Rangel once again proposes a new draft bill (hell no we won't go?)
 

This bit of news has popped up recently, causing some controversy within the government and the nation.

What say you? Are our politicians willing to go through with this? Is Rangel merely waving it around to make a point? Do we need a draft? Would you accept the draft?

Let's be intellectual now, guys, this is no epithet zone.

T minus 24 hours and counting....

No wonder the liberals had this much trouble against the GOP. They really are that stupid.

Detering wars by giving yourself a larger and guaranteed number of troops sure seems like it'll work.

I'm just going to resign to the fact that each and every American politician is a dipshit retard. There is no way around it.

Come in, Houston. We're going to move up that launch time just a smidge. T minus 5 minutes and counting.

Note: The opinions expressed by Mr. Skills do not represent those of all Canadians, and it should be noticed if you want to get all pissy and invade our country over it, he lives in Winnipeg. WINNIPEG. You'll have to look on a map. I strongly suggest you find a non-Bush employee to do it, so as to avoid invading Australia.

I EDITTED THE STRIKE TAGS OUT.

Like it matters. You meant what you said, which is why you typed it in the first place, jackass.

Well, its an interesting way to get the younger people politically involved, that for sure, although it is pretty clear that neither parties are welling to back him on this. There simply isn’t the type of political stomach right now, besides, from what I heard (an interview on the news) US military isn’t exactly ready to handle an influx of new troops in large number at the moment. Wasn’t there something about a “smaller more efficient army” that Rumsfeld was throwing around a couple of years back?

Ya, they fired that guy because his plan didn't work for shit, Magi. I'm sure you heard about it.

I editted it out because this is the PP and half hearted jokes and sarcasm go over about as well here as you would at a Dem pep rally.

Besides, Deni already said in chat he quoted it just to start shit again. Because he's a fucker.

No, no... NP would go over great at a dem pep rally. But put him in the republican camp, and we's-a-gonna-sees-us-a-lynchin'.

Republicans != negroes. Especially angry ones. See entry on Katrina.

On the contrary, given that I'm young, black, college-educated, and lean conservative on most issues, I tend to get carte-blanche at Republican functions.

carte-blanche. Interesting choice of words.

Also, you're not so much with the jokes, are you NP?

Yeah, all 3 of those personal traits are extremely rare in that group. I'd imagine you'd practically get your dick sucked just walking into such a convention.

Leave the Oreo alone, Deni. He's got no sense of humour.

I doubt this would ever get seriously considered, and it does make you wonder how people like him get voted into office in the first place.

My argument is that any talks of a draft would prove to be very unpopular, not just with politicians, but with the people as well. The only exception would probably be if another World War broke out, and Americans, or worse, American service members get killed (which is probably the only real reason why there are still US troops in South Korea, so that if North Korea attacks, it'll be another "Pearl Harbor". And I highly doubt many Americans would be against flattening out North Korea when they start seeing images of dead Americans from NK agression).

Chances are also good that rich, affluent members of society are still going to somehow manage to get their kids from getting drafted. When you have a lot of influence and/or money, you can get a lot of things done, ethical or not (judging from all those scandals). Failling that, they'll probably pull strings to ensure their kids get comfy, non-combat positions in the military (such as managing an office in a stateside base), so that the bulk of the fighting will still be largely middle and lower class people. And you can bet the media in this day and age will paint just about any conflict as a "Rich man's war, but poor man's fight", which will further tick off lower class Americans (wasn't that one of the complaints about the draft for Vietnam? And the American Civil War too if I recall).

And on top of that, any politicians who support a draft will likely not get re-elected come next election (particularly if the conflict requiring a draft goes sour quickly, because their opponents will rail against them using "OMG that guy supported this draft! Vote for the new guy, he doesn't support it and he'll bring our boys home!"), so it's not likely that any sane politicians would risk their political neck to support this.

Guess they'd better hurry up and finish that border fence, cause soon it'll keep Americans from running to Mexico to avoid the draft this time lol (forget about Canada, cause they have an agreement to send those guys back now. But Mexico, I'm sure they'd welcome rich Americans coming into their country and taking their money to ensure that the US won't find them).

Again, a conflict short of something on the scale of World War 2 is probably not going to interest Americans enough to support a draft (heck, I'm starting to think that if Japan had simply taken the islands they wanted, without launching the Pearl Harbor attack first, most Americans probably wouldn't of cared about a conflict taking place thousands of miles away from their home). If anything they'd tell the current govt. officials to pull out of Iraq sooner if things are going bad (and those extremists killing people aren't making it go any faster. If they're going to attack, they should wait till after the coalition troops pull out, not while they're still there. Or better yet, develop a new, cheap, and efficient fuel that could replace oil, and then maintain a monopoly on that).

Excuse me if I don't find people insulting me and my countrymen funny.

Listen up, fuck boy, my sense of humor is fine. But I don't take kindly to you insulting my country or my blackness.

Just keep in mind that it's something you wouldn't say to my face 'cause I'd beat the brakes off you.

Sage advice.

Now everybody start following it.

Our own commanders have said we won't make any progress without 100,000 more troops. We're not going to get them through volunteering. You have to support either pulling out or a draft. Period. This bill just forces people to take a side.

Or no side, as is more politically expedient.

They could concievably be obtained by taking men from the large majority of the Army that made up of is non-combat elements and turning them into combat infantry.

Perhaps, but it's not like the non-combat troops just sit on their butts all day. The Armed Forces need people to do more than just fire guns. For day-to-day operations, the non-combat people are much more important than the combat ones, actually.

That may be true to a certain degree, but those 100,000 troops the commanders need that you mentioned aren't likely to be 100,000 more supply clerks.

Losing 2-3,000 troops in Iraq shouldn't be enough to seriously hurt the U.S. Army, which between the regular army, reserves and National Guard numbers over a million. But it has. The reason for this is the fact that those relatively few casualties predominantly fall on combat personnel, particularly combat infantry, which make up less than a third of the army. Therefore, those losses do more damage to the Army's ability to wage war than the numbers alone would suggest.

The army can concievably continue to operate with a larger percentage of its personnel transfered to the combat arms.

I don't think we're gonna have a draft any time soon. That doesn't mean I don't think it could happen. Anything is possible. Maybe if we attack Iran, and/or Iraq isn't sorted out in this decade. Though now that Rummy is gone a draft is all the more likely of happening. He was perhaps the biggest opponent to the reinstatement of the military draft given his position.

We're not just going to leave Iraq suddenly now that the Democrats are in power. I seriously doubt this will be the case. For a lot of reasons, namely that the Democrats still support the continuation of the War. Why shouldn't they? They supported the start of it. An exit strategy does not mean we're going to pull our troops from Iraq completely. If history is any indication about what might happen, we're just going to pull our troops back and bomb the living daylights out of the Iraqi insurgency. In support of the Iraqi government forces doing most of the ground fighting -- of course. There's no need for a draft at this point.... Unless I'm wrong.

I don't buy that. We might have just under 3,000 combat troop deaths in Iraq, but we never hear about the wounded numbers. With modern battlefield medicine advancements, I wouldn't be surprised if the wounded numbered as high as 20,000 or more.

Plus, getting a leg blown off by an IED is bound to constrain a soldier's capacity to wage war. I'll go so far as to say it hurts unit morale and discipline and cite an incident like Haditha as proof. Requiring rest and recreation for morale/discipline to be rebuilt.

Even though we only have roughly 150,000 troops in Iraq; that's a lot of troops to rotate in and out, year after year. Not to mention if the military brass wants to send more. The longer we stay in Iraq the more likely a military draft will happen.

Watts, you're right. The number I used was just the dead, and doesn't include the vastly higher numbers of wounded.

However, that still serves to boost to my argument, as those wounded also come predominantly from the combat arms, which further degrades their units' fighting ability. And given that combat arms are such a minority of the Army's total numbers, to maintain troop levels we have to keep rotating combat formations back into Iraq, which does nothing good for fatigue or morale.

But still, it comes back to the relatively small number of actual combat troops among our army. Given their size, and that the vast majority of casualties will fall on them, each one represents a larger hit to the Army's fighting strength.

Seeing as the Pentagon is having trouble meeting their recruitment targets these days, the only reliable way of keeping fresh stocks of army people availible is through some form of a draft. Sure, converting the non-combat elements into fighting units would help in the short-term; but it doesn't solve the underlying problem of sagging recruitment. How about implimenting a draft to fill the lost non-combat posts that would open up with the kind of structual shakeup Mr. Styphon is suggesting?

You know, you have to admit: there is a strange sense of democracy in the idea that every single citizen has to serve. Besides the, you know, obvious destruction of civil liberty.

I've heard far worse arguments for the draft.

Conceptually, there isn't anything wrong with a draft. For example, if the existence of the state is threatened, it would be entirely justifiable to suspend civil liberties until the threat can be managed. Simply put, a constitution isn't a suicide pact. If the younger elements of the population must be conscripted in order to keep the state intact, and thus preserve its way of life, then it should be done regardless of whether or not it tramples on anyone's right to serve. To put it another way, what good is a bill of rights and a constitution if there are insufficient means to protect or enforce it?

Rangel can propose a draft because he represents a poor district with tons of people already in the military. I think his point _should_ be looked at. As the army stands now it's

I don't fully agree with Gecko3 that rich members will be able to escape draft. Not if they take some reasonable means to prevent it. The super-rich who have connections will always be able to get out of things--but they are limited in number. The well-enough-off-middle-class like myself will not be able to get out of it. The result would be a pissed off middle class (if the war wasn't accepted) which would be listened to unlike our dirty poor.

So, I buy Rangel's argument. The draft isn't about improving the military. I've seen two sides of the debate: "draftees don't want to be there and are bad soldiers", "draftees defected less during Vietnam than the volunteers". So, I don't know if it helps or hurts the military. I do think it's important and would help to stop adventurism in policy. The question is, do we want to stop it? If we can go to Iraq with minimal public outcry is that good or bad?

I like to pretend I support social justice (despite sitting back while the poor starve) so I think it would be an interesting and worthwhile experiment.