Would you be willing to spread the word about http://www.draftresistance.org? It’s a site dedicated to shattering the myths surrounding the selective slavery system and building mass civil disobedience to stop the draft before it starts.

Our banner on a website, printing and posting the anti-draft flyer or just telling friends would help.

Thanks!

Scott Kohlhaas

PS. When it comes to conscription, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

(Giggle)…

The only consolation with this bunch is that, evil as their intentions are, they’re so fucking incompetent that they couldn’t even fake WMDs. They fucking lost the Weapons of non-Mass Destruction that Saddam had, and let the insurgents take them.

that’s some serious incompetence.

It must be a true blessing to be able disconnect from Reality with such ease.

This is not lowering expectations, this is totally redefining them after the fact.

I don’t get it.

mikeyh

FU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How odd: I wrote about this very thing in August 2002 on my blog. I wrote that

A) Our post-Cold War Army is not designed to perform constabulary (military policing and occupation) duties like the one we had in the 80s, which had large numbers of military police battalions designed specifically for that duty. We dismounted these types of units long ago.

B) I also wrote in that same essay that we’d be occupying a country where the cultural gulf between the occupier and occupied would be much greater than even in Vietnam, which would make occupying Iraq nearly impossible given the problems associated with A & B.

But of course writing anything opposing the invasion in 2002 made me a traitor and America-hating scumbag. Being right has proven to be painful for me.

Or, to put it another way, when they were used correctly. Occupation forces need numbers and local acceptance. To use these guys as an occupation force is what LED to them being overextended and on multiple tours.

No matter how we might feel about the invasion of Iraq, they won that war in a couple weeks. Once again, that was their job. 4 and a half years later its a huge disaster…

mikey

Well, in Tony Snow’s (Republican) world, it does. Only the lower classes have to actually work at stuff. Or be good at stuff to pass or get ahead.

Oh, I think they do, Mikey. It’s their civilian leaders who disregard this oath more than the troops. I wrote extensively about this concerning the Iran-Contra scandal here (http://www.geocities.com/rangerhiq/journal05092007.html).

The problem with an all-volunteer force is that it hasn’t been tested during a period where we’re immersed in one or more long-term conflicts simultaneously. Of course, that was until now, where are are, and have been for four years now, and the system is showing signs of breaking. How many more times can career soldiers serve multiple 15-month tours in a combat zone before they burn out? And what if we cannot get enough fresh recruits to serve?

For instance, much fewer African-Americans are enlisting in the last year than in the previous five. And I imagine as the war becomes more and more unpopular, most everyone else will follow suit. Then what?

The all-volunteer concept worked great during peacetime or when our conflicts (like Gulf War I) were short.

We are treading in new water now. This will ultimately test the effectiveness of the all-volunteer concept.

I mean, my god take a look at this woman, former White House staffer Sara Taylor. Could she manage anything more involved than a backyard BBQ? I doubt it.

http://static.firedoglake.com/2007/07/02taylor.jpg

(yeah, it’s wrong to link to pics off site, but I didn’t know how else to do it.)

If you found yourself in combat, you’d rather have professional soldiers on your flanks than draftees, but that doesn’t really address your issues.

I guess one would hope that voluteers would take their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same“, but we’ve learned that people can and do ignore/disregard their oaths.

It’s a thorny problem. Much of the solution would be for the US to move to a much less militarized society with a much smaller volunteer force. Spending a third of our budget on the armed forces is stupid, wasteful and utterly unsustainable. But since that’s not going to happen anytime soon, perhaps a compulsery national service solution should be considered. But the cynic in me anticipates that any system would come with built-in loopholes that could be gamed by the scions of wealth and priviledge…

mikey

He took the opportunity to announce that President Bush would seek a fifth term in office, considering it his “dooty to hiztery” to run since the Roberts Supreme Court ruled that the Bush v. Gore precedent prohibits anyone from running against him ever.

Two things I was absolutely sure would happen, but did not:

1. Lots and lots of “Saddam’s WMDs” would be found once the war was underway and our troops had made it to various remote areas of the country.

2. There would be a sudden terror threat or attack that would necessitate “postponing” the ’04 election.

#2 was, I guess, alarmism on my part. I still don’t understand why #1 never happened. It sure would have smoothed things out for the Pres.

Please define the “WE” of which you speak; is that you, the mouse in your pocket, and the large amount of voices you hear in your head? While I agree an all-volunteer military is more professional and “kick-ass” as you claim, it is also less democratic in nature, which makes it far more dangerous in the long run. Not everyone agrees with your sentiment that an all-volunteer force is the most effective and egalitarian way to build a military in a free democratic society. I served in the all-volunteer military during the Cold War, and I wasn’t convinced it was the best means of building a fighting force. And I know lots of people who agree.

I think it’s anti-democratic to have an all-volunteer military, even if conscription diminishes the overall effectiveness of the military mission, which hasn’t really been proven, since conscription in America during Vietnam—when conscription really got a bad rap—was much different than in WW II, when conscription was largely successful and the pool of young men who were drafted came from every level and class in our society, as opposed to ‘Nam, where deferments starved the military of too many of our best and brightest, and greatly diminshed the sense of a shared responsibility in waging that war.

An all-volunteer military absolves us of a true shared—make that democratic—responsibility in waging war and creates an almost mercenary-like military force that no longer represents the population of a democracy as a whole. Not having this shared responsibility at all levels of society insulates most people from the ravages of warfare and makes it easier to wage war—like today—without having much of an effect on the general population. By not sharing the responsibility we no longer share the pain and sacrifice. How would our attitude have been in America about invading Iraq if we had a universal draft? I am sure fewer people would have supported it.

Conscription wasn’t a failure in Vietnam. Both the ill-run conscription system and the war itself were the failures. The biggest failure of the conscription system was filtering conscription to exclude most college bound-men during Vietnam, which to me reeked of class warfare. Poor and working class dudes were drafted, while most college-bound middle and upper class kids got a free pass from the fight. Plus the war itself was an illegal and amoral mess, which made even the most hardened volunteer professional soldiers question its validity and morality by the end of it. The conscripts of course didn’t want to fight for a cause that was muddy at best, a senseless and horrific nightmare at worst.

So I am sorry, Mikey, I beg to differ with your views (and I know lots of people who agree with me), for entirely different reasons than the ones you presented. Sure, an all-volunteer force is more professional and more “kick-ass,” but it is also FURTHER REMOVED from the citizenry for which it has been assigned to protect sever. That to me is dangerous in a democracy. When we no longer share the responsibility for a cause, sometimes the cause becomes less responsible.

I apologize for hogging this thread.

Tony Snow announced today that the Bush Administration considers the smoking crater in the side of the Earth proof that the surge is working. He took the opportunity to announce that President Bush would seek a fifth term in office, considering it his “dooty to hiztery” to run since the Roberts Supreme Court ruled that the Bush v. Gore precedent prohibits anyone from running against him ever.