Rangel: It’s Time for a War Tax and a Reinstated Draft

[Dale Neiburg]

8. I fought against the draft when we had one

And if this country is ever so idiotic as to bring it back, I'll fight it again.

Just because there's a draft, the Bushes and Cheneys of the nation will always find ways to stay out. And Charley Rangel has been around long enough to know what the troops in Nam looked like. Black men were more likely to be inducted, and much more likely to find themselves in combat. And as far as turning people against the war, I submit that the public turned against the Iraq war without a draft just about as quickly as they turned against the Viet Nam war with a draft.

The only way that a draft will prevent wars is if corporations are drafted instead of humans (they're people after all -- the Repubs tell us so). They'll be compelled to use their resources for war production at DoD whim and paid very low. And then follow Smedley Butler's advice, that for the duration everybody in that company, from the CEO right on down, gets enlisted wo/man's pay and not a penny more.

Drafting young men, or women, won't do anything to prevent wars. The only thing that will accomplish that is to remove war as a profit center.