Hope everybody had a good holiday.
It seems like many people were talking about the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s plan to introduce a bill to reinstate the draft last week. On CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel had told Bob Schieffer, he is serious about calling for the draft.
“If we’re going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can’t do that without a draft,” Rangel said.
On the following Monday in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Rangel continued to make his case by saying that the U.S. is too strained in Iraq.
Rangel’s call for a reinstatement of the draft is based on the notion that congressional representatives would be less likely to back a war that might involve the lives of their own children.
“There’s no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm’s way,” said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.
The fact is, the US is very unlikely to reinstate the draft because of the Vietnam experience, however, and the reality is, according to Gen. John Abizaid, the 4-star who runs Central Command, the US does not have the appropriate number of troops to maintain “stability” in the region.
In August, the Marine Corps resorted to involuntary call-ups, meaning the Marine called up as many as 2,500 Marine reservists who have already left active service for combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They would come from a pool of about 59,000 members of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) — Marines with specific skills who left active duty and returned to civilian lives, but are obligated to serve if called. Marine Corps officials said yesterday that reservists in their first or last years of enrollment will not be subject to recall.
Rangel’s bill is tempting among progressives and liberals because the proposed bill would require all men and women – regardless of socio-economic background – between age 18 and 42 to serve in the military. Rangel has introduced a similar bill in the past that has failed. The proposed bill is a modified version of a bill he sponsored in 2003 which he proposed a draft for people between 18 and 26.
Soon after Rangel stated he was in favor of reinstating the draft, there was enough buzz in the progressive blogosphere to scare off top level Democrats to ensure that there’s no chance a draft will be instituted in a Democratic controlled Congress. Other political and military leaders suggest that there is no need to institute a draft but and the problems in Iraq can be solved by providing a several hundred thousand additional troops.
However, conscription does have some unlikely champions, including Noam Chomsky.
I might add, for what it’s worth, that although I was actively involved in organizing and supporting resistance (including support for draft resisters) in the 60s, and was saved from a likely prison sentence only by the Tet offensive, I was never opposed to the draft. If there is to be an army, it would be best, I think, for it to be mainly a citizen’s army. In part for the reasons that the top command oppose that option.
The proposed bill, would force every level of society to participate in military service, rather than placing a disproportionate burden on minorities and the working class. Those who are in favor of this idea are calling this type of draft the “equality draft” because Rangel clearly states, “everyone should share in the sacrifice.” In other words, everybody will have equal opportunity of living in misery.
The last time there was talk about the possibility of the draft being reinstated was after the 2004 Presidential election, several Internet sites and alternative media were advocating this view. In March 2005, Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris wrote a decidedly pro-draft stance, “The Case for the Draft,” in the pro-centrist magazine, the Washington Monthly. Carter and Glastris argues that the US simply doesn’t have enough soldiers to occupy every country in Bush’s agenda since we already have hundreds of thousands of troops – of the 1.4 million men and women on active duty – stationed in hundreds of foreign nations. Therefore, a draft is needed to meet our shortcomings.
However, unlike last year, where most major media called it a “draft scare” created by Internet rumor mills and conspiracy theorist, this year, they have come out denouncing the idea. The US Selective Service System (SSS) website has been very quite this time around, during the “draft scare” officials from the Selective Service were quick to state that there were no “active plans” to revive a draft. Yet, US Selective Service System has said that they are ready to “pull the trigger” if Congress the president to authorize a draft system.
With the number of casualties nearing 3,000 since the invasion in Iraq and the dismissal of reinstating the draft, what are Americans to assume? One thing is for certain, most Americans are sceptical that a draft is likely. The general idea is that politicians of either party look at all costs to stay away raising the specter of a revived draft. And for most young Americans the draft seems far off. If only they knew.
Although Congress and the Department of Defense remains steadfastly opposed to a draft, their actions tell a different story. Even though the requirement for all men between 18 and 26 to register with the draft was suspended in 1975, in 1980, Congress reinstated draft registration for men 18 to 25 years old in “preparations for intervention” after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
Later, in 1987, Congress modified the Military Selective Service Act by enacting Public Law 100-180 which ordered the Selective Service System to put in place a structure capable of registering and classifying qualified health care personnel who are essential to the “maintenance of the Armed Forces.” Called the “Health Care Personnel Delivery System” (HCPDS), the system is able to specifically induct 73,000 civilian health care personnels from about 60 medical specialties if such a special-skills draft should be ordered by Congress.
The Selective Service system shall be maintained as an active standby organization, with (1) a complete registration and classification structure capable of immediate operation in the event of a national emergency (including a structure for registration and classification of persons qualified for practice or employment in a health care occupation essential to the maintenance of the Armed Forces), and (2) personnel adequate to reinstitute immediately the full operation of the System, including military reservists who are trained to operate such System and who can be ordered to active duty for such purpose in the event of a national emergency.
In 1989, Selective Service published its plans for the HCPDS for public comment on August 15, 1989 (54 Federal Register 33644-33654), and has had them ready ever since. According to one military doctor, in 2004, there was talk about that a physician draft is was most likely coming in the near future, however, nothing has been said if it will happen.
In 2003, a top-level meeting took place between the head of the SSS and Deputy Undersecretary in charge of Personnel and Readiness of the Department of Defense on reengineering a new type of draft, the Skills Draft. The unclassified memo proposes that the SSS be able to call up any number of several hundred skills the Pentagon and even the Dept. of Homeland Security might be lacking.
Washington Monthly piece by Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris, calls it the “21st century draft” and argues it would be more efficient than the conventional draft because it would be more universal (women as well as men) and more complex. In fact, it will not even be called a draft, it will wrapped up with an Orwellian label, sort like the “Clear Skies Initiative” or the “No Child Left Behind.” The draft will more likely be called “national service,” “homeland service,” or “universal service” and it draft for “homeland security” as well as duty overseas – duties would include being a border guard, immigration cop, IT specialists and medics.
If one were to look carefully to the wording used on “Face the Nation,” Rangel stated that the draft was not just for military services, but –
“young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it’s our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals,” with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.
I have previously written other posts (The CO Candidate’s Community Service Draft for Boys and The Green Card Draft) about chatter of reinstating the draft for “national service.”
This type of draft being proposed by some liberals and conservatives closely resembles what Israel has today. The Israeli national service requires three years of service for all Jewish and Druze men, two for all women–between age 17 and 50. Israel divides the type of service in three parts: military (compulsory for men, except orthodox women and Jewish or Druze theology students or teachers), security (police, fire, border, anti- terror units), and community service.
It is hard not to agree with Rep. Rangel and the pro-draft people who argue that the war in Iraq cannot be sustained by the existing volunteer force that makes up the current so-called All-Volunteer Army. But the idea of forcing people to become cannon fodder is unconscionable. And the to literally believe that creating a draft would limit political options by creating a level playing field between classes, are only fooling themselves from reality.
Rangel has provided the elite and the well connected a way out from serving military combat. The proposed plan will allow an individual the choice of serving in the military or doing civilian work. And if given that choice, the children of the ruling class and those who are well connected will be found working in air conditioned offices, while the vast majority of minorities and the working class will still be found fulfilling their “national service” duties in the Armed Forces. Anyone with an option to stay away from the military would and those who couldn’t would be sent off to some other country for the American Empire.
A draft by any other name is still a draft and it will still and always be wrong!
