Do yout think the neothugs want to reinstate the draft?

We've seen how nixing veterans' benefits has dropped enlistment.

Ditto for all the deaths.

Ditto for what the soldiers have to pay over there.

Ditto for the latest atrocity where dead bodies are being shipped back in faceless boxes, as if they're a nuisance rather than people that have fought and died for freedom and all the other words that the pusillanimous cretin in office* has spewed.

So, when will they put in the draft?

And how many more will risk far worse by dodging the draft?

And at this point, how many think America is worth defending, thanks to the actions of those in power?

It's all hypothetical, really...

all of the jobs and the military will win by default.

1) They want to do it on the cheap. Bush is acting like a real CEO, using a minimum number of troops (employees) and returning them over and over again for more tours in Iraq. In other words, smaller work force and make the employees work harder.
2) They'd lose the youth vote in a heartbeat. The little "Rambo's" who are advocating for the Iraq war now would change their minds about it overnight if there was a draft. So would their parents.

oops, that's where Israel is coming into play...

Didn't you know that Americans won WWII all by themselves?

If that war had been fought with an all volunteer army, we might be there yet, because I think Nixon and or Johnson would have been smart enough not to cut veteran's benefits and to do sane rotations in and out of the theater by boosting enlistments.

Though it might be amusing to watch the Young Republicans on campuses become incontinent when they find out that they have to don a uniform and not go on to get their MBAs.

where the only alternative to being ultra-rich or one of their (ever shrinking) band of whores and enforcers will be to volunteer to serve in the military.

It's the way they like it. Control all the conditions then blame the victims for their own choices

HypnoToad, this also relates to your thread about the treatment of rapists and murderers vs treatment of the poor in America these days. Neocons CREATE the situation, then blame the victims for the choices they made.

Wish I had better news for you.

We all remember what that was like. In the runup to the Iraq war, Republicans were just waiting to pounce on any Democrat who voiced any opposition, for an opportunity to stigmatize them as "unpatriotic". The Democrats, with few exceptions, placated the Republicans and voted along with them. Now, when the Republicans realize that this war is a disaster and only bound to get worse, they can label it a "bipartisan" war and spread the blame. Joe Lieberman becoming Secretary of Defense would be an evil but brilliant move by the Bush administration.

Rummy refused half the needed troops - when generals said they needed 300,000 in Iraq - because he didn't want to pay those salaries. He wants smart bombs and toys like small nukes.

He doesn't care how hard the war is or many ounces of blood he has to extract from every soldier or national guard member.

Just so long as the vast majority of americans can have their heads soon returned to the sand (head in sand) the better. Then the war will be going "well" again. It is all in the mind.

And a draft would shoot a bullet through everybody's heart.

That will never happen.

Instead schools that teach gun love in gym class. And poverty - neocons want great amounts of painful poverty so people scramble for those war jobs - just so they can support their grandmother or have two cents to buy a beer or perhaps a DVD player.

The 19th Century all over again!

I was a conscientious objector in the Vietnam War & sometimes I think a draft would be a good thing precisely because it would bring these wars home in a way that a volunteer army doesn't.
If Americans are soft and children (as I hear said now and then) it might have something to do with the fact that we can escape the consequences of our country's actions.
I sometime feel that every generation should have to contend with a draft so that they really have to look the beast straight in the face.
I suspect this is part of why someone like Charles Rangel puts draft bills up for consideration in the House of Representatives. He's certainly not a neo-con.

I think they will just continue to squeeze the poor and middle class until the only economic opportunity is enlisting.

It would put a stop to their war mongering immediately and they have a world to conquer before that happens..

It opens every set of eyes to what the real deal is. It would crash the war support, what little is left, in a heartbeat.

and servitude to the aristocracy

"Say, kid - want to go to college or get post-HS training for that (increasinly scarce) good job? Just sign up for a few years with your 'ole Uncle Sam."
And they will if they don't see any other way to advance themselves. And they, and thieir parents, will cross their fingers and hope they get out of the experince alive and with all their appendages and with those $$$ for college that they were promised.
And if they don't, they, and their parents will suffer.
But the "powers" who sent them in harms way (and whose own lucky offspring are spending the same years in the college-of-their-choice or some other safe environment) will cluck and say too bad, but after all it was "their choice."
Makes me mad, and scared, and want to bang my head and cry, all at the same time.