iran and/or North Korea is a sheer lack of troops. A draft provides an unlimited supply of ever more warriors for the Neo-Con Cause. Rangel's bill gives the president--the same president he claims to oppose--great discretion to designate conscripts into national service assignments. Why would you trust Bush with that kind of discretion? Why would you let Bush decide what counts as national service, and who gets the non-military slots, verses who has to serve in the military? The way the Rangel bill is written is so spongy that Bush and his team could very easily use it for almost entirely military or law enforcement purposes.

It's a despicable idea, and to suggest it for nothing more than making a point is insulting to the young people whose lives would be jeopardized by this little bit of social engineering. The idea should be repudiated, and Rangel should be warned not to bring it up again, lest he be stripped of his committee chairmanship.