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WoW or Class...
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I searched Google a bit, and found a bit on twin bills in congress (S. 89 and HR 163)
Quote:
US Preparing for Military Draft in Spring 2005
by Adam Stutz • Wednesday January 28, 2004 at 09:50 AM
The current agenda of the US federal government is to reinstate the draft in order to staff up for a protracted war on "terrorism." Pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills S 89 and HR 163) would time the program so the draft could begin at early as Spring 2005 -- conveniently just after the 2004 presidential election!
Reinstatement of the draft
Dear Friends and Family,
I urge you to read the article below on the current agenda of the federal government to reinstate the draft in order to staff up for a protracted war on "terrorism."
Pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills S 89 and HR 163) would time the program so the draft could begin at early as Spring 2005 -- conveniently just after the 2004 presidential election! But the administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed NOW, so our action is needed immediately. Details and links follow.
If voters who currently support U.S. aggression abroad were confronted with the possibility that their own children or grandchildren might not have a say about whether to fight, many of these same voters might have a change of mind. (Not that it should make a difference, but this plan would among other things eliminate higher education as a shelter and would not exclude women -- and Canada is no longer an option.)
Please send this on to all the parents and teachers you know, and all the aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents.... And let your children know -- it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change! Please also write to your representatives to ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills -- and write to newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story.
The Draft*
$28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. SSS must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. Please see website: http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the SSS Annual Performance Plan - Fiscal Year 2004.
The Pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on "terrorism"] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.
Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and H.R. 163 forward this year, entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the Committee on Armed Services.
Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era remember. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the US signed a "Smart Border Declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Manley, and US Homeland Security Director, Gov. Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their cur-rent semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year.
*This article by Adam Stutz is from the "What's Hot Off the Press" column of the newsletter of Project Censored, a media research group at Sonoma State University that tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list (more than 20 years running) of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported, or self-censored by the country's major national news media. The mission of Project Censored is "to educate people about the role of independent journalism in a democratic society and to tell The News That Didn't Make the News and why."
"What's Hot Off the Press" includes student synopses of articles currently being investigated for inclusion in the next Project Censored report. For more info and/or to receive Project Censored's newsletter, go to http://www.projectcensored.org, or email [censored]@sonoma.edu
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http://www.vancouver.indymedia.org/n.../01/105146.php
I didn't put much faith in the above, so I searched for the bills themselves and turned up this.
Quote:
Claim: The U.S. military will be reinstating the draft by Spring 2005.
Status: Probably not.
Example: [congress.org, 2004]
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/...ua_congressorg
Pending Draft Legislation Targeted for Spring 2005
The Draft will Start in June 2005
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.
$28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. Selective Service must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. Please see website: www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the sss annual performance plan — fiscal year 2004.
The pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on "terrorism"] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.
Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and HR 163 forward this year, http://www.hslda.org/legislation/na...s89/default.asp entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the committee on armed services.
Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era.
College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the U.S. signed a "smart border declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's minister of foreign affairs, John Manley, and U.S. Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their current semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year.
Even those voters who currently support US actions abroad may still object to this move, knowing their own children or grandchildren will not have a say about whether to fight. Not that it should make a difference, but this plan, among other things, eliminates higher education as a shelter and includes women in the draft.
The public has a right to air their opinions about such an important decision.
Please send this on to all the friends, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins that you know. Let your children know too — it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change!
Please also contact your representatives to ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills — and contact newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story.
Origins: As U.S. military involvement in Vietnam came to an end in 1973, so did the draft. For the first time since the days of World War II, the U.S. military shifted to an all-volunteer force; all vacancies in the armed forces were filled through recruitment and re-enlistments rather than conscription. (The requirement for young men to register with the Selective Service was not abolished until 1975, however, and it was reinstated in 1980.)
As recent U.S. military involvement in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq has required the largest commitment of American troops since the mid-1970s, and the military has had to double the deployment periods of some units, call up additional reserves, and extend tours of duty by a year in order to maintain adequate staffing levels, the specter of a resurrected draft has been looming on the mind of many a young person. Although the possibility of a reinstatement of conscription cannot be ruled out, a renewal of the draft anytime soon appears unlikely, and one implemented as early as June 2005 seems rather improbable.
As reflected in the message quoted above, the draft issue has largely come to public attention due to pair of bills introduced in Congress (S.89 and H.R.163) which seek to obligate all citizens and residents of the U.S. beween the ages of 18 and 26 (both male and female) to perform a two-year period of national service (not necessarily as part of the military), and the Selective Service's advertising for volunteers to man draft boards around the country. However, both the Congressional bills were introduced back in January 2003 and have languished in committee ever since with seemingly little support, and the Selective Service maintains that the timing of ads to fill draft board positions was coincidental, part of a process of filling expired board positions that has been underway for several years:
About 10,000 to 12,000 people serve 20-year terms as unpaid board members. [Selective Service spokesman Pat] Schuback said because the current board system was set up in 1979, and the bulk of volunteers stayed the full 20 years, many of the appointments expired beginning in 1999.
That means hiring replacements has been going on for several years. Confusion arose in recent weeks when someone posted the hiring notice on www.defendamerica.mil, a Pentagon Web site about the war on terror, even though the Selective Service System is not a part of the Defense Department.
"Serve Your Community and the Nation — Become a Selective Service System Local Board Member," it said.
Several newspapers around the world wrote stories, leading to questions about whether the government was planning to restart drafting enlistees. The stories appeared as news media wrote increasingly about the Pentagon's extensive mobilization of National Guard and Reserve troops for duty in Iraq.
"It was a case of bad timing because of the war in Iraq and news about deployments," Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said of the Web posting. "It created a tempest in a teacup."
Opinions — from both those inside and outside the military — differ as to what the manpower requirements of the U.S. armed forces will be in the near future, and whether the services will be able to continue to meet those requirements under the current all-volunteer system. And certainly not everyone agrees that general conscription is the best solution to potential staffing shortfalls, for a variety of reasons:
While many in the military support conscription on the grounds of social equity or national service, nearly all professional soldiers think that bringing back the draft now would reduce the quality of the military, while driving up its cost.
"The draft would be the Army's worst nightmare," said retired Lt. Col. Leonard Wong, now a research professor at the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks. "We have a high quality Army because we have people who want to be in it. Our volunteer force is really a professional force. You can't draft people into a profession."
A fundamental problem with a draft today, experts say, is that the historic two-year period of conscription isn't enough time to get a return on the investment in training that modern soldiers require. "There's just too much equipment [draftees] could break," Pike said.
A related problem: the cost of feeding, clothing, training and paying a large influx of unskilled personnel would gobble up funds the military needs for other purposes.
"We're a personnel-based institution," Wong said. "If we have a lot more people walking in the door, it would suck up all of our resources."
Since a reimposition of conscription would require Congressional approval, which has not yet been given, it is unlikely that a draft (even if approved by Congress) would be underway as early as Spring 2005:
And even if the draft were reinstated tomorrow, it would take at least two years before it could produce additional soldiers for Iraq and Afghanistan, the experts say.
"It will take 193 days from the time that we get started until the first person is presented to the Department of Defense," said Alyce Burton, a spokeswoman for the Selective Service. It would then take a year and a half to two years to train the draftees and form them into new combat units, Krepinovich said.
Even if the draft started up again, it might be of a much more limited nature than in previous years, with only those who could fill specialized positions in certain fields (e.g., health care, linguistics, computer technology) being conscripted.
There is as yet no definitive answer to the question of whether or not the U.S. will reinstitute a draft. Obviously some thought has been given to the issue, but the possibility that such thoughts will be turned into reality appears rather small at this point. Still, conditions and attitudes can change very quickly — another event of the magnitude of the September 11 attacks could prompt some rapid shifts in government policy and public opinion.
Last updated: 25 May 2004
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http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/draft.asp
In my opinion, the only thing that would cause the draft to be re-instated is World War III, or a war with China (probably one in the same).
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One day an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They each bought a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints. The Englishman pushed his beer away in disgust. The Scotsman fished the fly out of his beer and continued drinking it, as if nothing had happened. The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink but then held it out over the beer and yelled "SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT, YOU BASTARD!"
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