Why does the talk of a draft surprise so many?

Do you think they can continue to fight TheEndlessWar on the same batch of volunteers? That we can maintain the MegaEmbassy on the same batch of volunteers?

While you are at it, please question our Dems on how they plan to maintain a presence using the same volunteers?

Someone needs to point out that this is where the rubber meets the road.

For one, if the Democrats want to be reelected, the draft won't be happening. Dubya can't do it without Congressional approval, and anyone who votes in favor can kiss their political careers goodbye.

if anyone has been watching for the past few years, they could tell that Bush and Cheney have been setting every thing in place,. If anyone can't see that he is destroying the military they haven't been watching... The media doesn't report all of the military who have gone AWOL...

but why the *ush administration intensionally broke the back of the American military? Who could not see this coming? Enlistment numbers were dropping like a rock, tours of duty have been extended, troop deaths and wounded soldiers being sent back to war. Why has the Congress permitted this complete destruction of our armed services? And why would we let them draft more into that broken system?

I suspect that if and when Repugnicans attempt to back away from boooshie's war for profit, it's not gonna be too warmly received by his assholiness. This war means more to this shit stain than his own corrupt and crumbling party. In the past, the discussion of a draft was considered political suicide for the GOOP...and why they fought Rangel's motion prior to the '06 elections. Now, seeing his party imploding, boooshie doesn't care about the fates of others anymore. He wants his war, he wants it to go on for years after he's removed. The military is at the stretching point, recruitment is down and those recruited are poor candidates...not the cream of the crop they were getting prior to this invasion. The only way booooshie keeps his war for profit going is gonna be with a draft.

Suprised? Hell No.

at the appropriate times.

Nobody asked WTF?! when Surge supporters & serving Generals said things, "the Surge might work but it cannot last more than ONE ROTATION¹"
and then in practically the NEXT BREATH the same people said things like:
"The US must maintain its pressure against the insurgency in Iraq for TEN YEARS."

NOBODY FROM OUR SIDE HAS BEEN ASKING HOW YOU MAKE 15 MONTHS STRETCH INTO TEN YEARS.

The only answers that could be given to that question are
A) You can't, of course, so we'll have to pack up and leave Iraq.
Or B) We'll find another way to continue the war, when the time comes, with new manpower that hasn't signed up voluntarily (cough draft cough).

Of course there's also
the Magical Answer C) The Surge will fix EVERYTHING about Iraq permanently in just 12-15 months! The Insurgents won't simply wait for us to punch ourselves out, they will choose either to die in a hail of gunfire or to throw down their weapons once and for all. Because they will dead and gone through the magical power of the Surge, we won't have to worry about how to sustain our presence in Iraq beyond the one to one and a half rotations the Surge is scheduled to last.

Since OUR people never asked, their people never HAD to answer. Right at the outset when Surge advocates admitted that it can only last for one rotation would have been the most appropriate time to ask AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTERWARDS? But nobody did. That's how you get halfway through the Surge without the question of its sustainability being raised (and the question of the draft that naturally follows along with it).

1. because we're using all the reserve forces to create the Surge, which means no fresh units in the deployment pipeline.

they are running out of troops and in a way even though I'm against the draft it may be the one thing that gets many more young people involved .

I went through the horror of the draft in the 60's wondering and waiting and trying to decide what I would do if called with the greetings letter . It was a dark time for many my age . However it did force you to take a stand one way or the other .