Does... When Does... Kerry Play 'The Draft Is Coming Under Bush' Card ???

[WillyT]

Does he wait until late October, bring it up in the debates, not use it at all...

What are the ups and downs on this?

:shrug:

[WillyT]

1. Um... Hi There...

:scared::wow::scared:

[Dems Will Win]

12. DRAFT?!?! Did someone say DRAFT?!?! What DRAFT? Oh, that

DRAFT!


BUSH ’04 = DRAFT ’05 SPECIAL ALERT


Please distribute this post and the official SSS draft document, the Feb. 11, 2003 “Issue Paper”, to all college newspaper editors, in LTTEs and mass e-mails.

PRINT THE PDF: http://somnamblst.tripod.com/draftalert.pdf
HANG THIS FLYER EVERYWHERE

This is a SPECIAL MILITARY DRAFT ALERT. In May, the Seattle Post Intelligencer published an article about a document they received through the Freedom of Information Act. It was revealed that the SSS is currently “designing procedures” for the implementation of a “Skills Draft” and had held a top-level meeting on it with Deputy Undersecretaries at the Defense Department. This draft would change the essential mission of the Selective Service and 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 nearly the entire government. If enacted, the Skills Draft proposed in this FOI-recovered document would change America as we know it.

The Pentagon is suffering from immediate labor shortages. Recently, the inactive Ready Reserve had to be called up for the first time since the Gulf War to fill 5,600 job shortages in the Armed Forces. DoD said in the recent IRR callup “20% of the call-ups are truck drivers, 12% are supply specialists who can use a computer to track supplies, 10% are Humvee mechanics, 7% are administrative specialists and 6% are combat engineers” (USA Today, August 8, 2004).

Although Congress would have to approve new legislation to create a Skills Draft or reinstate the combat draft, Family Circle reported in its July 13 issue that Karl Rove has polled GOP members of Congress in September 2002 to see if they would support the President if he requests reinstatement. The Republicans said they would vote for the draft. They would likely support the new legislation needed to create the Skills Draft. While Bush and the Republicans are of course keeping the return of the draft and the new skills draft as quiet as possible, many anti-draft organizations have recently begun warning of a “Coming New Draft”.

The Issue Paper document was revealed through the Freedom of Information Act by Seattle Post Intelligencer reporter Eric Rosenberg, who wrote a partial explanation of it that was printed May 1, 2004.

(http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171522_draft01.html)

Rosenberg’s article was edited, however, and some key points about this document were omitted in the published article. What follows is a full explanation of the document and links to the document itself.

The Secret Issue Paper can be viewed at: http://blatanttruth.org/selective_service091304.pdf

This document is real, having been acknowledged by the DoD and the SSS when they said no action is being taken on it at the present time. However, given the current manpower shortages for certain skills and nurses, if Bush gets back in, expect all the options outlined in the Issue Paper to be implemented by the end of December of this year, and at the least a non-combat skills and medical draft to start next year, if not the male combat draft, ages18-25.

Despite Rumsfeld saying the draft is not needed, this is the same neo-con administration that has repeatedly lied to and misled the American people. Draft-age youth and their families are left looking at a “long, hard slog” in Iraq (Rumsfeld secret memo), the neo-con plans to invade still more nations, and then having to take Rumsfeld and Cheney’s word not to worry about the draft, that they “are not considering it at this time.”

Although official word is that this secret list of options is not being implemented—the Issue Paper options have NOT been rejected and the 6-page proposal is rather sitting in the Pentagon, waiting. In addition, the SSS itself has said that it is “designing procedures” (Seattle PI, May 1, 2004) to implement the skills draft, meaning designing the compliance cards and the data fields needed to keep track of “virtually every young American” and their skills. Acting Director of the SSS Brodsky has also said the Skills Draft is the “top priority” of the Selective Service for 2004.

From the FOI document, we now know that on February 11, 2003, Charles Abell, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and William Carr, Deputy Undersecretary for Military Personnel Policy, met with Lewis Brodsky, the Acting Director of the Selective Service and some other officials. This is the highest-level meeting you could have about the Selective Service, outside of Rumsfeld and his inner circle. They were there to discuss the urgent “issue paper” now revealed, which starts: “With known shortages of military personnel with certain critical skills, and with the need for the nation to be capable of responding to domestic emergencies as a part of Homeland Security Planning, changes should be made in the Selective Service System’s registration program and primary mission”.

Although it would require changes in current draft law, the far-reaching proposal shows how far the Republicans are going to plan and prepare for a huge expansion of the draft. The Issue Paper options include:

- Change the very mission of the SSS to become a massive conscription service in the War on Terror for the entire government.

- Conscript men and women in a critical skills non-combat draft up to age 34 with no deferments of any kind, except “essential community service” (like the Medical Draft).

- Allow a non-combat draft for shortages in critical skills, without calling a combat draft.

- Fill labor shortages of all kinds throughout not only DoD but the whole government, especially high-paying professionals like computer networking specialist or linguist.

- Create a massive database of “virtually every young American” ages 18 to 34. This database would be used to draft in war and to recruit in peacetime. State and even local governments would be given access to the names for recruitment and help in emergencies.

- Create a single-point, all-inclusive database, in which every young person would be forced to send in a “self-declaration” of all of their critical skills, chosen from a long list of occupations like the Armed Forces Specialty Code. The self-declaration is similar to IRS compliance and the filling out and signing of your tax forms. All young people would be required to keep the government updated if they acquired a new skill. SSS Compliance forms will be available at every Post Office. The usual penalties of imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine would apply to all non-registrants.

- A draft or recruitment could be for any one of the skills you self-declare on the compliance form, not your current or primary skill. This greatly increases your chance of being drafted if you are 18-34

- Bring the Medical Draft (HCPDS) up to speed and fully test it through readiness exercises.

- Reduce induction time from being able to deliver all inductees in 193 days down to just 90 days for skills inductees.

This secret paper urges the mission be changed “promptly”, meaning they really need it, it would draft for the Pentagon as well as the enormous Homeland Security branches as well as other government agencies, even state and local!

For obvious political reasons, the decision was made by Bush, Cheney and Rove to sit on this 6-page proposal until after the election in November. Yet the SSS was told to go ahead and begin “designing procedures” for the Skills Draft in 2004 and make it their “top priority”. It can be expected that if Bush gets back in, and the DoD and SSS are still asking for the Skills Draft, the “Next Steps” part of the document will be put into action and the most expansive option to change the SSS mission will be rapidly legislated.

In the secret planning meeting document, the next steps strongly recommended by SSS Acting Director Brodsky were:

1. “Promptly” redefine the SSS Mission to draft men and women up to age 34 for skills, and deliver them within 90 days or sooner to the Department of Defense. Program a massive database to be ready to enter millions of names of those registering their critical skills.

2. Expand mission to deliver personnel in skills draft to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including FEMA, NSC, Border Patrol, INS, Customs, Corporation for National Service, Public Health Service and other federal, state and local government agencies.

3. Form interagency task force to provide Administration with recommendation on this skills draft for the entire DHS and the rest of the government.

4. Obtain White House Statement of Administration Policy on the future of the SSS.

5. Be prepared to market the skills draft, raising the non-combat age to 34 and the drafting of women to the Armed Services and Appropriations Committee.

This proposed expansion of the draft, forcing all people under 35 to register with the SSS, man or woman, is primarily proposed, according to the document, because the cost of providing contract professionals, like computer network specialists, would be “prohibitive”. In this way, the proposed Skills Draft would help preserve Bush’s massive tax cuts for the wealthy by lowering the massive budget deficits.

That’s the new Skills Draft and the secret document behind it. But what about the Combat Draft?

Selective Service has been registering young men for over twenty years and at any moment the President can go to Congress and ask them to reauthorize conscription for the male combat draft for ages 18-25. It doesn’t take much to imagine a re-elected Bush going to Congress and saying “We cannot cut and run from Iraq or the War on Terror. I need you to reauthorize conscription.”

And they would not have to pass a whole new draft law to do it. All that is needed is a “trigger resolution”, which could be passed in the dead of night—and bingo! No debate, no regular bill, just a short resolution passed quickly and the draft for men 18 to 25 is back.

That is why the Democratic draft legislation being offered by Rangel and Hollings is totally irrelevant. These are known protest bills and actually propose drafting women for the combat draft, just to make sure they will never see the light of day. Rangel and Hollings offered them to raise the issue and confront Bush. Hollings even said he wouldn’t vote for his own bill!

They are not needed—and the press and the Republicans will bring them up as red herrings to distract everyone from what is really going on: the Republicans, and the SSS are quietly, behind the scenes, oiling up the draft machinery—getting ready to reinstate for the Spring of 2005. Taken singly, each of the clues indicating the return and expansion of the draft might seem insignificant but when you add them all up with what the selective Service is doing to gear up the combat draft, a clear pattern emerges, leading to the inescapable conclusion that a Bush re-election will see not only a Skills Draft, but a return of the Combat Draft as well.

What is the proof? The government’s own document, the SSS Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2004:

http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html

The Selective Service System, or the SSS, has for decades operated at a low level of readiness. Readiness Exercises are conducted on a multi-year cycle but historically these have been little more than getting draft board volunteers together and going over the procedures of what would happen under reinstatement and training new members every summer. And the draft boards themselves have become 80% vacant over the decades.

In the current 5-year cycle of exercises, however, the SSS is clearly ramping up the draft machinery to an unprecedented level.

“Strategic Objective 1.2: Ensure a mobilization infrastructure of 56 State Headquarters,
442 Area Offices and 1,980 Local Boards are operational within 75 days of an authorized
return to conscription.”

Tie that to this objective:
“An annual report providing the results of the implementation of these performance
measures will be submitted by March 31, 2005.”

75 days from March 31, 2005 is about June 15, 2005. According to the 2004 plan, the draft boards will be “operational” then, meaning that they will be set up in 1,980 local offices around the country. If Bush asks for reinstatement on April 1, Congress could pass it that night and the first batch of over one million 20 year-olds would face the national lottery as soon as that date, June 15, 2005.
Here is how the $28 million is being spent according to the official document. Although the Senate rejected the funding request to bump up the SSS budget to $28 million, the SSS says in one paragraph of the Performance Plan that budgets will be “adjusted” to cover the additional cost for 2004:

“Strategic Goal 1: Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the Manpower
Delivery Systems (Projected allocation for FY 2004 – $7,942,000)

Strategic Goal 2: Improve overall Registration Compliance and Service to the Public (Projected allocation FY 2004 – $8,769,000)

Strategic Goal 3: Enhance external and internal customer service
(Projected allocation for FY 2004 – $10,624,000)

Strategic Goal 4: Enhance the system which guarantees that each conscientious objector is properly classified, placed, and monitored. (Projected allocation for FY 2004 – $955,000)”

In analyzing each of the 2004 goals in detail it is obvious that there are hidden “activation bombshells” in this so-called “Performance Plan”. Goal number 1 in particular brings the combat induction process up to 95% operational readiness, going so far as to actually hold a mock lottery drawing this year and to issue sample orders to report for the famous medical exam. The document does not reveal the day in 2004 the mock lottery is to be held.

In addition, the Medical Draft, or Health Care Personnel Delivery System (HCPDS in the document), is for the first time brought up to full readiness by next year. This draft would take men and women up to age 44 if they are doctors, nurses or one of 60-some medical specialties. No medical deferments allowed. Previous readiness exercises merely went over what would happen with HCPDS and updated the guide. The 2004 plan actually develops a readiness exercise for the Medical Draft that would be conducted next year. Plus HCPDS must be ready to conscript by June, being part of the system.

Goal number four is particularly ominous.

“Strategic Objective 4.1: Ensure a mobilization infrastructure of 48 Alternative Service Offices and 48 Civilian Review Boards are operational within 96 days after notification of a return to induction.”

“Strategic Objective 4.2: Develop a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the Alternative Service Employer Network to specifically identify organizations and associations who can, by law, participate in the Alternative Service Program. This network will provide jobs for ASWs at the local level. Prior to activation, SSS will develop a draft MOU for use when obtaining agreements with qualified employers at the local and national level.”

For 31 years, the Conscientious Objector system, called the Alternative Service, has lain dormant. The 2004 plan also calls for this to be brought up to speed and to be ready to decide cases and place COs in the Alternative Service by July 6, 2005 (96 days after March 31, 2005). The SSS is even going so far as to draw up the SOPs, the Standard Operating Procedures which identify local employers eligible to receive cheap AS workers and to also draw up the actual MOU, the Memorandum of Understanding the employer must sign to get their CO workers and allow their mandatory attendance to be monitored. This is the last obstacle to be hurdled before the draft could actually be ready for quick activation under the law.

In sharp contrast to all this preparation for a Spring 2005 draft by Bush, Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry has proposed a military plan that rejects any draft. By adding 20,000 active duty combat soldiers and 20,000 active “reconstruction specialists”. At a Wisconsin high school, Kerry pledged in June, 2004, that the draft would be “absolutely unnecessary”. When asked in April by 130 college editors in a conference call as to whether he would support a draft, John Kerry said unequivocally: “No. No draft” and he has criticized the use of the Guard and Reserve and now the Individual Ready Reserve as a “back-door draft”.

Kerry plans to spend an additional $7 billion to strengthen the Volunteer Army in what is essentially a “No-Draft Plan”. Moreover, Kerry is strongly opposed to the neo-con plan revealed in Wes Clark’s book, in which Clark was told by a senior Pentagon official that invasions of Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan and Somalia were still to come over the next three years.

The major media cover hardly anything that John Kerry says, especially if it is about the draft. So you would never know it, but John Kerry has a No-Draft Plan, a plan to strengthen the military in key areas yet draw down U.S. troop levels in Iraq by internationalizing the situation and then getting out as soon as possible.

Here are the five main points of Kerry’s No-Draft Plan:

1. Move some paper-pushers to combat (lots of potential there)

2. Increase enlistment with real scholarships, benefits and pay raises

3. Let troops know Special Ops will hunt al-Queda, no more invasions needed, so re-up rate goes up. "Primarily a law enforcement effort, not a full military effort", said John Kerry on Meet The Press.

4. Start a "Civilian Stability Corps" that would help in reconstructing Afghanistan and Iraq and relieve military pressure. It would be kind of like the Peace Corps—but on steroids.

5. GET FOREIGN TROOPS TO COME INTO INSTEAD OF LEAVE IRAQ.

Kerry gave some details about the proposed Civilian Stability Corps, made up of volunteers:

"...I propose that we enlist thousands of them in a Civilian Stability Corps, a reserve organization of volunteers ready to help win the peace in troubled places. Like military reservists, they will have peacetime jobs; but in times of national need, they will be called into service to restore roads, renovate schools, open hospitals, repair power systems, draft a constitution, or build a police force. A Civilian Stability Corps can bring the best of America to the worst of the world—and reduce pressure on the military."
- Source: Kerry, John. "Protecting Our Military Families in Times of War: A Military Family Bill of Rights." March 17, 2004. http://johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0317.html >

In April, on a conference call with 130 College Newspaper Editors, Kerry said “No Draft”, that he would have a sensible foreign policy that would not require reinstatement. And in June, Kerry told a Wisconsin high school that if elected, a draft would be "absolutely unnecessary".

Kerry’s plan calls for increasing active-duty troop levels by 40,000 people. He also doubles the number of Special Ops troops. Half the 40,000 being added are civil engineering/reconstruction specialists and half are combat, costing an extra $7 billion, but it relieves the pressure on the Guard and Reserves for overseas deployments and essentially saves the Volunteer Army. $7 billion is well worth not having to bring back the draft!

Kerry charges that Bush is ruining the Volunteer approach with long Guard and Reserve deployments and numerous stop-loss orders, which Kerry says is a “Back-door Draft”. Since Kerry will increase pay, benefits, scholarships and reduce long deployments of regular troops and the reserves, if he is elected the re-enlistment rates and recruitment rates will return to normal. Recently, troops returning from Iraq are reportedly leaving the Service in huge numbers, although denied by DoD (see David Hackworth, Voting With their Feet http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38644).

With this No-Draft Plan, Kerry will not have to resort to conscription, even after Bush has made such a mess of it in Iraq. Kerry has also pledged that he will push renewable energy development and true energy independence, “so that we never again have soldiers dying for oil”.

Kerry has criticized the inequality of the draft, that the poor and minorities are inducted in higher numbers than their fair share and that the draft is a source of conflict. John Kerry will not reinstate the draft—outside of the invasion of the United States by China or something like that.

The choice is thus clear to all voters. Vote for Bush and you are also voting for the resumption of the draft—to man his hidden agenda of invading more countries and staying in Iraq forever.

Or vote for Kerry and you are voting PNAC out of the White House, and with it Bush’s hidden agenda to bring back the draft so U.S. companies can dominate the world’s remaining oil supply.


WE HAVE TO DO IT OURSELVES AND GET THE DRAFT ISSUE GOING.

PRINT THE FLYER! We've had 9,000 hits at http://www.blatanttruth.org/draft.php since the 13th!

THE FLYERS REALLY WORK!!

[cheshire]

2. I believe he has. What do you watch. It's hard to see much of his speeches

[WillyT]

5. If He Did, I Missed It !!!

Tried doing a Google search, and didn't get anything that way either.

I guess what I want to see, is Kerry ask Bush out loud in front of the press, and put Bush on the record. Either at one of the debates, or through a speech. Remember when Bush kept challenging Kerry to respond to the "now that you know, how would you have voted" garbage? I think turn around is fair play.

"Mr. President, you have stated that this war on terrorism will be multi-generational. You have named several countries that are part of the Axis of Evil. And now we are engaged in wars in two countries, and our troop levels are very much under stress. Mr. President, if elected to a second term, will you reinstate the military draft? And if so, who will be exempted from serving?"

:shrug:

[Davis_X_Machina]

11. Specifically mentioned Rep. John Murtha's charges....

...in his recent speech.

I found it here after thirty seconds on Google.

[WillyT]

13. Damn... And I Thought My Googling Was Second To None, LOL !!!

Thanks!

I'd still like him to issue it as a challenge to Bush. Directly!

:shrug:

[Beetwasher]

3. This Theme Should Be Pushed Polled Actually

But yes, the campaign to spread the notion that Bush will start a draft should be starting now and BIG TIME.

[LenaLush]

4. I agree.. the DRAFT should be equated with the Bush cartel

[roseBudd]

15. I am already putting the draft flyers on campus bulletin boards

telephone poles and tattoo parlors. you should see their faces when I say the word draft.

If enough of us do this in enough college towns we will have a full fledged viral marketing campaign.

I should feel dirty but I don't ;)

Go to http://somnamblst.tripod.com to download high resolution TIF or PDF file to print.

[phish420]

6. He doesn't have to - That is what we are for...n/t

[WillyT]

7. I Dunno... I'd Love To See Reporters Repeating That Question To Bush !!!

Over and over and over...

Just the expression on his face would be worth a lot!

:bounce:

OTOH... You know that he and his henchmen have already thought about this. I wonder what the agreed upon response is???

:shrug:

[Arkana]

24. I know what it is

They'll have Karen Hughes rush in and say, "Ladies and gentlemen, the President has just shit his pants (but he did it with a Presidential air, dammit). This conference is over."

[WillyT]

8. Kick !!!

:kick:

[zulchzulu]

9. Perhaps in the debates...maybe leave it to the 527s

It should be an issue,

Because IT IS AN ISSUE for 18-24 year olds.

[Nicholas_J]

10. Max Cleland and Howard Dean

Started PLaying it already last week:

Will draft fears sway voters?

Cleland and Dean tell students that Bush would conscript them and ship them to Iraq

By Tom Curry

Elect George Bush, some Kerry surrogates said last week, and you or your children will be drafted to fight in Iraq...

“America will reinstate the military draft” if Bush is re-elected and continues the Iraq War, Cleland predicted, according to an account of his speech by the Colorado Springs Gazette.


"Pay attention ... to what you've got going on in Iraq. That, ladies and gentlemen, is Vietnam. I've seen this movie before. I know how it ends. It does not end pleasantly," he added. Cleland has been in a wheelchair since 1968 when he lost both legs and one arm in a grenade accident


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6027815/

Read the whole article. We are limited to 4 paragraphs here, and the first 4 in this areticle dont go into Clelands statements about how the draft always has gotten reinstated and Bush is doing the stuiff that gets it going right now.

[WillyT]

14. Kool, Thanks !!!

Reading it now!

:hi:

[Nicholas_J]

16. No problem

I met someone who is involved with the Kerry campaign in my area tonight who asked me to write an article for the local newspaper, and he would get it published because he knows people on the staff of the newspaper who will get it published. I am a little nervous about trying this.

I directed him to DU if he wanted to get a pulse on what a lot of people who support Kerry are thinnking about the campaign and he could get a lot of information about support in oter areas of the country by coming to DU.

He is retired military, and in fact the people who were with him were also retired military. I was surprised at how many retured military people in this very Republican town with a naval base support Kerry.
I told them about this article too.

[DemFromMem]

17. He Said, She Said

Right now, Bush just simply can deny that he'll do this. A lot of people won't believe him, but the argument does not have the punch of some concrete documentation. Wonder if Kerry is holding something back?

[oasis]

18. Bush said that he is the "war president". PNAC requires armies to occupy

nations that they conquer and "democratize". See for yourself.

www.newamericancentury.org

[Droopy]

19. True, but

Not too many people know about PNAC. I think it's going to take more than just checking up on a think tank to suggest to people that Bush might actually restart the draft any way. And, oh, doesn't Congress have to be involved in that? Would they get enough votes in Congress to reinstate the draft?

[12ss1kp]

20. Well

I guess I'm in the minority here but I think compulsory military service for say 2 years right after high school would do well for our nation's youth.

[WillyT]

21. Hmmm... Who Would Be Exempt ???

:shrug:

[smb]

23. Well, Then...

I guess I'm in the minority here but I think compulsory military service for say 2 years right after high school would do well for our nation's youth.

If you get too uncomfortable being in the minority for believing that people should just shut up and obey, you can always http://www.freerepublic.com">move along.

[smb]

22. Simple

Bush just simply can deny that he'll do this. A lot of people won't believe him, but the argument does not have the punch of some concrete documentation. Wonder if Kerry is holding something back?

All Kerry needs to do is publicly commit to abolishing registration (which the president can do with a stroke of a pen). Then, Dubya has to put up (and be obviously responding to Kerry's setting of the agenda) or shut up.

[Zech Marquis]

25. he just did so today!

I feel alot better this time with Kerry and Edwards fighting back HARD, than Gore and Liberman at this point back in 2000. * clearly has a sense of being in trouble, despite all the shit coming out of his mouth! :puke:

[WillyT]

26. He Did Sort Of...

And I'm not bitching about what he said today. I actually think that he's waiting for the right time to put Bush on the spot.

"Mr. President, will you state here and now, for the American people and their families, that you will not re-institute a military draft?"

Something like that.

:shrug: