OT: Resumption Of Draft Gets Little Support

[Guest guest]

Hey y'all,

 

Lotta folks been asking me off line on this .. butts are puckering. ;-)

Been saying it ain't gonna happen and I say it again .. it ain't gonna

happen. Even if Congress tried to push it through it would be over the

dead bodies of a lot of general officers.

 

One more thing .. a major increase in the strength of the Armed Forces

is NOT in the best interests of those in uniform .. and it would be

fought by those same folks. Damn politicians have done that many times

in the past and we know that God and the Soldier are forgotten except in

time of war .. and then comes the big reductions in force which take out

folks who have given a lot to the uniform and had planned to make it a

career .. that sucks! Butch

 

 

Resumption Of Draft Gets Little Support

Miami Herald

July 2, 2004

 

Ignore all those Internet rumors. Despite the U.S. military's desperate

need for more troops, there is no chance that the Bush administration or

Congress will resurrect the draft, short of a new Pearl Harbor.

 

It's just too unpopular politically. Moreover, military experts say that

conscription would hurt the quality and morale of the armed forces.

 

Instead, the Pentagon is examining other options, such as calling up

more members of the National Guard and reserves, extending tours of

active duty, shifting manpower within divisions, and moving troops from

Europe and Asia to meet the urgent needs in Iraq and Afghanistan. In

addition, the Army announced Wednesday that it would call up 5,600

former active duty personnel for another round of service.

 

" A draft? It's just not going to happen, " said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn.,

a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

 

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed

Services personnel subcommittee, agreed: " There is very little support

in Congress for reinstating the draft. "

 

MISLEADING E-MAIL

 

Perhaps those comments will help steady the nerves of many Americans

apparently rattled by an e-mail that is circulating nationwide. It says

that legislation is pending in Congress that would reinstitute the draft

for the first time since 1973, starting as early as next spring. It also

says that the administration is " quietly trying to get these bills

passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections. "

 

There is a kernel of truth to the allegation -- there is a bill pending

that would restart the draft. But the Bush administration opposes it, as

do Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and the leadership of

both the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress. Everyone

remotely in a position to know is quite sure that the bill is going nowhere.

 

" I don't know anyone in the executive branch of the government who

believes that it would be appropriate or necessary to reinstitute the

draft, " Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in April.

 

The bill's primary sponsor is Rep. Charles Rangel, a liberal Democrat

from New York who represents Harlem. Even he admitted that his bill

won't pass. He said he introduced it to get people to discuss who is

doing the fighting in Iraq.

 

" The burdens of war should be fairly shared across all segments of our

society and not fall disproportionately on poor communities as they do

now, " Rangel said in a written statement Wednesday.

 

The Selective Service System even posted a message to debunk the

new-draft myth on its website, www.sss.gov.

 

MANPOWER STRETCHED

 

Fueling fear of a draft is a concern that the wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan have strained military manpower dangerously. The House of

Representatives and the Senate have voted this year to increase the

number of active-duty personnel.

 

But the Bush administration opposes a permanent increase, contending

that the current spike in active-duty personnel is temporary. Instead,

the Pentagon is looking to ease manpower shortages by outsourcing

noncombat operations to private contractors, extending tours, and

integrating National Guard units and reserves into active-duty forces.

Already, the National Guard and reserves make up about 40 percent of

U.S. forces in Iraq.

 

In addition, the Army announced this week that it will call up 5,600

people who recently left the military but still have obligations as

reservists. Army officials admitted that these are involuntary recruits,

but they said the reservists were aware of the obligation when they

signed up.

 

That is a long way from reviving the draft.

 

" It ain't going to happen, " said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant

secretary of defense in the Reagan administration who is now with the

Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.

 

" It's an urban legend, and urban legends die hard, " said Rep. Ed

Schrock, R-Va., a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

 

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