During the presidential debates, a return of the "draft" was one spectre thrown out by both sides, each accusing the other that he would re-institute the draft if elected. Bush denied the "rumors on the Internets" that he was going to reinstitute a draft.
But this question is a lot more complicated than it seems. Consider:
1. The Selective Service is now admitting that it will be instituting a kind of military draft. This won't be a draft of soldiers into combat, but a draft of doctors, nurses, engineers, plumbers, mechanics, etc. etc. into the military to support the Iraq operations.
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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.
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2. There is no doubt that if the U.S. starts another war, it will not be possible to fight it without reinstituting a draft of soldiers into combat. That's because Iraq and Afghanistan are currently stretching the military to its limits.
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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.
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3. There already is a back-door draft. Recently 40,000 National Guard troops were told that their enlistment extends
another 26 years. Many of these people enlisted under a one-year obligation.
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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."
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4. The politics of the draft are complex. People in favor of a draft have argued for instance:
--a draft would force everybody from all socioeconomic levels to participate in combat, rather than working class and minorities that are currently overrepresented in the volunteer military;
--a draft would make politicians more careful in making decisions to go to war, since their children would also be subject to the draft (ideally);
--without a draft, there's basically no antiwar movement. Sixty percent of Americans oppose the Iraq war, but they aren't doing much because they're willing to pay volunteers to fight it. If there were a draft, the antiwar movement would be immediately mobilized.
Says Charles Rangel:
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"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."
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So here are some questions for debate. We already essentially have a draft that is immorally forcing working class people and minorities (the bulk of the volunteers) to serve for many years, in some cases decades, beyond their initial contractual agreement. Plus we're soon going to have a draft of skilled laborers who will be sent over to Iraq.
Wouldn't it be better if we just made all this completely honest and above board by reinstituted a full military draft, without deferments? That way (1) everybody, male, female, rich, poor, black, white would have to share this burden; and (2) we would find out very quickly how prepared American citizens and their elected representatives really are to continue fighting this Iraq war.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...ion=6.0.12.857
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1209-12.htm