The draft as an anti-war strategy.

Liberals who call for a draft are sorely misguided if they think it will slow down the war machine. Yes, it may up opposition to the war (or whatever future wars a second term Bush Administration has planned), but the war machine, far from slowing down, will only be provided with ever more warm bodies for the latest, trendy neoconservative lab experiment in whatever country they have in mine.

Will some kids resist and refuse to serve? Of course they will. Perhaps thousands will, but they will be replaced by docile, compliant young people who will just go off to war because the government says they have to go.

Try and see the world from outside the lens of DU: most people are relatively non-ideological and apathetic about politics. This is especially true among young adults, and I have seen it with my own eyes in the five years I have been teaching. For every rebellious teenager or collge kid there are two or three more who have been conditioned all their lives to respect authority and do what they are told. Implementing the draft as an anti-war strategy is doomed to failure, and worst of all it is moral atrocity.

Yes, some young people are self-absorbed and apathetic. Politics is boring and they don't connect it with their real lives.

But no parent wants their kid to die for oil (or in some cases, the Iraqis). I don't advocate the draft, but I do understand this angle of the argument for it. Forcing the issue will make it crystal clear to the fence-sitters that we need to get out of Iraq as of yesterday.

On the other hand, I think the draft is inconsistant with democratic principles.

Who are all these "liberals" calling for a draft?"

What's up with your photo showing JK in a hunting outfit? You must have a point in choosing that as your signature photo.

Co-sponsored by John Conyers, Neil Abercrombie, Pete Stark and 9 other liberal Democrats, all of whom opposed the war.

and that if the Busholes get in for another four years a draft won't begin to slow down the war machine. But I also think that if we, as a group, support a war, then we, as group, must fight it. It disgusts me that Americans largely supported this stupid war -- and I think they did because they had nothing whatsoever at stake. It's so easy to fight a war with other people's husbands, wives, mothers, fathers...

Instituting a draft would slap Americans with a little reality: that war is more than a few smart bombs on the TV screen.

Not that I would support a draft, when push came to shove. I have two sons and they ain't dying for no oil. I'd move to Sweden and request political asylum. But I think the Dems are making a valid point.