Draft

April 19th, 2007

Mission accomplished.

Via: Marine Corps Times:

The Senate Armed Services Committee heard testimony Tuesday that increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps may not resolve severe and growing personnel problems. There was even talk of returning to the draft to fill the ranks.

“It is better to take a smaller force than to lower your standards,” said Lawrence Korb, a former senior Pentagon personnel official now affiliated with the Center for Defense Information and the Center for American Progress.

“The current use of ground forces in Iraq represents a complete misuse of the all-volunteer military,” he said.

The all-volunteer force was never designed for a protracted ground war, but that is exactly what it faces, he said.

“If the United States is going to have a significant component of its ground forces in Iraq over the next five, 10, 15 or 30 years, then the responsible course is for the president and those supporting this open-ended and escalated presence in Iraq to call for reinstating the draft.”

Posted in War | Top Of Page

8 Responses to “Draft”

  1. Mark says:

    It ain’t gonna fly. As much as I realize how much of a police state the US has become, a draft ain’t gonna work in this day and age. It would be Vietnam all over again, even if Canada & Mexico cooperate by throwing back draft-escapees back to the US, today’s 18 year old kids just won’t go for it. They’ll find a way out.

  2. snowden says:

    I dearly hope there will be a draft. As the military
    is now a co-ed force, that would put every American of draft age (18 – 42) in the position of having to support the war and the present administration with more than just little flags and cheap slogans. Given the choice of personaly fighting the war, or ending it, I think this whole nightmare would quickly come to an end.

  3. tmb says:

    There will be a draft as soon as the U.S. Economy crashes and burns (it might not be called a draft then, it might just be called eating . . .). The USA is in Iraq for the next 30 years until the oil runs out, end of story regardless of whether a corporate Democrat or Republican is president or which party runs Congress. The whole plan was to create 4 super military bases there after leaving Saudi Arabia and to prevent the Euro from being used in oil transactions instead of the dollar (which is why Bush, Cheney, etc. actually do consider the whole thing a “success” – – their definition not the average peon, er, US citizen who is “against” the war – – they could carelesswhat the peons think, by the way), which they have done spending billions, and the only retreat from Iraq will be off the streets to let the people kill themselves in the induced civil war while the U.S. Military mans these bases and watches over the flow of oil and trillions of dollars, gold, whatever has any value by then, to be made by those in the connected “overclass” that run things by secret agreement, contrary to what the peons, er citizens, think is the case in their “free” country . . .

  4. Wonkette says:

    Senate Told It’s Time To Reinstate Military Draft…

    There must’ve been something else in the news Tuesday, because we totally missed this sorta interesting hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee about reinstating the draft. Pentagon wonk Lawrence Korb told the senators that the volunte…

  5. bob m says:

    once unemployment and food costs reach a tipping point, the draft will be reinstated. at that point all those unemployed and hungry will be asked to serve their country, and they will do so at the tines of a fork not the barrel of a gun.

    by the way, has anyone seen many bees in their neighborhood lately?

  6. fallout11 says:

    Just bumblebees. The regular honeybees are all but gone.

  7. slomo says:

    Honeybee colonies have been declining steadily since WW2. In preparation for a manuscript that was later abandoned, I analyzed USDA NASS data from the early 90s to the present. What emerges is that there is a steady (log-)linear decrease in colonies in most states, and that in many states, honey production per colony has also been decreasing steadily. My coauthor decided to abandon the paper because the NASS data are suspect for many reasons having to do with migration of beekeepers and heterogeneity in reporting standards among states; but also because the issue was becoming too political. In any case, it does appear that things have been steadily getting worse over the past couple of decades.

  8. impat says:

    A draft sounds like it’s being raised as tactiacl effort to get other things fixed, but the fact it is being discussed at all is always signficant.

    A limited draft is quite likely soon, but only for specialty fields that cannot be filled via rotation juggling. Medical peopel are probably first in line, and they may offer some sort of student loan forgivenss for new grads if they sign up for a year or two. Might actually work.

    More on how a medical draft is kept on hot standby here in a NYT story from 2004:

    Here

    U.S. Has Contingency Plans for a Draft of Medical Workers
    By ROBERT PEAR

    ASHINGTON, Oct. 18 – The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans for a draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers in case of a national emergency that overwhelms the military’s medical corps.

    In a confidential report this summer, a contractor hired by the agency described how such a draft might work, how to secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with health care professionals, whose lives could be disrupted.

    On the one hand, the report said, the Selective Service System should establish contacts in advance with medical societies, hospitals, schools of medicine and nursing, managed care organizations, rural health care providers and the editors of medical journals and trade publications.

    On the other hand, it said, such contacts must be limited, low key and discreet because “overtures from Selective Service to the medical community will be seen as precursors to a draft,” and that could alarm the public.

    … more

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