a cause even the President (says he) supports

Posted on October 22, 2004 by Lessig

A campaign to oppose the draft.

This entry was posted in presidential politics. Bookmark the permalink.

16 Responses to a cause even the President (says he) supports

  1. Jardinero1 says:
    October 22, 2004 at 8:11 am

    The regular Army and the Marines have nearly 900,000 boots on the ground. Half of them are garrisoned in North America. 350,000 are garrisoned in Europe, Japan and Korea fulfilling our treaty obligations. The balance are in Iraq serving with National Guard and Reserve Units. There is not a real shortage of troops, only a misallocation owing to fifty year old treaty obligations, which the current administration is actively renegotiating around the world.

    The only way we are gonna get a draft, in the short term, is if the democrats win Congress and/or the presidency.

    It goes like this: if we have a draft then the American people will riot against any overtly militaristic foreign policy such as the one we practice in the present era. It will provide the democrats with a trump card against such a policy. Charles Rangel puts it this way, though not in so many words.

    Sadly, without a draft, most Americans are just too lackadaisical to care. So, if you want a draft vote Democrat, if not, Republican. I love the irony.

  2. Max Lybbert says:
    October 22, 2004 at 1:53 pm

    I’m tired of the fear-mongering Kerry has engaged in over the supposed draft. I find it strange that the ultra-intellectual Kerry can’t find any better material than this. I also find it strange that Kerry is the one promising 40,000 additional troops (I believe he means these to be American troops). Unless military recruiters are turning away thousands of qualified recruits, I can’t think of any way Kerry will fulfill this promise short of a draft. Is Howard Dean going to get his supporters lined up at the recruiting station?

    This week a pollster from the University of Pennsylvania asked if I believed a draft would come under Bush and Kerry. I was tempted to say that Kerry would lead to a draft. If he’s serious about the 40,000 troops, he would need to start drafting people. However, I know he isn’t really planning to follow through on the 40,000 new troops, so I know he’s not going to support a draft either.

    And, in the end, the military doesn’t want a draft. Training takes so long nowadays (after boot camp) that draftees just aren’t worth anything.

  3. Max Lybbert says:
    October 22, 2004 at 1:56 pm

    OK, the sentence, “This week a pollster from the University of Pennsylvania asked if I believed a draft would come under Bush and Kerry” doesn’t make sense.

    This week a pollster called me. First she asked if Bush would start a draft in a second term. I said “no.” Then she asked if Kerry would start a draft if he were elected. I thought about saying “yes” because of his promise of 40,000 new troops, and I can’t see how he will get those troops without a draft. But since I don’t believe he’s serious about getting 40,000 new troops, I said “no.” Unfortunately, I can’t explain things like that in a poll.

  4. Raefer Gabriel says:
    October 22, 2004 at 2:56 pm

    >The only way we are gonna get a draft, in the short term, is if the democrats win Congress and/or the presidency.

    That is just inflammatory nonsense and you know it. Neither Bush nor Kerry have any intention of instating a draft because it would destroy their political careers AND legacies, which are always on the top of a president’s mind, not to mention piss of the armed forces severely. There are, what, 2 or 3 people on capital hill who openly support a draft, including the aforementioned Charles Rangel? These are a couple of radical grandstanders, who in fact don’t support the draft, they are just using it as an extreme expression for their distaste with the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

    I assure you, nobody ever wants anything like this to come anywhere near an actual vote because it would give everybody’s political opponents way too much ammunition no matter how they voted. Lose/lose proposition all around.

    We should all stop whispering about either candidate reinstating the draft and talk about the real issues at hand.

    As for Kerry’s proposal to put 40,000 more troops in Iraq in the short term, he has already said he intends to go back to the table with countries that Bush has alienated and convince them to commit more serious numbers of troops to what he hopes will become a more UN-centric stabilization and reconstruction effort. I assume he means to get a substantial number of troops and resources from other countries, and I assume that any additional troops from the US will have to be temporarily reallocated from other bases or areas (again, perhaps temporary exemptions from those treaties will be more attainable to an American administration that isn’t so widely loathed).

    And there are more troops available for deployment in the short term (mostly reserves and national guard), the problem is they are being kept as replacement forces for rotating out the already-deployed brigades back to the US. Again, if we can get more troop committments, or simply achieve some success at pacifying the restive areas of Iraq, longer term stabilization could be carried out by a smaller, more multi-national force.

  5. M Beach says:
    October 22, 2004 at 5:34 pm

    “We should all stop whispering about either candidate reinstating the draft …”

    You mean like this blog for example?

    I’m actually very encouraged by the sensible replys.

  6. Alan McCann says:
    October 22, 2004 at 7:04 pm

    1. Lawrence: You’re bigger than this.

    2. The Democratic National Committee platform (and printed book) contains a promise to start a *MANDATORY* 2 year public service program for kids graduating from high school. Before you start telling me that it isn’t on the web site, it was yanked just before the democratic rumor mongering on a draft started.

    3. The draft bill was started by Democrats 2 years ago to try to create an upswell of protest against the war.

    4. Someday the Democrats will realize the evil has taken over their party. Until then, they will suffer out of power or, regrettably, all of the US will suffer.

  7. MdM says:
    October 23, 2004 at 12:56 am

    Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act allows military recruiters names, addresses, and phone numbers of children approaching secondary school students so they can actively solicit them. Bush may not be for the draft per se, but he’s certainly making sure the Pentagon has plenty of access to our young people.

    http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1219/p13s02-legn.html
    http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=14073&c=253

  8. raoul says:
    October 23, 2004 at 9:06 am

    “Plenty of boots on the ground.” More comedy.

    Our armed forces are heavily specialized today. The ratio of support personnel to actual combat soldiers is at its highest ratio in our military�s history. Upwards of 50% of our soldiers are not qualified to fire a rifle.

    FROM COLONEL DAVID H. HACKWORTH

    Uncle Sam Will Soon Want Your Kids

    Recently, when John Kerry brought up the possibility of a return to the draft, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld was quick to respond that Kerry was full of it.

    But my take is that Kerry is right on the mark. Not only because Rummy has been flat wrong on every major military call regarding Iraq, but because this is a war that won�t be won by smart weapons or the sledgehammer firepower we see every night on the tube.

    Right now � with both our regular and Reserve soldiers stretched beyond the breaking point � our all-volunteer force is tapping out. If our overseas troop commitments continue at the present rate or climb higher, there won�t be enough Army and Marine grunts to do the job. And thin, overworked units, from Special Forces teams to infantry battalions, lose fights.

    Clearly, this war against worldwide, hardcore Islamic believers will be a massive military marathon, the longest and most far-flung in our country�s history. By Christmas, more troops could be needed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but wherever the radical Islamic movement is growing stronger, from the Horn of Africa to Morocco, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen and across Europe � remember Spain?! � to Asia.

    Accordingly, we need to bring our ground-fighting and support units to about the strength they were before the Soviet Union imploded, especially since the proper ratio of counterinsurgent-to-insurgent in places like the Middle East should be around 15 to 1. You don�t have to be a Ph.D. in military personnel to conclude we need more boots on the ground.

    FROM ABC NEWS ONLINE

    US army wants females in combat zones

    The US Army is negotiating with the Pentagon’s civilian leaders a plan to eliminate a women-in-combat ban so it can place mixed-sex support companies within warfighting units, starting with a division going to Iraq in January, says The Washington Times.

    Citing unnamed defence department sources, the newspaper said Army blueprints for a lighter force of 10 active divisions included plans for postings of mixed-sex units.

    A spokesman said the Army is now in discussions with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s staff to see whether the 10-year-old ban in this one area should be lifted, The Times said.

    FROM THE NEW JERSEY STAR-LEDGER

    Charles Thomas tended to wounded soldiers on the sweltering killing fields of Vietnam, helped hurricane victims in Honduras and oversaw finances for soldiers in Bosnia.

    Sometime in the next few weeks, the 58-year-old Army National Guard command sergeant major will leave his wife, Jeanette, their 11-year-old Maltese, Pebbles, walk through the door of his Old Bridge home one final time and head to Iraq.

    “I don’t want to leave my wife, but I have to go,” Thomas said during an interview last week at his house, which the couple is selling. “I made her a deal. I promised her this is my last tour of duty, and she gets a new house.”

    Thomas is among a group of soldiers age 50 and over being called to active duty . Like many, he is a “citizen soldier,” a member of the National Guard or Reserves, where soldiers serve part-time. They tend to be older than their active-duty counterparts and are increasingly being deployed overseas to augment active-duty troops.

    Of the 160,000 men and women deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, 4,119 are 50 or older. At a time in life when most people are looking forward to retirement or eyeing Florida real estate, these soldiers are leaving behind corporate jobs and grandkids. Some even voluntarily postpone military retirement to go to war.

    FROM THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

    WASHINGTON The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans for a draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers in case of a national emergency that overwhelmed the military’s medical corps.
    .
    In a confidential report this summer, a contractor hired by the agency described how such a draft might work, how to secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with health care professionals, whose lives could be disrupted.
    .
    On the one hand, the report said, the Selective Service System should establish contacts in advance with medical societies, hospitals, schools of medicine and nursing, managed care organizations, rural health care providers and the editors of medical journals and trade publications.
    .
    On the other hand, it said, such contacts must be limited, low key and discreet because “overtures from Selective Service to the medical community will be seen as precursors to a draft,” and that could alarm the public.

    FROM THE AUSTRALIAN

    US facing 20,000 insurgents in Iraq

    AMERICAN officials are drawing an alarming new portrait of the insurgency in Iraq, showing it has significantly more fighters and far greater financial resources than had previously been estimated.

    The New York Times reported yesterday that when foreign fighters and the network of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were counted with home-grown insurgents, the hard-core resistance numbered between 8000 and 12,000 people.

    That tally swelled to more than 20,000 when active sympathisers or covert accomplices were included.

    FROM THE SUN HERALD.COM

    U.S.: Soldiers Failed to Report for Duty

    WASHINGTON – More than 800 former soldiers have failed to comply with Army orders to get back in uniform and report for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army said Friday. That is more than one-third of the total who were told to report to a mobilization station by Oct. 17.

    Three weeks ago the number stood at 622 amid talk that any who refused to report for duty could be declared Absent Without Leave. Refusing to report for duty normally would lead to AWOL charges, but the Army is going out of its way to resolve these cases as quietly as possible.

  9. Jason Koulouras says:
    October 23, 2004 at 2:30 pm

    I think both the US (and Canada – if we had a stronger military) should bring the draft/conscription back – it is entirely not fair, not ethical nor reasonable that the entire nation is not involved in this long run fight directly. Wasn’t there something about how none of the sons and daughters of Congress are in Iraq?

  10. edromar says:
    October 23, 2004 at 6:51 pm

    All:

    It is patently obvious that Bush could not get a draft at this time. However, there is a more likely scenario by which Bush can get a draft to enable him to put enough men on the ground to “secure” Iraq. He can, and will (if he gets another term) stir up nuclear war fear hysteria against Iran to enable him to bpmb nuclear facilities in Iran. That, he knows of course, would immediately mobilize Iran to attack our troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq. As Iraq brings our troops in Afghanistan within a circle, Bush counts on being able to get Congressional authorization for a war. The obvious need for troops to fight a 2 front war against a million men in Iraq and Afghanistan and drive them back into Iran will make a draft necessary and create sup[port for it among the numbskulls in the US who support Duh?bya. The only way to avoid this scenario and its ensuing draft is to defeat the dolt.

    Actually, Bush has already initiated a draft of ready reservists who have served all the time they are required to by current law. But Bush is counting on his edict that even those who have resigned after completing their required service must remain in uniform as long as their unit is in Iraq. Over 800 have refused that call and some are suing the governmnet for trying to make them go. Bush has already imposed a back door draft.

    I am advising my daughter in med school to seek an internship in Canada so she can stay out of the grip of the Bush de facto draft for people with skills he needs to propagate his impending pre-emptive wars. There is no end to foreign governments far more dangerous to us than were either Iraq or Afghanistan. But Bush would not be satisfied as long as he could keep popular among his warmongering fundamentalist supporters by starting wars one after the other, never being able to win any but keeping out country in a perpetual state of warfar–as if we were founding a Pax Americana formed on the pattern of the Pax Romana in which there was never real peace, but not enough strength to its enemies to totally endanger it for centuries. Only by defeating the rabid Republicans so thoroughly that theywill drive all the fundamentalists, neo-cons and militarists out, will our country be free of their threats–and their lies that they are not threats. If we really believe their lies we are the ones to blame for letting them get away with it. The brain dead zombies who follow in the death wake of Duh?bya can not be held responsible. But we who have the eyes to see, the ears to hear and the minds to understand are responsible if we leave any Constitutional rock unturned and not thrown at those enemies of the people.

  11. Max Lybbert says:
    October 24, 2004 at 6:24 pm

    Raoul had a long list of news reports from the so-called armchair generals and talking heads that we learned (in the invasion of Iraq) weren’t up-to-speed on current US military doctrine. The reason we won’t need more American soldiers in Iraq than we have today is because the Iraqi army is now taking care of the actual “boots on the ground” missions that are needed. Yes, they take a single city at a time (like Fallujah), but that’s the strategy.

    Edromar stated, “Bush has already initiated a draft of ready reservists who have served all the time they are required to by current law.” This is only a “draft” because Kerry likes to call it one, and because it helps Kerry in his fear-mongering mission. The “ready reserve” means people who are ready to be called up, just as reservists are. Sorry, but the ability to call them up does mean that the law permits them to be required to serve longer, so the phrase, “who have served all the time they are required to by current law,” is incorrect.

    But, more to the point, there is no way this “backdoor draft” could ever morph into the Rangle-inspired draft Kerry is talking about. Why? Because, unlike high school students, the Ready Reserve is made up of people who have already gone through the year-and-a-half of training that would be required of a new recruit.

    Think about it, what is the sense in drafting people that won’t be ready for service for a year-and-a-half?

    Oh, and I thought that Halliburton is getting rich off of handling the support-side duties that servicemen used to do (like runnning cafeterias). The military knew this when it assigned various people to combat and non-combat posts. You volunteer for duty, but the military gets the final word on your actual sassignment.

    And, finally, I remember the military sending me a postcard the month I turned 18 so I could register with Selective Service. After that, I received recruiting material from all branches of the military. No Child Left Behind isn’t going to open any floodgates that aren’t already open.

  12. edromar says:
    October 24, 2004 at 7:59 pm

    Like Duh?byA AND his neocons, Max likes to twist others words and the truth. What I claimed is correct. It is not true that “so the phrase, �who have served all the time they are required to by current law,� is incorrect.” Many of the men now being called up have served all their time required by law in the service. As several recent law suits have pointed out, many are called who are not legitimately members of any military. They have served their time and some even resigned. The fact that the desperate military mongers send them notices is just evidence of the attempt to draft those who don’t have an obligation to go.

  13. Max Lybbert says:
    October 25, 2004 at 5:58 am

    Edromar, can you point me to the public records of those lawsuits? Perhaps the names of the parties involved?

    And, can you explain how the military can legally obligate people to come back to serve if they have served all time required by law? Where did the label “Ready Reserve” come from, for that matter?

    Could the contract they signed have a clause putting them in the Ready Reserve, letting the government decide if they are required to serve longer, perhaps? If so, the sentence was incorrect.

  14. Jardinero1 says:
    October 25, 2004 at 8:11 am

    I know a few “ready reservists”. There is not any difference between a ready reservist and a reservist. The distinction is about how a soldier agrees to fulfill his reserve duty. When your active duty is up you must fulfill a reserve requirement. Depending on your MOS and where you live you may not be needed by your local Reserve Unit. If that be the case you go into the Ready Reserve. This doesn’t mean your reserve requirement has ended only that you don’t go to monthly drills. You are still in the Reserve the same as any other Reservist and subject to the same responsibilities.

    As for suing, reservists do that sometimes when they are called up. My own brother considered suing when his unit was sent to the Balkans during the Clinton Admin. It’s a fruitless endeavor; once you sign on the line and swear the oath, they own you until they say they don’t. There is not a single court in the land that does not understand this. Summary dismissal is the usual outcome.

  15. Max Lybbert says:
    October 25, 2004 at 3:58 pm

    Thank you, Jardineiro. My understanding of the “Ready Reserve” was based on what I could glean from the non-military news. You’ve really cleared things up for me.

  16. raoul says:
    October 27, 2004 at 3:52 pm

    “Yes, they take a single city at a time (like Fallujah), but that�s the strategy”

    LOL!!!

    Haven’t taken Fallujah yet.

    Up to speed on miltary doctrine. The entire Iraq war goes against every single piece of accepted military doctrine taught in our war colleges for the last 50 years.

    Rummy and Bush fired every respectable general who stood in their way until they had Tommy Franks, who happens to be a good guy but no great military mind.

Leave a Reply