Pending Draft Legislation Targeted for Spring 2005

[wreck]

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=5834001&content_dir=ua_congressorg


There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 -- just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately.


Quite interesting but I have no idea how this is taken by the public. The yanks are very patriotic, as we all know, and one would think this is a good thing.

[mi35d]

Doubtful it would take effect. Too many years of the "volunteer" military.

I believe a conscription program is a good thing. Although it smacks of Stalinist Russia or Hitler's Germany, mandatory National Service could be a good thing. Say, a two year commitment. You can go into any one of the military branches, the peace corp, or some other work program within the country. Completion of service would allow you access to government loans, grants, etc. for college. (Or preferential listing for such programs.) The effect on college dropout and completion rate would be tremendous. Starting college a few years after High School - more maturity, etc. Plus, there's the feeling of ownership as you've EARNED the right to attend collge.

There is a sense of national unity knowing that you've "served" your country. Even in our "volunteer" military, I enjoy the common bond I have with people I bump into and find out that they've been "in service". An old crusty Marine at the Korean War memorial, or a guy in line at McDonald's.

[BlackRain]

The story that would not die.

Flash Traffic: There will be no draft! I repeat no draft.

The story is propogated by Democrats in an effort to scare young voters and vote Democratic in upcoming presidential election.


Example:

U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings (DEMOCRAT- South Carolina) last night introduced the Universal National Service Act of 2003, a bill to reinstate the military draft and mandate either military or civilian service for all Americans, aged 18-26. The Hollings legislation is the Senate companion to a bill recently introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Charles Rangel (DEMOCRAT-N.Y.) and Rep. John Conyers (DEMOCRAT-Mich.).

Here is the denial of the draft straight from the horse's mouth: The Pentagon!

Pentagon can't seem to kill idea of military draft


Tuesday, June 1, 2004 1:35 PM CDT



WASHINGTON (AP) - No matter what the Pentagon says, the idea of restarting the military draft never seems to go away.

Defense officials say they don't want it. Polls show the American public doesn't either. So why do lawmakers keep suggesting that conscription be reconsidered?

Since the fall of 2002, when the Bush administration asked Congress to approve force against Iraq, the Defense Department has said repeatedly that it sees no reason to abandon the all-volunteer, professional military and return to the days when thousands of untrained men were forced into service.

"I don't know anyone in the executive branch of the government who believes it would be appropriate or necessary," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said again recently.


Recent polling indicates four out of five Americans surveyed oppose resuming the draft, which would appear to seal its fate as a dead issue during an election year.

"It's an idea whose time may never come," said Charles Moskos, a Northwestern University sociologist who studies military issues.

Still, lawmakers keep questioning whether perhaps a draft may be needed, even as proposed legislation on it goes nowhere.

Analysts say there are two main reasons the idea keeps coming back. One is that even with its 1.4 million active-duty volunteers and thousands more reservists, the United States seems to have too few troops for the wars it is fighting.

The other is a kind of guilt that the cost of the wars is being paid by very few Americans, analysts said.

The war in Iraq, coming on top of the global war on terrorism, has caused unprecedented strain on U.S. armed forces. The Defense Department has stopped thousands of soldiers from leaving when their enlistment times were up, made some stay longer in Iraq than the promised year, made unprecedented use of the National Guard and Reserve forces and is bringing troops from Korea for the first time in decades as it struggles to maintain more than 138,000 in Iraq.

Officials say they can continue using those same methods, as well as incentives to get sufficient volunteers. Rumsfeld further says the high amount of military activity now probably is temporary - "a spike."

Even if most troops come out of Iraq within several years, the war against al-Qaida and other terror networks could last decades. There is no predicting how many more sizable military campaigns there might be over that time.

"If we in fact, as the president says and I agree, are in a generational war here against terrorism, it's going to require resources," says Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel. "The mission must match the resources."

There is also the question of who bears the burden. That's a point repeatedly made by another draft supporter, Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription.

"Who is doing all of the fighting?" Hagel asked. "Should we continue to burden the middle class who represents most all of our soldiers, and the lower middle class ... burden them with the fighting and the dying if in fact this is a generational - probably 25-year war?"

"It's not a shared burden," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., noting that most Americans have sacrificed little through the Afghan and Iraq wars that started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

The military drafted conscripts during the Civil War, both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. The Selective Service System was reincorporated in 1980 to maintain a registry of 18-year-old men, but call-ups have not occurred since the Vietnam War.