The establishment of a draft will not make war unpopular.

Bringing the ubiquity of warfare closer to the homes and families of the typically unaffected is far more likely to engender the acceptance of warfare as a normality of life.

In particular, a draft will foster the perception, through conflation, that such problems cannot be solved and one can only do what one is told. This is the attitude of the citizens of nations that have a draft.

People don't think in straight lines but in parallel clusters of related, mutually supporting ideologies. If there is a draft, the average person is likely to assume that it's necessary.

It is poor legislation that tries to trick people into believing things. It is VERY poor legislation that tries to trick people into believing that something is bad by *making them do it* with the avoidance of the same punishable by prison. The conflation of draft avoidance with criminality did not dissipate before, during or after the Vietnam War.

I disagree with yours.

Every Israeli who is able-bodied, male or female, serves in their armed forces. Did that magically make Israel a peaceful nation?

:shrug:

Deflection with something funny & silly isn't an answer.

Did it cause Israel to be more peaceful?

Agree with it or not, Rangel's aim is to make war the subject of a broader, deeper, personal, national debate.

Do you have a dog in any of these fights?

If we start a draft now we'll have troops to save the Libyans and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan for a long as the Israelis have occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

Everyone has one.

:eyes:

They are very stupid fuckers these drafters.

be forced to fight one...this country will be nothing but war..making war stuff and selling it around the world...and that will be whatever jobs are here in this country will have something to do with war..and that we will have private forces... Christan of course...

is if Congress is voting on sending their own kids and
those of the Elites to war, they will think twice.

No exceptions allowed.

Draft wouldn't stop the wars, and that real possibility ought to stop people from supporting a draft. Unless they actually support warfare, I suppose.

People will believe whatever is necessary, given their circumstances. The wall the legislation is trying to push people against is *cognitive* and, therefore, FRAGILE.

ignoring of the wars.

THAT'S what the MIC wants - perpetual warfare that nobody talks about.

Why are we in two major and numerous brushfire wars right now? 1) Those fighting are all volunteers; 2) low US casualty rates; 3) little perceived effect on the general public. The entire reason for the abandonment of the draft was to mute public opposition to our wars - it had nothing to do with professionalism or military readiness. It had everything to do with the difference between a kid signing up, and his folks getting a letter from the Defense Department, and a kid being taken against his will and HIS folks getting that letter.

From 1900 to 1940, we fought in the Spanish American war (no draft), Philippine Insurrection (no draft), Mexico (no draft), WW1 (draft), @12 different Central American/Caribbean actions in Guatamala, Honduras, Haiti etc. (no draft).

1940 - 1974: WW2, Korea, Lebanon, Dominican Republic, Vietnam. Draft through it all.

1974 - Present: Cambodia (Mayaguez incident), Iran (rescue op), Lebanon (again), Grenada, Somalia, Iraq, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan - not to mention the unmentioned actions in Colombia, Philippines, Indonesia, Yemen and whatever else they're not talking about.

So, clearly, we've involved ourselves militarily far more often when we've NOT had a draft than when we had one. Most often, in short, quick nasty little fights where there has not been time enough for public sentiment to build up against the war.

Personally, I think if there was a new draft there should be no option for 'other service' - you KNOW that the 'other service' will be populated by the same types as did their Vietnam service in the National Guard, and the combat services will fill up with the poor and minorities.

OTOH, a volunteer 'other service' with rewards equivalent to the GI Bill should be available.

I don't care if they are poor, middle class, rich, working class, black, white, Republican or Democrat, or anything else.

Imagine what W might have done had he the cannon fodder that a military draft would have given him. It's easy to get into wars, but a lot harder to get out of them and even if you do by that time there may be thousands dead.

A reality check: rich kids will only very rarely be in harm's way in the military no matter how very, very much we wish it to be different here.

For all we know they're children could have better sense than them.

This war anytime/blank check crap would slowed down quite nicely.

Avoidance of draft carries prison time - do you think the average citizen will choose prison over the battlefield?

the U.S. keeps cramming more and more people inside its borders while the percentage of soldiers continues to fall as a part of that pie.

Add in the graying of the population and the various obesity and other automatic health disqualifiers and it is clear that you would never reach any sort of critical mass politically. You would just be creating a more embittered less effective military that would be used for the same ends.

If anything it would jeopardize Democrats and lead to more Republicans being elected and thus paradoxically more war and suffering.

... which is enough by itself, leaving out the infuriating, persistent and total-reversal-of-cause-and-effect belief that the war ended because of the draft rather than that the *draft* ended because of the *war*.

If the person who is on the hook for fighting wars and doesn't believe in it, they are most likely going to be less reluctant to support it.

The same could be said about fire departments. If you are told to go into a burning building that the occupant started intentionally to retrieve their personal effects you will more then likely resist. One the other hand, if you have volunteered for the job, are paid and trained for it, you more then likely not too concerned about the reason it started.

The far side of the spectrum would be mercenaries.

I've got articles from the Civil War about how unpopular the draft was even back then.

Perhaps it's unpopularity relates to IT.

Rich and privileged got draft deferments, the poor and underprivileged got drafted and died by the thousands....hardly was accepted by the masses.

because the whole population was available as cannon fodder.

It affected the election of 1968, literally ushering in Nixon after an otherwise popular President had decided to opt out and the residual policies he forced upon his heir-apparent sank the Democratic Campaign.

I completely disagree with your contention, and think that if everyone is at risk, we would be more judicious about our warmaking. These current wars have been way too low-profile as they've been shunted into the background, and this is not a good thing. Charlie Rangel is correct on this point, in my opinion, and many others are of the same mind.

The war itself began in 1955, no?

Please - be smart enough to take that one tool away.

... how can you be making this basic mistake? What possible basis can you have for assuming that the increase of this class war tool's recruitment opportunities is going to make it less effective? What you are proposing is handing it personnel on a plate - do you believe it will not avail itself of this opportunity? Or that its nature will change based on its new recruitment pool?

You do understand that draft avoidance carries prison time?

The tool you describe cannot be changed by forcing the populace to participate in it. The populace does not have the power to change the tool. At present the situation is that the tool only has power over the populace with their consent. What you are supporting is giving the tool power over the populace! At what point will the flower of resistance come to bloom and *then* be acknowledged by those able to use the legislation to further their own ends? when 50,000 avoid draft? 100,000? A million? Will this be before or after substantial numbers have been sacrificed to alter the perceptions of warfare?

What *window of opportunity* are you offering this tool of class warfare *in between* the time of the establishment of the legislation and the final sickening of it and its withering? How many more wars will it feel emboldened to pursue knowing that it can train and deploy such a vast number of people? How many more lies will it be willing to manufacture to absorn *even more* resources? And what guarantee is there that it will relinquish this new recruitment pool *at all*? What woul dmake it change its mind? A protest of 50,000? 100,000? A million? What recent developments over the last decades in the political narrative might we use as a basis for comparison in matters concerning the unpopularity of warfare?

You work from the assumption that the populace will resist - this is NOT a given. You seek to push the populace against the wall to make them act but you must see that they do not control the levers of power. It is the power-structure that decides on warfare, not the populace. The populace, of ANY political system, relies on a core structure to guide it, it only takes its own power, typically at great expense, through armed insurrection. The governed may remove support for the use of the tool, but they cannot *change* the tool.

The wall you seek to push the populace against is cognitive, and, therefore FRAGILE. You risk pushing them through it into a legitimisation of permanent warfare.

Did I not make this clear? Which part of my reasoning do you disagree with?

To put it bluntly, how many lives are you willing to risk - *without* their consent - to prove a point?

Part of the draft.

And it was the draft that ended the viet nam conflict.

It's the the very real possibility that your 'class' won't save you that helped
To end that war.

It's hard for the anti-war movement to turn that around.

But if we want to stop war - stupid war - then every one has to have a child in the game.

In my opinion if we have a draft it should be universal- men, women, rich, poor, no 'easy-outs'.

The 'all volunteer Army' is very appealing to many. But I don't think it's done us any favors.
I think the dis-connect that people are allowed to feel by reassuring themselves that "someone else will do it"- is destructive.

It doesn't require everyone to bear responsibility.

Avoiding having a draft hasn't helped us avoid war. It hasn't reigned in the military complex, or caused us to live in this world more responsibly.

I have draft age sons. My youngest will be required to register this year.

This shouldn't be something that only a select group of our population affected by.

And, more people will learn how to spell "deferment" properly.

But, you see, they don't, and they never will.

It is absolutely stupid to think that the rich will send their children to war. They won't. They never have and they never will. Some rich children may have gone because they, themselves, wouldn't have it any other way, but to think that the draft makes things equal is just ridiculous thinking. Skewed. Asinine. The rich will never have to serve. Never.
DO NOT BRING BACK THE DRAFT.

"to think that the draft makes things equal is just ridiculous thinking. Skewed. Asinine. The rich will never have to serve. Never.
DO NOT BRING BACK THE DRAFT."

It just can't be said any better than that.

i have three sons.
the oldest did three deployments in Iraq with First Cavalry.
he is on his second as a private contractor when he couldn't get a job as a civilian/veteran.

People,in general, don't even know we are at war.... STILL.
There are over 150 million adults in the USA. Less than 2 million have served in a war zone since 2001- and 10% of those are females in a war zone.

I deal with the aftermath with my volunteer work with NCHV.I see the effects of TBI and PTSD.Most people don't even know what those are-since they don't know anyone who has actually served.

I've seen how the nation supports its veterans.

I'd love to see the wars end.I have fought publicly to end them since 2004.I'd love to see real employment for our veterans.Young veterans have a 20% unemployment rate.
Neither seems to be a reality until our nation is shocked into reality.
Watching the news nightly to get a glimpse of what your son is seeing and experiencing is today's version of everyone sitting around the radio in the 40's.

I spent every night from 11/2002 through 05/2007 watching the news.

I still watch the news as my son remains in Afghanistan.there is NO coverage of our presence in two war zones.


turn your back if you have no one over there....you are in the vast majority.


war perpetuates.

and why? Is there new legislation being proposed somewhere that's started this?
It's hard to keep up.