Bring back the draft

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Serving your country is not servitude. It is service. If you don't understand the difference something is missing in your basic education.

So if a private person kidnaps me and forces me to work on their farm that's slavery. But if the government takes me and forces me to fight for them that's "service." I'm sorry but the difference between these scenarios is escaping me.

So you see no difference in being kidnaped and forced to work on someone's farm and being conscripted, along with other able-bodied young men, to defend your country against foreign invasion.

Is the man who kidnaped you and is forcing you to work on his farm also taking everything your family owns and raping your kid sister? Consider the fact that such things are what happens when a country is invaded and occupied. Maybe that will help you to understand the difference.

Nope. As a libertarian I don't give the state special treatment. Conscription is slavery, taxation is theft, and war is mass-murder. If I'm truly free then I have the right to decide whether I work on somebody's farm, or whether I fight in my government's wars. There is no difference in principle in either scenario.

If that's the case then I'd have been fighting on my own without the government having to enslave me.

 

[MikeK]

A nation of 350 million shouldn't be strapped for manpower.

Like rotating soldiers in tours of duty like we do today

If the draft were still active this nation would not be in the sad shape it's in today because Bush could not have managed to lie us into invading Iraq.

Suspending the draft was a bad mistake.

3 congressional investigations found ALL 3 times that Bush did not lie to the Nation. One of which was run by Democrats. Wanna try again dumb fuck?

I'm not sure if the reason why Congress allowed Bush to get over on them was a matter of disgraceful incompetence or intentional political partisanship or a combination of the two. But Bush did indeed get over on the Congress.

It is understandable how someone might have been taken in by Bush's deception during the early stages of the Iraq invasion, but the fact is one must be really compromised to not have caught on by now. Here is some information, compliments of the Associated Press, that will help pry open your mind to the truth about your hero, George W. Bush, who deserves to be stood against a wall and shot for what he's done to this country.


Lawrence Jackson / Associated Press:

President Bush, seen at the White House on Tuesday, and officials in his administration made 935 false statements on Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to a new study.

(updated 1/23/2008 2:30:54 AM ET) WASHINGTON — A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."
Study: False statements preceded war - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq - msnbc.com



Incidentally, I was in the Marine Corps, probably long before you were, and I knew a lot of Staff NCOs, some of whom were admirable, stand-up men who led by example, and some of whom were the kind of useless punks who would hide behind their stripes to insult others -- or do it from the safety of distance and anonymity.

 

[007]

A nation of 350 million shouldn't be strapped for manpower.

Like rotating soldiers in tours of duty like we do today

I'm all for it. Either that or make it mandatory to do two years in the military after high school.

 

[MikeK]

Many Americans believe that the age of conventional warfare is over and that future wars will be fought from long distances with nuclear and sub-nuclear weapons, but they couldn't be more mistaken. If, for example, the U.S. went to war with China, a nuclear exchange would be mutually suicidal. So the U.S. would be confronted by an army with massive manpower and our inability to respond quickly in the early stages of such a conflict would make a critical difference.

The U.S. was not ready for WW-II because there was no draft so there was a serious shortage of trained soldiers, a deficiency which enabled the Japanese to establish a substantial foothold in the Pacific. If we'd had more manpower we could have engaged them early on which would have significantly shortened the Pacific Campaign and saved thousands of American lives.

One major advantage of an ongoing draft is it produces a vast pool of trained veterans who can be called up and reactivated in a matter of ten days rather than the two months it took to train raw recruits with no military experience.

 

[R.C. Christian]

You people have really lost some core american ideals when it comes to individual liberty

 

[code1211]

Many Americans believe that the age of conventional warfare is over and that future wars will be fought from long distances with nuclear and sub-nuclear weapons, but they couldn't be more mistaken. If, for example, the U.S. went to war with China, a nuclear exchange would be mutually suicidal. So the U.S. would be confronted by an army with massive manpower and our inability to respond quickly in the early stages of such a conflict would make a critical difference.

The U.S. was not ready for WW-II because there was no draft so there was a serious shortage of trained soldiers, a deficiency which enabled the Japanese to establish a substantial foothold in the Pacific. If we'd had more manpower we could have engaged them early on which would have significantly shortened the Pacific Campaign and saved thousands of American lives.

One major advantage of an ongoing draft is it produces a vast pool of trained veterans who can be called up and reactivated in a matter of ten days rather than the two months it took to train raw recruits with no military experience.

In WW2, there was a strategic decision made to win the European war first and the Pacific war afterward. Far moreso than the European campaign, the Pacific Campaign depended on mechanization.

We started that campaign with, I think, 4 carriers. We ended it with dozens. The harsh and bitterly contested ground fighting on the Island hopping campaign did kill many, but the ultimate end and the means to fight all of the battles depended on the ability to field machines with trained, dedicated men.

These men were trained in disciplines that did not exist in the previous war. The Battles of Corral Sea, Leyte Gulf and Midway occurred within six months of Pearl Harbor and together ended the threat that Japan would invade the USA. From June of 1942 onward, the Japanese Empire was constantly receeding and the war was essentially won at that point.

Prior to that point, the Japanese had been kicking butt across Asia. That we would need to field an Army and Navy to contain this threat was predictable, but creating a draft to do so would have been ultimately a waste of time and money.

Training soldiers to fight in WW1 trench warfare would not serve so well in Northern Africa, the Pacific or the fast moving Blitz Kreig tactics of Guderian, Patton or Jukov.

 

[Intense]

Todays volunteer military is rife with crime and drug use.

Prefer a cross-section of society with the draft.

Thats not for you to determine though. The Military is not about PC. That line of thinking has done way too much harm.

That is for every citizen to have a voice in determining.

The military is about defending the nation against hostile military action. And that purpose should be served by a cross-section of society. Not only by those who cannot afford to evade service. America was a much healthier place, politically and in other ways, when the draft was active.

Try giving "American Soldier" by Tommy Frank a read. He hits pretty heavy on this topic in the book. I agree with him. It promotes the corruption of our ranks.

Too much manipulation and PC over the control of the Military and it's function. When the Federal Government someday learns to digest Unalienable Right's, and It's own limited role and power, this conversation might take a different tone. As it stands now, it is just another means for Congress to dictate and have control over our lives.