What prompted all this was a Hearst wire service article noting that the Selective Service was making plans for a “mock” draft exercise that would use computerized models to determine how, if necessary, the government would get some 100,000 young adults to report to their local draft boards.Supposedly, the blogs went wild. I didn't notice that and am not seeing it on Memeorandum (which is my favorite way to see at a glance what's going on in blogdom).
The mock computer exercise, last carried out in 1998, is strictly routine, Selective Service officials said, and it will not actually be run until 2009 — if at all. The exercise has been scheduled several times in the last few years, only to be scuttled each time because of budget and staffing problems, and Mr. Flahavan said he would not be surprised if it was canceled this time around, too.
No matter. With President Bush saying that he wants to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps, the military strained near the breaking point and the secretary of veterans affairs suggesting publicly this week that a reconstituted draft could “benefit” the country, even the notion of a mock exercise seemed to strike a nerve.
The subject of the draft came up on the "Week in Review" radio show I did yesterday with Ed Garvey. You can listen to that if you want to hear somebody -- Ed -- state the typical alarmist position and me respond that the only people who support a draft are those who are anti-military. [ADDED: This part begins at 14:31.]
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"You can listen to that if you want to hear somebody -- Ed -- state the typical alarmist position and me respond that the only people who support a draft are those who are anti-military."
As a former draftee (1966), I agree.
When has Switzerland ever fought in a war? How on earth could they be considered world class?
Anything less for Israel would be annilation.
Switzerland was considered an excellent source of soldiers for centuries. That's why they still guard the Pope to this day.
The last battle (1792) these wimps fought in, they got their asses kicked. Then, on July 29, 1830,
the Swiss regiments, fearful of another massacre, were withdrawn or melted into the crowd. They were not used again.
Here's a fact that you won't find on wikipedia: AllenS has killed more men in one day, than the Swiss guards have since the 1800's. Take a look at the picture posted of these men. They are wearing what is commonly called clown suits. This 60 year old Ojibwa Indian Warrior, armed with only my tomahawk could take those two clowns out, pronto.
What I don't get is why all of our warbloggers aren't recruiting foot soldiers for the clash of civilizations. Can't say as I have ever seen a post, or a link, to help join the fight.
You would think Instapundit, with his huge traffic, would be better served to recruit, rather than hold study groups from his readers.
Cedarford - By your silly logic, I could just as easily say that it was the Red Staters are the ones who supported this war, so it only seems fair that they actually fight it.
The process has been entirely fair thus far. It's a volunteer army. They signed up for it. They should stop complaining if they no longer want to serve. People have to be responsible for their decisions.
Sure - soldiers put their life on the line and for that they should be commended. But so do police officers and firemen. So do people who build skyscrapers. So do trapeze artists. I don't see a difference. They all chose to work in a risky field. Nobody forced them to do it.
The right should be calling for a draft - if they actually want to win the war.
Obviously the number of troops we have is not cutting it. Why not call for a draft, get double the number of people in Iraq and finally install some order over them?
Oh yeah - because George Bush is a wimp.
Right on, Seven.
AllenS said:
"AllenS has killed more men in one day, than the Swiss guards have since the 1800's"
Thanks AllenS for a great reminder why I love the internets. I'd never read your unrefutable point in my daily snooze. They never take their gloves off unless they are bashing the evil Bushco.
Interesting thread, especially considering the awesome power of the American military is run on volunteers (cue Matt Damon), whereas the spit and polish show army of Switzerland uses conscripts.
I'm still giggling over the thought of the Swiss opening up some whoop-ass. They may have the most finely trained military in the world but it never leaves the garage. Romanian miners and Balkan cigarette thieves inspire more fear.
Right on, Seven.
Ann, your analysis of the conversation, is still correct.
We don't need a bigger army to do the killing of people and breaking of things necessary to win in Iraq. We need a more Jacksonian foreign policy tolerant of death and destruction. I can't put it any more starkly.
The left in this country will never go for that. God forbid we should have death or property destruction or prisoners of war in war.
So in your opinion, endless occupation of countries requires no more, or no less bodies, and that the left is dictating rules of engagement in Iraq, and foreign policy run, and hatched by neocon thinktanks. All this, and the left wasn't even able to muscle a measely minimum wage hike through?
I'm going to take a wild guess and say you didn't arrive at this position from anything you've read, or heard from any military planners. But if a righty says something on Althouse, it must be true right.
And I wasn't asking John Hinderaker and Glenn Reynolds to fight, they have important reporting to do. But you don't find it all odd that NONE have ever asked their readers to help join the fight against Islamofacism? No goarmy.com links? We're all supposed to fight with our keyboards?
That's right Seven - You think I'm on the "left" because I'm gay.
It's completely irrelevant if I favor the abolition of the income tax, if I favor the death penalty, if I'm pro-life.
Under your homophobic mindset - if you're a gay - then you're the equivalent of a communist.
How utterly simplistic your worldview must be. The same world where there are WMD's in Iraq and the Iraqi people have welcomed us with open arms.
Just before the 2004 election Ed Garvey wrote on his web site, "You can bet if Bush is re-elected there will be a draft." I wrote back "You're on. 50 bucks. January 20, 2009." I'm looking forward to spending Ed's money.
We are seeing that small numbers of hightech supersoldiers reduced to the same level of war fighting technology as their foe once the occupation started - are not able to get control, not able to restore security, not able to understand the country they patrol from their megabases
Attempts to pacify Afghanistan were made using both the "flood it with zillions of conscripts" and "use small numbers of highly-trained troops" methods. The former was a catastrophic failure; the later has mostly worked so far.
Maybe the small-force thing isn't working in Iraq. That doesn't mean the big-force thing would. The most obvious result of putting more US troops in Iraq would be more dead US troops and more dead Iraqi civilians (less training = less able to tell friend from foe).
Can't say as I have ever seen a post, or a link, to help join the fight.
I assume that incoherent sentence translates as "I've never seen a post or link with instructions on how to join the fight".
Even if it was true that warbloggers don't tell people how to join up (which it obviously isn't), there's the little fact that there are regular ads on TV, radio, and in the paper encouraging people to sign up and telling them how to. I would suggest that anyone who isn't smart enough to find their way to a recruiter's office probably would be better off getting a job more suited to his intelligence level -- janitor, maybe, or Daily Kos commenter. :)
I think we should have a limited draft. In true GOP fashion and tradition, it could be only for the lower half of the income scale. You know, those deadbeats who don't pay ANY taxes. Just drains on society I say. Cannon fodder for the ages.
Only exemptions would be if they bought a Porsche in the past 2 years, had 2 or more kids in private school and were either married to or had a GF named Buffy.
What seems to be missed by many advocating a draft here is that if we still had the size of military that Bush 41 had for Desert Storm, we wouldn't be having these problems. It was the Clinton "Peace Dividend" that, for example, cut the number of active Army divisions in half that resulted in a military that isn't big enough for the current job.
But note - the Desert Storm military of almost twice the current size was also entirely volunteer. It isn't a question of whether we can find enough volunteers, but rather, whether we want to pay for them.
The other problem is that you can't grow the military overnight. The Army's position is that it can safely grow by about 7,00 or so a year and continue to maintain quality. And coincidently, that is how fast it is expected to grow over the next couple of years.
The problem is not at the bottom levels of enlisted or officers, but rather at the mid to senior NCOs and the field grade officers. These have to be carefully nurtured over an extended period of time (a decade or longer) (and this is why the Iraqi military is taking so long to fully come online).
One of the things that seasoned and experienced personel at these levels provides is that American lives are saved. A lot of people have talked about how fast we were able to build a military during WWII. But what they ignore is that throwing our men into combat with unseasoned and inexperienced NCOs and officers killed a lot of them. Yes, we didn't have a choice then, but we do now, and the American people are not willing to live with even a fraction of the level of fatalities that they did back then.
In any case, we are in a position that if we did reinstitute the draft and bring in a lot of unwilling and untrained soldiers, we couldn't effectively integrate them into the military any quicker than we could add them through volunteers - unless we were willing to live with a much higher fatality level than we are right now.
I should also note that the military is pretty uniform about opposing the reinstituted draft. As more than one soldier has asked, how can you trust the guy at your back, if he isn't there voluntarily?
Also note that another problem with a draft for the military is that a large number of the jobs there now take too long to train for. By the time they had finished training, their enlistment would be up or almost up.
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