BTW - are you serious about the draft comments? That bill died in Congress last February, and Bush has no plans to implement it.
Unfortunately, I am serious. I have many friends that are still in the Army from when I was in (they are getting close to retirement now), and they all state that the military is starting to hurt in terms of manpower.
During WWII, we had to send millions of men to fight the war so everybody felt a sense of duty. Today, our military is so advanced, that we can do so much more with so much less, therefore, many in the civilian world feel no sense of duty as millions are not marching off to war. That is why there are so many immigrants in the military. The majority of them (liberals will argue with you about this, but it is true), serve out of a sense of "owing" this country. Most American teenagers don't feel they owe this country anything (we all owe our forefathers for their past deeds, so in my opinion, we ALL owe this country something) and therefore, the thought of the military horrifies them.
I agree with rtw and I proffered the idea on a local radio talk show. Let the immigrants come if they want, but require them to serve to years in the military to "earn" their citizenship. Once they serve their term, we should give them automatic citizenship as in my opinion, they will have earned it.
Back to the thought about the draft....
If the war on terror spreads, lets say to Syria, Sudan, Iran or North Korea, there is NO way we can fight the war without the draft. The reenlistment rate is taking a beating right now and it might be the only way to shore up our military. Yes, we can do more with less these days, but at the same time, without a well trained military in reserve to protect the USA, we are a sitting duck.
Don't forget that we were not ready for two world wars and it took massive drafts and years of training for us to be ready to fight. If you look at WWII alone, you will see that it was many years after we entered the war before we really were able to put the boots on the ground to win the war. The main reason we didn't invade Europe until 1944 was because it took us three years to prepare our troops. I don't think we can take that chance in today's world as the weapons are different and the enemies are too!
One last point.... The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, strictly limits the military’s ability to participate in domestic law enforcement (border patrol?). The Posse Comitatus—or “force of the country”—legislation was enacted at the end of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period, when the US military oversaw civil rule in states of the former Confederacy. The law has not been fundamentally amended since, and any changes would require Congressional approval.