Rangel: Reinstate the draft; create war tax

[KingCharlemagne]

90. The argument actually should reach back to include World War I. During World War I we also

had military conscription -- Debs was imprisoned for advocating that workers resist conscription, among other things -- and from 1916-18, a large number of U.S. service people were sacrificed into the maw of European imperialism. That experience in World War I produced a great degree of war weariness and isolationism among the American public and created an entire 'lost generation' of veterans, most notably Hemingway and his coterie in Paris.

Fast forward to 1939-40 and FDR and most of the people paying attention know that war with Hitler is inevitable. But the American people's reluctance to enter into another continental or global blood-bath restrains FDR's hands (if they needed staying) and it is only after Pearl Harbor and Nazi Germany's declaration of war upon us that we once again enter the fray in Europe.

World War II was 'worth fighting' precisely because we were 'defending the Republic'. Are you suggesting otherwise? If so, then we seem to be proceeding from very different definitions of 'defending' and 'Republic,' that lacuna making further discussion difficult. The point is that conscription and its consequences stayed our leaders' hands in the run-up to World War II and we made war only when it was forced upon us. Contrast that with Operation Shocking and Awful in 2003 -- when there was no draft other than the 'poverty draft' -- where only the most lunatic fringe of the right wing any longer maintains that war with Iraq was necessary for our national defense or survival.

Bottom line: World War II -- war of necessity -- conscription. Iraq 1990/2003 -- wars of choice -- no conscription.