MSM Scare Tactics

[Annie]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6099727/site/newsweek

We're Dodging the Draft Issue
If we need to occupy another country that threatens us, we will either do it with the help of our allies or the conscription of our kids

By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek


Oct. 4 issue - It's a potentially lethal issue—the kind that could make young voters swarm to the polls and their nervous parents change their minds about supporting President Bush. Republicans are peeved over Democratic claims that the president will impose a draft if he's re-elected. John Kerry was hammered for mildly suggesting that such an idea was even "possible." Bush backers are right that this is a suburban myth and no such plans are underway. A scary and misleading Democratic e-mail circulating on college campuses highlights pending legislation to revive the draft and efforts by the administration to bolster local Selective Service boards. Predictably, the e-mail doesn't mention that the draft bills, which are going nowhere, are sponsored mostly by Democrats (who think military service falls too heavily on minorities) and that the draft-board system is being kept well oiled because of old laws requiring it—not some nefarious Bush plot. "Not. Gonna. Happen," concludes conservative columnist Michelle Malkin.

Malkin is probably right. Even in the months after September 11, when Bush could have easily called upon young Americans to serve their country in both military and nonmilitary roles, he asked for no sacrifice. He knows that a draft would vaporize any remaining support for his Iraq policy. This would be of concern to him even as a second-term, lame-duck president. One thing we've learned about Bush is that he has never taken a position that he knew beforehand would be politically unpopular, including invading Iraq.

Disingenous to the extreme. IF Bush had asked for a draft immediately after 9/11, would have happened. Alter is saying now that people would have a problem with a draft. While still debatable, I would agree that the angst visible at the immediate attack is gone, I still see in the young, a willingness to sacrifice for the future.

But the world is a strange and unpredictable place. While Bush has no plans to reinstate a draft, he could be forced into it by events. Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, a likely presidential candidate in 2008, says that a draft "might become necessary" in the years ahead. The threshold question before the election is this: which candidate is more likely to have so few international friends amid a crisis that he would have to move beyond the all-volunteer force? This question takes the seemingly arcane issue of burden-sharing and brings it home to the American heartland. If we need, God forbid, to occupy another country that truly threatens the United States, we will either do it with the help of our allies or with the conscription of our kids.

Every military expert agrees that the Army is already badly overstretched (the Air Force and Navy are fine). The National Guard and Reserves are in trouble. Guard recruitment is down 12 percent, and Reservists as old as their late 40s are being mobilized. Some heavy-duty arm-twisting is underway. According to the Rocky Mountain News, soldiers at Fort Carson, Colo., for instance, have been told that if they don't re-up to 2007 they will be shipped out pronto for Iraq.

This doesn't mean that the Iraq war will require a draft. As Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has said, better management of personnel can tide us over for a while. Rumsfeld got in trouble last spring for dissing draftees, whom he said take time to train and generally don't stay long. When it was pointed out that more than a third of the 58,235 names on the Vietnam Memorial were draftees, the Pentagon answered that smart bombs and light infantry put us beyond the era of large standing armies.

Bush will not be pushed into a draft by the Dems, though that may be their wet dream. The only way that a draft would happen is an unexpected front. Actually, would take two 'necessary' fronts. If Syria became necessary at the same time as Iran, well, all bets are off.

Or are we? Consider Iran, where the radical mullahs are nearly in possession of nuclear weapons, a genuine threat to world peace. Some of the mullahs have already openly discussed using nukes to destroy Israel. NEWSWEEK recently reported that American intelligence agencies have concluded after "war games" that pre-emptive strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities would not resolve the crisis without further military action. Iran would likely retaliate with terrorism in the United States, especially knowing that our forces are already stretched thin. We would then blast Iran, but the follow-up, as we learned in Iraq, would require ground troops.

As the crisis unfolded, we would approach our allies. If we had repaired our tattered relations with them and they felt the United States was again exercising sound judgment, they would join us to de-nuclearize and stabilize Iran.and how is this possible? Notice Alter does not say HOW Kerry could do, because it's not possible. If they didn't, and we faced an occupation that would make Iraq look easy, we would unquestionably have to impose a draft. Not necessarily. Alter is assuming that they really want a FIGHT. Pretty big assumption.It doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out which presidential candidate this year would have a better chance of making a fresh start in securing the cooperation of our allies when the world erupts again, in Iraq, Iran, North Korea or anywhere else. Diplomacy works. At this point, I must say respectfully, Prove it fukhead.Five years after Bill Clinton's war in Kosovo, 100 percent of the peacekeeping is handled by foreign troops.

Both Bush and Kerry insist they won't revive the draft. But someday a presidential candidate will come along who has the guts to propose national service, in which every young American serves his or her country either in the military or in community-service projects at home. Until then, beware categorical promises. "Not. Gonna. Happen." That's what President Bush's father used to say about raising taxes.

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.