Do You Feel a Draft?

Do You Feel a Draft?
May 21, 2008
Military.com|by Colin Clark

In an exchange sure to send ripples of anxiety through the all-volunteer military, the Senate's senior defense spending member asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen if it is time to "consider reinstituting the draft."

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, asked Gates and Mullen the question he said no one wants to ask: "Is the cost of maintaining an all-volunteer force becoming unsustainable and, secondly, do we need to consider reinstituting the draft."

Inouye cited the ever-increasing pay and benefits paid to active and reserve service members, noting that it now costs an estimated $126,000 per service member.

Gates and Mullen both said they thought the current volunteer force was the finest the U.S. has ever fielded. Gates said he "personally" believes that "it is worth the cost."

Mullen was not quite as sanguine.


Read the rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/do-you-feel-a-draft.html

I'm against militarization of any kind, so of course I don't support the idea of individuals being de-humanized, and forced into killing/being killed for vested corporate interests ... and yes, I realize how many "moderate" dems support this "patriotic" bullshit, and conversely, the argument that a draft would result in greater public mobilization against the wishes of the corporate/state nexus - irrespective of that, I'm still in disagreement with it.

"I don't support the idea of individuals being de-humanized, and forced into killing/being killed for vested corporate interests ... " I will always believe Iraq would not have occurred if we had the draft in place. People think differently when they, family member or friend may be going and Americans have proven they will fight for legitimate reasons or wars. Americans will defend their country when it is needed.

The draft will result in greater public mobilization........" Also, it is not "patriotic bullshit". It is an unfortunate but necessary part of protecting a nation. Unfortunately, our current leadership also shows what can happen when people like them are in charge. I think for those who disagree for religious or personal reasons, they should have the opportunity to serve for the two years in some community service position which would count for their time.

I'll agree to disagree. These exchanges re opinion can become unnecessarily heated.

:thumbsup:

it is one of those topics where you just agree to disagree. There is certainly a lot more dialog, intellectual and informative discussions that could take place on this board if more people were like you.

in detention camps or I mean, FEMA camps and they have called for martial law, we will be forced to do whatever it is they ask anyways. Its scary to think what it would have been like if Hitler had the technology that is around today, would he have been stopped?

Arguing for the draft is rather daffy, especially if your point is that it will get people mobilized against the war. I'm sorry, it won't. People sat by happily watching America's youth go off to die in Asia, for the outstanding majority of that war. The protests didn't change policy. The advantages of a volunteer force (both political and logistial) ended the draft.

It's also basically like saying "If we force lots of other people's children to die for my cause, maybe they'll agree with me!" Sorry, but the draft as an anti-war position is nonsense... and I have yet to see anyone of draft age suggesting it.

policy. Check your history and historians on that. Yeah, maybe you don't like the idea of a draft because it might affect you, your family, etc. You would rather someone else go to war. A natural thing. Besides, as much as the draft is being talked about and the depletion of a army that is not working anymore, having to take felons for warm bodies, it will and is coming whether you and I like it or not and in a bi-partisan fashion.

-----
FROM 1965, when the first U.S. combat troops landed in Vietnam, to 1973, when the last troops left, there were thousands of protests, large and small, against the Vietnam War. These protests grew from representing a small minority of American students to the majority of the country.

While the major force to defeat the U.S. was the Vietnamese resistance struggle itself, the American antiwar movement--one of the most successful in history--played a major role in ending the war.

The White House and the Pentagon dragged out the increasingly savage and hopeless slaughter as long as possible, and refused to acknowledge even being affected by the antiwar movement.

This was disorienting to activists who had faith in American democracy. Many dejectedly concluded that protests are ineffective. Yet they were part of a movement that proved just the opposite.

As early as 1966, the fear of protests prevented Lyndon Johnson from escalating the war. Within a few short years, the movement had moved into the military itself--and Johnson's successor Richard Nixon was forced to begin withdrawing troops to preserve discipline in the armed forces.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

http://socialistworker.org/2007-1/615/615_08_Vietnam.shtml

"Yeah, maybe you don't like the idea of a draft because it might affect you, your family, etc. You would rather someone else go to war."

Excuse me... aren't you the one arguing in favor of the draft being reinstated? As in... forcing other people's kids to go fight and die somewhere? You want to basically throw people's children into a woodchipper in the hopes that their entrails might clog up the gears, rather than spend any time looking for the actual off switch on the thing.

And I'm quite aware of the history of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era. Both of my parents were involved in it - my dad after he got back from his second tour. 1965 to 1973 is the period we had ground troops there. Eight years of our nation's kids coming home in boxes. Nearly sixty thousand of them, and hundreds of thousands more suffering wounds both physical and mental.

Forgive me if I don't think that 363,810 young men killed, wounded, and missing from our side, and MILLIONS on both sides in Vietnam, followed by two decades of total neglect of these veterans (in favor of fantasy vets - Rambo, there's a REAL Vietnam vet!), is a very good outcome of eight years of protests.

anti-war movement, then you know what it did. Yes, I am the one arguing in favor of a draft being reinstated where everyone sacrifices, not the way you are wording. A little touch on the "everyone sacrificing" As for your ending with the 363,810, nobody said anything about that. The discussion was the draft vs all volunteer which is not working.

Michael O'Hanlon, a military-manpower scholar at the Brookings Institute, believes a return to a full-blown draft will become "unavoidable" if the United States is forced into another war. "Let's say North Korea strikes a deal with Al Qaeda to sell them a nuclear weapon or something," he says. "I frankly don't see how you could fight two wars at the same time with the all-volunteer approach." If a second Korean War should break out, the United States has reportedly committed to deploying a force of nearly 700,000 to defend South Korea -- almost half of America's entire military.

A societywide draft would also make it more difficult for politicians to commit troops to battle without popular approval. "The folks making the decisions are committing other people's lives to a war effort that they're not making any sacrifices for," says Charles Sheehan-Miles, who fought in the first Gulf War and now serves as director of Veterans for Common Sense. Under the current all-volunteer system, fewer than a dozen members of Congress have children in the military.

Charlie Moskos, a professor of military sociology at Northwestern University, says the volunteer system also limits the political fallout of unpopular wars. "Without a draft, there's really no antiwar movement," Moskos says. Nearly sixty percent of Americans believe the war in Iraq was a mistake, he notes, but they have no immediate self-interest in taking to the streets because "we're willing to pay people to die for us. It doesn't reflect very well on the character of our society."

Even military recruiters agree that the only way to persuade average Americans to make long-term sacrifices in war is for the children of the elite to put their lives on the line. In a recent meeting with military recruiters, Moskos discussed the crisis in enlistment. "I asked them would they prefer to have their advertising budget tripled or have Jenna Bush join the Army," he says. "They unanimously chose the Jenna option."

"It's so completely unethical and immoral to induce people that have limited education and limited job ability to have to put themselves in harm's way for ten, twenty or thirty thousand dollars," Rangel says. "Just how broke do you have to be to take advantage of these incentives?" Seducing soldiers with cold cash also unnerves military commanders. "We must consider the point at which we confuse 'volunteer to become an American soldier' with 'mercenary,' " Lt. Gen. James Helmly, the commander of the Army Reserve, wrote in a memo to senior Army leadership in December.

The Reserve, Helmly warns, "is rapidly degenerating into a broken force." The Army National Guard is also in trouble: It missed its recruitment goals of 56,000 by more than 5,000 in fiscal year 2004 and is already 2,000 soldiers short in fiscal 2005. To keep enough boots on the ground, the Pentagon has stopped asking volunteer soldiers to extend their service -- and started demanding it. Using a little-known provision called "stop loss," the military is forcing reservists and guardsmen to remain on active duty indefinitely. "This is an 'all-volunteer Army' with footnotes," says McPeak. "And it's the footnotes that are being held in Iraq against their wishes. If that's not a back-door draft, tell me what is."

David Qualls, who joined the Arkansas National Guard for a year, is one of 40,000 troops in Iraq who have been informed that their enlistment has been extended until December 24th, 2031. "I've served five months past my one-year obligation," says Qualls, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the military with breach of contract. "It's time to let me go back to my life. It's a question of fairness, and not only for myself. This is for the thousands of other people that are involuntarily extended in Iraq. Let us go home."

In the end, it may simply come down to a matter of math. In January, Bush told America's soldiers that "much more will be asked of you" in his second term, even as he openly threatened Iran with military action. Another war, critics warn, would push the all-volunteer force to its breaking point. "This damn thing is just an explosion that's about to happen," says Rangel. Bush officials "can say all they want that they don't want the draft, but there's not going to be that many more buttons to push."

And we go to the old name calling because we do not like the other viewpoint. (Rambo)

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6862691/the_return_of_the_draft/

The more money and better connections you have, the better your chances of getting a deferment for having a zit on your ass, or getting a scholarship to a school in Brazil or something. The first people the draft scooped up were the same ones being recruited now - the poor and "undesirable". When the need for more flesh to throw at the Vietnamese (or the Japanese, or the Hapsburgs, for that matter...) came up, the children of the elite weren't drafted - the kids who had an 18th birthday coming in a month were drafted.

The volunteer force definitely has its drawbacks, but none so great as the drawbacks of a draft, both in regard to the general population, and within the military itself. The military isn't meeting recruitment goals, because - surprisingly - people who WOULD enlist realize that they are just going to be sent to the desert to fight a bullshit war.

You want to end the war? Maintaining a volunteer force that isn't getting any volunteers is a far better way than allowing the Pentagon to EXPAND the war by giving them free access to every man and woman between the ages of 18 and 40. That's exactly what will happen. Give these fuckers the draft and we'll be invading Iran and Syria within the week.

And I didn't call you Rambo. I was noting that people at the time would rather watch Rambo hack and blast his way through the NV army than pay any attention to the actual veterans of the Vietnam War.

the civilian population which is not even close now which is why they have resorted to taking felons. You couldn't get in the military with a felony conviction during the draft. As a result you had a higher caliber of people not to say you don't now but it was a better representation of the civilian population. Yes, there were those who jumped to the front of the National Guard such as GWB but that is something that has been mentioned if the draft is restated.

And if you read all the reports of bringing back the draft, you will see one of the biggest deterrents of such an invasion you are talking about is having the draft in place:

"A societywide draft would also make it more difficult for politicians to commit troops to battle without popular approval. "The folks making the decisions are committing other people's lives to a war effort that they're not making any sacrifices for," says Charles Sheehan-Miles, who fought in the first Gulf War and now serves as director of Veterans for Common Sense. Under the current all-volunteer system, fewer than a dozen members of Congress have children in the military.

Charlie Moskos, a professor of military sociology at Northwestern University, says the volunteer system also limits the political fallout of unpopular wars. "Without a draft, there's really no antiwar movement," Moskos says. Nearly sixty percent of Americans believe the war in Iraq was a mistake, he notes, but they have no immediate self-interest in taking to the streets because "we're willing to pay people to die for us. It doesn't reflect very well on the character of our society."

Even military recruiters agree that the only way to persuade average Americans to make long-term sacrifices in war is for the children of the elite to put their lives on the line. In a recent meeting with military recruiters, Moskos discussed the crisis in enlistment. "I asked them would they prefer to have their advertising budget tripled or have Jenna Bush join the Army," he says. "They unanimously chose the Jenna option."

OK on the Rambo thing, wasn't a problem, just something that seems to occur a lot here when there is debate going back and forth. Thanks.

And knows it is useless.

Some guys in a cave and a bunch of 5 foot tall Koreans driving Studebakers?

on the next administration. They are still pillaging the treasury man!!

:rofl:

An oldie, but goodie!

Almost forgot about that one. Glad to see it's making a comeback in the last months of the administration

The military doesn't want the draft reinstated. It took almost 10 years for the military to recover from the Vietnam draft. The current leadership of the military experienced the damage the draft did first hand and want no part of it.

If Congress and the Military agree we need a bigger military, than say so. The military will handled the increase by getting higher retention and putting more recruiters on the street.

A military draft is not in the best interests of the country.

correct in their assessment of Iraq as well. The military now simply parrots what Bush tells them to parrot. Also, it is a well known fact it is not working the way it is right now.

You say they will handle it by getting higher retention. LOL, now that is a good one, maybe you know how they are going to do that.

Right now they are having to lower standards again and take felons to get people.

More recruiters, now how is that going to help? You have to have a product to sell that people want first and you can have all the salesmen in the world and you aren't going to get them.

As past great generals, Eisenhower, Patton, etc., your military that you have to protect your society needs to mirror that society they are to protect of which this one certainly does not.

Also, everyone must sacrifice, not the way it is now. The draft is coming and you, me, nobody is going to stop it or maybe you prefer to have Bush's Blackwater handle it.

The question is whether or not a draft is going to happen. The answer is NO. The military doesn't want it and no one in Congress will vote for it.

If there is a question about the size of the military and its ability to handle commitments around the world, then Congress and the Military need to look at expending the military and by how much. If there is a need, the questions is how big does the expansion have to be?

If the military can currently meet it recruiting needs and the increase is less than 3 BCT in the Army and 1 RCT in the Marine Corps, that is about a 20,000 person increase. So that would be about 1667 people who would need to re-enlist or sign up per month. Seeing as how there are over 2000 recruiters out there right now, it would mean less then one more recruit per recruiter a month. I think that is doable and that is not even taking retention into account.

As for Retention: The way you up retention is offering higher bonus and adopting something similar to the Lindsay GI Bill. The longer you stay in the better your GI benefits get.

Congress is not going to approve a draft and if they do I'll donate $100 to the charity of your choice.

direction the military is going, the chances are a lot better for the draft and of which you can see it being brought up in more circles and places every day. Just like Charly Rangle says, it is time everyone sacrifices, not just a certain segment of our society. Although, I don't have the inside information you apparently do, I will donate $100 to the charity of your choice if the draft does not come back.

Richard Flahavan, spokesman for Selective Service, tells Rolling Stone that preparing for a skills-based draft is "in fact what we have been doing." For starters, the agency has updated a plan to draft nurses and doctors. But that's not all. "Our thinking was that if we could run a health-care draft in the future," Flahavan says, "then with some very slight tinkering we could change that skill to plumbers or linguists or electrical engineers or whatever the military was short." In other words, if Uncle Sam decides he needs people with your skills, Selective Service has the means to draft you -- and quick.

But experts on military manpower say the focus on drafting personnel with special skills misses the larger point. The Army needs more soldiers, not just more doctors and linguists. "What you've got now is a real shortage of grunts -- guys who can actually carry bayonets," says McPeak. A wholesale draft may be necessary, he adds, "to deal with the situation we've got ourselves into. We've got to have a bigger Army."

Michael O'Hanlon, a military-manpower scholar at the Brookings Institute, believes a return to a full-blown draft will become "unavoidable" if the United States is forced into another war. "Let's say North Korea strikes a deal with Al Qaeda to sell them a nuclear weapon or something," he says. "I frankly don't see how you could fight two wars at the same time with the all-volunteer approach." If a second Korean War should break out, the United States has reportedly committed to deploying a force of nearly 700,000 to defend South Korea -- almost half of America's entire military.

A societywide draft would also make it more difficult for politicians to commit troops to battle without popular approval. "The folks making the decisions are committing other people's lives to a war effort that they're not making any sacrifices for," says Charles Sheehan-Miles, who fought in the first Gulf War and now serves as director of Veterans for Common Sense. Under the current all-volunteer system, fewer than a dozen members of Congress have children in the military.

Charlie Moskos, a professor of military sociology at Northwestern University, says the volunteer system also limits the political fallout of unpopular wars. "Without a draft, there's really no antiwar movement," Moskos says. Nearly sixty percent of Americans believe the war in Iraq was a mistake, he notes, but they have no immediate self-interest in taking to the streets because "we're willing to pay people to die for us. It doesn't reflect very well on the character of our society."

Even military recruiters agree that the only way to persuade average Americans to make long-term sacrifices in war is for the children of the elite to put their lives on the line. In a recent meeting with military recruiters, Moskos discussed the crisis in enlistment. "I asked them would they prefer to have their advertising budget tripled or have Jenna Bush join the Army," he says. "They unanimously chose the Jenna option."

One of the few politicians willing to openly advocate a return to the draft is Rep. Charles Rangel, a Democrat from New York, who argues that the current system places an immoral burden on America's underprivileged. "It shouldn't be just the poor and the working poor who find their way into harm's way," he says. In the days leading up to the Iraq war, Rangel introduced a bill to reinstate the draft -- with absolutely no deferments. "If the kids and grandkids of the president and the Cabinet and the Pentagon were vulnerable to going to Iraq, we never would have gone -- no question in my mind," he says. "The closer this thing comes home to Americans, the quicker we'll be out of Iraq."

In the end, it may simply come down to a matter of math. In January, Bush told America's soldiers that "much more will be asked of you" in his second term, even as he openly threatened Iran with military action. Another war, critics warn, would push the all-volunteer force to its breaking point. "This damn thing is just an explosion that's about to happen," says Rangel. Bush officials "can say all they want that they don't want the draft, but there's not going to be that many more buttons to push."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6862691/the_return_of_the_draft/

We need to set a end date or tie the end point to an event for this bet. I'll leave it to you if you want to set it as a year or by the time the US pulls out of Iraq, etc.

The reason I don't think there will be a draft is that people have been talking about a draft since 2004. It is an extremely unpopular idea. Congress can't even pass veto proof measures with popular support, like ending the war, so how could they pass an unpopular measure like a draft?

Also, nothing that big will be done this year because of the election and I doubt Obama will sign off on a bill for a draft as POTUS.

probably didn't read the other study but they have already been updating and putting a draft in place for medical personnel and who knows when it will get done, sooner, if the Iran thing happens. The 3 paragraphs below pretty much sums it up but when, don't know.

In the end, it may simply come down to a matter of math. In January, Bush told America's soldiers that "much more will be asked of you" in his second term, even as he openly threatened Iran with military action. Another war, critics warn, would push the all-volunteer force to its breaking point. "This damn thing is just an explosion that's about to happen," says Rangel. Bush officials "can say all they want that they don't want the draft, but there's not going to be that many more buttons to push."

Even military recruiters agree that the only way to persuade average Americans to make long-term sacrifices in war is for the children of the elite to put their lives on the line. In a recent meeting with military recruiters, Moskos discussed the crisis in enlistment. "I asked them would they prefer to have their advertising budget tripled or have Jenna Bush join the Army," he says. "They unanimously chose the Jenna option."

Michael O'Hanlon, a military-manpower scholar at the Brookings Institute, believes a return to a full-blown draft will become "unavoidable" if the United States is forced into another war. "Let's say North Korea strikes a deal with Al Qaeda to sell them a nuclear weapon or something," he says. "I frankly don't see how you could fight two wars at the same time with the all-volunteer approach." If a second Korean War should break out, the United States has reportedly committed to deploying a force of nearly 700,000 to defend South Korea -- almost half of America's entire military.

Hey, thanks for the discussion. The perfect world would be where a military wasn't needed but we know the perfect world would never exist as none of us are perfect who makes up that world so there you go. However, defense is needed in any case and unless you think it is the right thing to do to ask the less fortunate to defend those who benefit most from this country, than the draft is the most fair way to go for a military.

A military should always mirror the society it is there for and to protect.

What are you gonna do, draft people and not pay them?

military is not sustainable the way it is. Secondly, the draft worked before and the military was 100% better and worked and they were paid for their two years.

will be less expensive than an all volunteer force. The only way that can happen is to not pay the conscripts or pay them less.

Higher pay packages would be aimed specifically at those career specialists whose skills are most needed, and not squandered on signing bonuses and college aid used in desperation to pull in enough entry-level privates. A two-track pay system could be devised to give long-term enlistees much higher compensation and drafted short-term soldiers much more modest pay.

We currently overpay new recruits and underpay sergeants, and the result is serious strain. Pay raises and bonuses should be focused on the career force, not on recruits, and this can only be done with conscription. Back when the U.S. had a draft, the pay ratio between a master sergeant and a private was seven to one; today it is less than three to one. Restoring something like the old balance is the best way to upgrade retention in hard-to-fill skills and leadership positions.

Along with a draft, a major redirection is required in the way federal aid operates in higher education. At present, we’ve created a GI Bill for people who haven’t toiled as GIs. Annually, $30 billion in federal grants and subsidies goes to students who never serve their country. In the future, only individuals drafted into our military or alternate civilian service should be eligible for federal subsidies for college.

In the future we shouldn't go to war unless absolutely necessary. In the meantime, I'm not going to Iraq/Iran/Any other country that didn't attack us. That simple. And no carefully crafted argument about American Hegemony, or our "responsibility as a nation", "we broke it we have to fix it", is going to make me pick up a gun and start shooting innocent people who just see themselves as defending themselves from an Imperialist Power.

The use or enablement of our military should be primarily decided on the basis of justice. This is an unjust evil war and should stop. Rather than focusing on a draft, how about we focus on getting other countries involved? To hell with the draft.

Spout logistics and military capability all day long. People volunteer when we fight the right battles - such as WWII.

I know you want this war to end, but I hardly think that a draft is the right way to do it.

war. And as you stated WWII, there was a draft in place at that time as well. And yes, only when necessary. As for what you do or would do if you were drafted is your choice, that simple. Yes, the use or ennablement of our military should be primarily decided on the basis of Justice and whether or not this is a unjust evil war. That has nothing to do with a draft or all volunteer military as it should be the same no matter if draft or volunteer.

And as far as a draft, I do not think it is a fair system to ask those less fortunate to defend a country for those who benefit most. It is something we all should share in and it doesn't matter if you do not like logistics, history or proof that one way to avoid wars is one in which everyone is going to have to sacrifice.

As you well know, my generation is most opposed to this war. And my generation as was mentioned upthread is most opposed to a draft. Does anyone care what we want? Did anyone care during Vietnam? Not really.

And for that matter would people like young Bush have to go? I don't think so.

One of the biggest forces for getting out of Iraq is the fact that our Military doesn't have enough boots. It's over stretched. Trouble with giving someone more weapons (boots) is they have a tendency to want to use them.

Why don't we instead cut our military budget by 4/5's? Do you think that would be more effective?

other stmts & questions, I & many others are opposed to all wars not just this one. Wars rarely resolve problems, only temporary if at all and always at a horrific cost of lives. In a draft with no deferments, yes, those such as Bush would go & on top of that, with the elite being involved in sacrificing for our country along with the rest of the population, there would be a little more careful analysis of going to war in the first place. As far as the military budget, it always needs cutting as with any federal budget, it becomes bloated and you get cost over-runs and you have the defense contractors selling equipment at a astronomical price and equipment not needed or doesn't work properly.

In the end, I just feel, we all have a responsibility and we all should share in the sacrifices of the country we live in. One part of society should not have to do the sacrificing for the other. Also, with the draft there are those that for religious reasons or whatever do not believe in war and they should have an opportunity to serve in another capacity like teaching in the inner cities, tutoring or working in a human capacity helping others. That too is serving your country and those who do the two year service should get assistance for any college they desire or to further their education in some manner.

I do agree that we should all do 2 years community service. But until we make pre-emptive war illegal, and put MANY more safeguards in place to going to war, I don't want to further enable the government to drag us off to war. I don't believe that the rich elites wouldn't be able to avoid the draft, so I don't believe that the draft would have a very strong inhibitory effect on the chicken hawks.

$1347 per month base salary for a brand new E-1 soldier is too much money? Yes, most new soliders eat in mess halls and live in barracks so they are not getting Separate Rations or Housing allowances, most new soldiers are not paratroopers earning that extravegent $150 per month jump pay. But after taxes and all come out, most of these new soldiers are taking home less than $1000 a month. For a job that is technically 24/7...We as a nation do not pay our military members, especially our enlisted and Non-Commissioned Officers nearly enough. The Officer Corps is well paid; I know, I am one, and my salary more than doubled when I left teaching in a public high school for active duty service. I think we do not pay our soldiers nearly enough and don't go down the GI BIll, medical, dental path....

enough. I don't remember saying I thought anything regarding the pay. I have no idea what is a fair salary and it is something the government would have to come up with or those in the know. I think I was talking about a redistribution of money according to the article and as far as housing, medical, dental and I think the GI Bill revision is on the table now, no problem, won't go down that path.

When EVERYBODY in this country stands something to lose from war, then maybe they'd not be so quick to pull the trigger.

On the other hand, as an Army officer, the thought of leading conscripts is frightening.

I don't want the draft

Cheers!!

I just heard that a University Army ROTC student in his first month of training was pulled to go to Kuwait...against his wishes. He is even being told he has to pay back his ROTC stipend since he didn't finish his semester.

Can anyone confirm that this is not an isolated case?

I'll flee to another country.

I will NOT fight Bush's illegal war.

Conscription...*shudder*

I've been feeling it for several years, but I think Bushco knows that if he brings back the draft the students will really hit the streets. We have had million-person protests in Washington DC, peaceful as anything, and it hasn't done us any good. But if that @#!$% opens the draft boards, I will bet you anything that the peaceful protests will be a thing of the past.

Hekate

The ruling class learned that the draft served to coalesce the "little people" and they damn near lost their power the last time. A draft is not going to happen.

Sure, the political panderers will bring it up to motivate their constituents, or to scare the sheeple into stampeding the way they want them to, but once the slightly better off gatekeepers that protect the ruling class start losing their kids in the capitalist meat grinder, they will begin to bleat loudly and look to their masters to help them.

class (start to lose their kids in the capitalist meat grinder) -- that is the whole point, they don't have to worry about that as long as there is no draft. Once the draft comes back, yeah, then you will see the protests if there is an attempt to start a war like Vietnam or Iraq. Until then, why worry, it is the other class that serves at Bush's pleasure, no sacrifice on the part of as you say, the ruling class. As Barack says, change is coming America.