Police State: Bringing Back the Draft

Iraq has lost MORE than we ever have in this war. We're attacking Iraq WITHOUT REASON PEOPLE !!! The godamned terrorist group alqeda attacked us, NOT IRAQ. Bush is gunna draft our CHILDREN to fight a nation that did nothing against us?

For EIGHT #ing year's, clinton kept us out of war, within mere month's, bush put's us in war .. a war that RUINED our nation. Clinton had a PLAN to fix our debt within 10 yrs, BUSH #ED THAT PLAN. We're seriously #ed u idiotic bush lover's. Go # him in the ass u # monkey's.

Back to the draft issue.. Until something changes within our force structure, i.e. bringing the troops home from S. Korea and/or Germany, we are on a sure course for the re-statement of the draft.

Here is an article from Salon.com regarding the issue of the draft being bandied about. If you consider the current escalations in Iraq and the trend.. and consider the number of troops needed to get security under control.. The Bush administration may very well have no choice.

Oiling up the draft machine?
The Pentagon is quietly moving to fill draft board vacancies nationwide. While officials say there's no cause to worry, some experts aren't so sure.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Dave Lindorff



Nov. 3, 2003 | The community draft boards that became notorious for sending reluctant young men off to Vietnam have languished since the early 1970s, their membership ebbing and their purpose all but lost when the draft was ended. But a few weeks ago, on an obscure federal Web site devoted to the war on terrorism, the Bush administration quietly began a public campaign to bring the draft boards back to life.

"Serve Your Community and the Nation," the announcement urges. "If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men ... receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service."

Local draft board volunteers, meanwhile, report that at training sessions last summer, they were unexpectedly asked to recommend people to fill some of the estimated 16 percent of board seats that are vacant nationwide.

Especially for those who were of age to fight in the Vietnam War, it is an ominous flashback of a message. Divisive military actions are ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. News accounts daily detail how the U.S. is stretched too thin there to be effective. And tensions are high with Syria and Iran and on the Korean Peninsula, with some in or close to the Bush White House suggesting that military action may someday be necessary in those spots, too.


Not since the early days of the Reagan administration in 1981 has the Defense Department made a push to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots. Recognizing that even the mention of a draft in the months before an election might be politically explosive, the Pentagon last week was adamant that the drive to staff up the draft boards is not a portent of things to come. There is "no contingency plan" to ask Congress to reinstate the draft, John Winkler, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary for reserve affairs, told Salon last week.

Increasingly, however, military experts and even some influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to consider a draft to fully staff the nation's military in a time of global instability.

"The experts are all saying we're going to have to beef up our presence in Iraq," says U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat. "We've failed to convince our allies to send troops, we've extended deployments so morale is sinking, and the president is saying we can't cut and run. So what's left? The draft is a very sensitive subject, but at some point, we're going to need more troops, and at that point the only way to get them will be a return to the draft."

Full article:

www.salon.com...

Originally posted by Cearbhall
I have friends over there and I know of people who say the Iraqi people are happy we came to destroy Saddam. You don't hear it from the news because it doesn't sell.

I *did* hear about this myself...But since we've been in "occupation" for so long *after* Sodamn Insane was ousted, I've been hearing them talk about how it's way past time *we* got out too.

Originally posted by Cearbhall
As I believe in mine. It is all relative.

Ah, but is it wise to *continue* believing in a mission once you've seen enough evidence that makes a lie of it? Evidence & the sharing of info is what we're all about here at ATS. I *did* serve under Bush I & saw the lie right then & there...And Bush II isn't even half the man his dad is!

Originally posted by EastCoastKid

Originally posted by KrazyIvan
what about enlistment on my own?

KrazyIvan, I salute your sense of patriotism, although I do not support what this current administration is doing with regard to foreign policy.

I just hope for your sake, when you (hopefully) come out on the other side of your enlistment, your love of duty and country remains in tact.

When do you leave?

ill be leaving in the summer of 2004. and it will believe me

[Edited on 11-4-2003 by KrazyIvan]

I would rather swallow a shotgun and kill myself than go to a foreign land and kill another in the name of freedom. In killing them, I take away their right to their family, the right to see their wife or child again, their right to security. I have no desire to be an agressor. When it comes to defense, I would fight with every possible means to preserve the freedoms of those I care about, until that point, count me out.

P.S.--NEO-CONS and draft supporters--I don't need replies from you begging me to swallow a shotgun because i'm not a good red blooded amerikkkan or whatever. Take your draft and stick it in your ass.

Originally posted by MidnightDStroyer

Ah, but is it wise to *continue* believing in a mission once you've seen enough evidence that makes a lie of it? Evidence & the sharing of info is what we're all about here at ATS. I *did* serve under Bush I & saw the lie right then & there...And Bush II isn't even half the man his dad is!


Amen to that!

Originally posted by KrazyIvan

Originally posted by EastCoastKid

Originally posted by KrazyIvan
what about enlistment on my own?

I just hope for your sake, when you (hopefully) come out on the other side of your enlistment, your love of duty and country remains in tact.

ill be leaving in the summer of 2004. and it will believe me

[Edited on 11-4-2003 by KrazyIvan]

No one can fathom war until they've seen it and felt it for themself. And no one but the war-scarred veteran can fathom the anger and feeling of bitterness at the knowledge of their government's betrayal.
Good luck, KrazyIvan.

I sho would love to have some'a what Paul Wolfowitz is obviously smoking...

Will U.S. bring back the draft?
Defence Web site seeks volunteers
Conscription abolished in '73


TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON�A call from the U.S. Defence Department for volunteers to sit on local draft boards has sparked debate here about whether a nationwide military draft could ultimately be needed to complete Washington's Iraq mission.

A number of analysts said yesterday that while any public suggestion of a draft would be politically suicidal for U.S. President George W. Bush in an election year, he could find himself with few other options if he is returned for a second term and the fighting in Iraq is still raging.

Bush, touring fire-ravaged regions of California yesterday, again vowed troops will never cut and run in Iraq, even as attacks on Americans escalate.

The draft was abolished here three decades ago as the Vietnam War wound down, and the defence department notice about draft boards is on an obscure link on its Web site.

But as debate swirls about the capabilities of the beleaguered U.S. military, the Pentagon is calling for volunteers to "Serve Your Community and the Nation." It says the Selective Service System "wants to hear from men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board."

If conscription becomes necessary, it says, 2,000 local and appeal boards would need volunteers. The boards would decide who would go to war and who could defer their service in the event of a national call-up to boost the currently all-volunteer military.

"This is significant," said Ned Lebow, a presidential scholar at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and former professor of strategy at the National War College in Washington.

"What the department of defence is doing is creating the infrastructure to make the draft a viable option should the administration wish to go this route."

He said it is the first public call to reconstitute draft boards since the compulsory draft was abolished in 1973.

Pentagon officials did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.
www.thestar.com.../Layout/Arti cle_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1067987409688&call_pageid=968332188492

ECK,

I'm a little confused, I thought the boards are always running in contigency mode. As in, the personnel are already selected and meet on some regular basis..?

Originally posted by kukla
ECK,

I'm a little confused, I thought the boards are always running in contigency mode. As in, the personnel are already selected and meet on some regular basis..?

The framework is in place if needed. They need only to activate it, I suppose.

This is a brilliant commentary by a former Pentagon insider.

Neocon-Friendly Solutions for Manning Shortfalls in the War Against Terror

by Karen Kwiatkowski
by Karen Kwiatkowski


The men and women serving in the military are becoming quite a drag on the neo-Jacobin plan for global freedom through military domination and cultural emasculation. Sure, American soldiers, sailors, airman and marines show up early, stay late and fight like hell. Yes, they follow orders from the great leaders appointed above them and somehow still make it work in the field.

But all those demands for expensive bulletproof vests and proper equipment are getting old. Soldiers are worried sick about being shot up with vaccine cocktails and shot down when they try to get health care afterward. Wounded soldiers cause media problems when they mention they are required to pay for their hospital meals or don�t have air conditioning. Today, soldiers must be constantly watched and lectured to prevent embarrassment � either fighting to keep their men alive or making the comments out loud that are on everyone�s mind. Trading citizenship (before or after death, your choice) for military duty to the state is working, but not nearly well enough to implement Global Domination Version 1.0.

The parents and families are no better. What are they thinking sending their sons, husbands, daughters and wives commercial military equipment and making the system look incompetent and callous? Bring Them Home Now and all the rest of the "don�t be hating" crowd make a good neoconservative wonder what ever happened to patriotism. I once thought liberty meant never needing to have a zampolit in every military unit. But neo-Jacobin liberty apparently won�t succeed without it.

Poor challenged neoconservatives, those central planners of global utopia. No offense to the average red-blooded volunteer American soldier, but it may be that you�re more trouble than you are worth in the eyes of the chickenhawk cadres who sent you to Iraq and Afghanistan to build heavily secured outposts of Pax Americana.

Apparently, moving to a draft in this age of 2.1 kids per American family would cause a political mushroom cloud directly over the White House, generating a shock wave that would flatten the Capital Building. Oops. Hold that thought! Staying on theme is the very model of a modern major neo-con, so what about mini-nukes in lieu of the draft? Small, five kiloton yield battlefield nuclear weapons would be great at blowing things up, like small Muslim cities, and perhaps later � after they become popular enough and the price comes down � small Midwestern American cities as well. The one pictured above was called Hornet, set off in 1955, and it was only 4 kilotons. And they will all be made in America, keeping the fat cats at United Defense and others purring like kittens. Damn, we could even name them after the leading neoconservatives at the Pentagon and National Review!

The rest:
www.lewrockwell.com...

republicans are the reason this country is falling apart

Sorry, I hate to say it. But nothing short of revolution is gonna stop it.

Oil is the name of the game.

Originally posted by darkwraith
Sorry, I hate to say it. But nothing short of revolution is gonna stop it.

Oil is the name of the game.

Sad, but true, Darkwraith.

Revolution might be ignited if the draft is re-instated.

Those ideas are congruent with the ideas of the members of our current administration who are living out their fantasies of war without having to fight for anything. Its easy to send people to war from some lofty position of power when you never have to confront anyone. These are people who are in love with the idea of war who have never seen the true nature of it all. Bush was a freaking draft dodger and he wants to act out some messianic cowboy fantasy to reconcile his cowardice from earlier in his life. Ive spent my time in the desert and I know the sentiments of my fellow Marines. A true warrior confronts his ego and doesn't bring it on to the battlefield, and our president is full of ego and has never been on the battlefield.

You could always vote the bastard out of office.

I don't think it should be 60 year old congress members who vote on the draft, it should be the 18 to 30 year olds who might actually get sent off to fight. Of course that would never happen.

When I first started voting, I really felt like what I was doing was probably having some effect. However, the more I understatnd about our current political system, the more I am convinced that our votes are purely symbolic and that we are spectators in a spectator democracy. The presidency is vaguely reminiscent of the rule of the tsars, with a group of self interested businessmen dictating policy to a reigning political dynasty. The will of the people is undefined, shut down through the discouragement of voters through rigged political scandal and bureaucratic hoop jumping.

I think the draft just came a step closer, Seattle PI picked up on the rumblings..

seattlepi.nwsource.com...

Originally posted by NotTooHappy
My dad burned his draft card and so will I. There's no reason for it other than population control. They just want to thin the heard. It's Bull#!

No sweat. My father served in his place, and I in yours. AS long as real men are willing to stand in the gap between the enemy and the women, we will survive. Well, that and an intelligent citizenry. Come to think of it, we're in trouble.