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Edited on Tue Sep-21-04 09:42 PM by mark414
Does A 2nd Bush Term Mean A Military Draft?
There’s no question about the fact that the great majority of young people don’t vote. When I ask my friends why they don’t pay attention or why they don’t vote, the most common answer seems to be, “Politics just doesn’t affect me.” Listening to candidates in almost any campaign, you seldom hear them voluntarily address issues affecting young people. And while many young people may feel slighted by this, there’s a reason for it: they know you don’t vote, so they only speak to the concerns of those who do.
But recent allegations have begun to surface (with credible evidence) that a new policy that would affect young people exclusively could be in the works should Bush win re-election this November. I’m talking about a military draft.
Last October, the Department of Defense’s ‘Defend America’ website issued a bulletin calling for up to 2,000 volunteers to man local draft boards, “if a military draft becomes necessary.” No major news outlets picked up on the story, and the notice was pulled without explanation from the website just a few days later.
Then, in November, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, told the House Armed Services Committee that the Army could not “simultaneously maintain the occupation at its current size, limit deployments to one year, and sustain all of its other commitments.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld followed that up a month later by telling Time Magazine that “we may need a bigger Army.”
More recently, the Seattle Post Intelligencer reported in May that, through the Freedom of Information Act, they had received a document revealing that the Selective Service System (SSS) is currently “designing procedures” for the implementation of a “Skills Draft” after holding a top-level meeting on it with Deputy Undersecretaries at the Defense Department. This draft would require “virtually every young American,” male and female ages 18-34 to register for the Skills Draft and list all the occupations they are proficient in to fill labor shortages throughout the government. This is a real document, having been acknowledged by both the Department of Defense and the SSS, though they said that no action is being taken on it at the present time. And even the official SSS website notes that $28 million is being spent next year to have the draft ready for activation within 75 days by March 31, 2005.
When asked about the possibility of the nation once again relying upon forced service, President Bush stated that "the country shouldn't expect there to be a draft." However, Lewis C. Brodsky, director of public and congressional affairs with the Selective Service System, said that, "the nation must be prepared to conduct one." Even Senator Zell Miller (the head of the Democrats for Bush Steering Committee), when asked about the idea of a draft said, “While I don't think we're close to that yet, that may be on down the line.”
Government whistleblower Mike Ruppert recently wrote that he has “recently learned from trusted sources on Capitol Hill that the Armed Services committees have quietly begun planning for a reinstitution of the draft.” This is not surprising considering that last year the Army fell short of its re-enlistment goal by 6.7%, and a recent survey of troops in Iraq by Stars & Stripes magazine showed that 49% of troops did not plan to re-enlist (on top of the 31% of troops who said that the War in Iraq is of little or no value for the United States).
The fact of the matter is that if President Bush really plans on winning the peace and establishing democracy in Iraq, he’s going to need more troops to do it. Our troops are stretched thin, morale is low, and the only way we’re keeping our current numbers is by implementing stop-loss procedures and forced extensions of tours of duty. Only one division of troops remains in the United States. And if we are to believe other recent allegations of the possibility of more wars should Bush win a second term, there is almost no question that a draft would be necessary.
So the next time someone asks you about this election and you tell them, “politics don’t affect me,” please remember just what’s at stake here. Tell all your friends that they need to vote in this election as if their lives depended on it. Because quite frankly, they just might.
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