Headlines Bush/Kerry on Mandatory Draft

[Smoke]

As I read in the newspaper, kerry and bush want to get the draft back up again. As for me, I don't want that to be passed, anyone elses opinion on this?

 

[tzedek]

it already was killed in the house

 

[Smoke]

Thats awesome.

 

[tzedek]

LINK

yep, 402 to 2 vote.

 

[voiceofreason]

Bush already has a draft, it's called a backwards draft.

Kerry will not need to implement a draft.

 

[breakology]

Pete Stark, D-Calif., and John Murtha, D-Pa., were the only yea votes.

Way to go, you two pole smoking democrats. WTF were they thinking anyway?

The army's problem is not that it does not have enough soldiers, it is poor organization of the existing force. You should see the 1000's of fuck-wads that don't do shit in theater now. All that crap the media puts out about the army being short handed is a lie. They may be short in a few MOS's, but they just need to force some soldiers that do useless, irrelevent jobs to reclass.

 

[haljer]

As I read in the newspaper, kerry and bush want to get the draft back up again. As for me, I don't want that to be passed, anyone elses opinion on this?

I would hate to see the draft reinstated. I could not imagine going to war with some of the whiney ass babies that are always complaining about the draft. If you dont have the desire to serve your country, if you feel that you shouldnt have a role in protecting the future of this country for yourself or your family then I hope to God that no president ever needs your help when we have to protect ourselves.

 

[TarkinRocher]

I would hate to see the draft reinstated. I could not imagine going to war with some of the whiney ass babies that are always complaining about the draft. If you dont have the desire to serve your country, if you feel that you shouldnt have a role in protecting the future of this country for yourself or your family then I hope to God that no president ever needs your help when we have to protect ourselves.

This would be a good point, if we were in a war that was absolutly necessary to protect the US. I've said it before, if a nation directly attacked the US I'd wait in line to sign up to defend the homeland.

 

[haljer]

So did you just get in the wrong line after 9-11???

 

[ferengi]

I don't believe in the draft. I'll fight to defend my country, but whoever we're fighting had better have fucked up BIG TIME before I'll support military action against them. Plus, I'm not willing to go to a foreign country to "defend America." If they're not at our doorstep, or a plainly obvious threat, I say we leave them the hell alone. Aggressive pre-emptive military action isn't the way to get on other countries' good sides (as we've seen with the whole Iraq deal, but I won't go there.)
My point is that the only way I'd pick up a gun is if we were being invaded. And at that I wouldn't join the military. I'd join some resistance cell somewhere. Yeah, that'd rock :soldier:

 

[blw72887]

I don't believe in the draft. I'll fight to defend my country, but whoever we're fighting had better have fucked up BIG TIME before I'll support military action against them. Plus, I'm not willing to go to a foreign country to "defend America." If they're not at our doorstep, or a plainly obvious threat, I say we leave them the hell alone. Aggressive pre-emptive military action isn't the way to get on other countries' good sides (as we've seen with the whole Iraq deal, but I won't go there.)
My point is that the only way I'd pick up a gun is if we were being invaded. And at that I wouldn't join the military. I'd join some resistance cell somewhere. Yeah, that'd rock :soldier:

I respect your opionion, and I do see where you are comming from. Personally I don't have time to join the military if I want to have ym Career when I am 22, but if there was a draft well then I would proudly go.

And if the US was to sit back and allow certain things to go on in the world and go on a "popular" basis.. well then that would be if KErry was in office. Ever herd of the sain "Doing the right thing is not always popular" well it aint'. I support the Iraq war when it happen and I support it today, regardless of our situation, yes our Military should of thought that some monkeys would fight us but that is besides the point.

Anyways it is bad if there is a draft, and I don't think it would be necessary becasue again our forces are in places where if the cold war was still in effect, it is bad organization not a strained force far as the U.S. Is concern. Back to the Pre-Emptive policy, I believe trying diplomacy first, and if that fails well then so be it. but we should not sit around and wait til someone Bombs us before we do anything, that would be a mistake. Personally are enmies is better to be abroad then at home, that is the way it out to be, hell for every country for that matter, then of course somewhere the enmy is at their doorstep.

I think anyone who thinks we should wait, I consider them a supporter of a Candidate I don't like, and from this Post you probably know who I dis-like. Anyways this si just my opionion nor right nor wrong we are entilted to it anyways.

 

[tzedek]

i would cry if i got drafted. i am a pussy. oh well hopefully i will never have to deal with that.

 

[breakology]

President George W. Bush hailed the vote, saying: "If this bill were presented to me, I would veto it."
"America's all-volunteer military is the best in the world, and reinstating the draft would be bad policy," Bush said in a statement.

Republican lawmakers had insisted the proposal to reinstate the draft -- authored by liberal Democrat Charles Rangel -- was doomed from the start.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Sunday he had no plans to revive the military draft if he were elected president. President George W. Bush likewise has rejected compulsive military service

Other Democrats have played on public fears of a return of the draft: In a column that appeared on websites and in newspapers recently, former Vermont governor Howard Dean warned of "the real likelihood of a military draft being reinstated if President Bush is re-elected.

LINK

Interesting, congress shoots down a bill to reinstate the draft. A bill authored by democrats, the only supporters of this bill in congress were democrats as well.

Democrats push draft in congress ... also interesting, most likely written by a right winger though.

From the last paragraph

“The thing with soldiers is, they can vote with their feet every four years about. Whenever they re-enlist, they can either decide to get in the Army, stay in the Army or get out of the Army,” says Exum.

“Well, when you take that option away from soldiers, you know, you’re saying something pretty significant. You’re saying that no longer are we -- that the voluntary military has, in essence, ceased to exist.”

Excellent aricle about the possibility of a draft

According to defense analyst Frank Gaffney, "The civilian leadership of the Pentagon and, for that matter, the White House, does not want, especially in an election year, to contemplate a draft. I think most people in Congress don’t want to think about a draft, and let’s face it, I think most Americans would just as soon not have to think about a draft, either."
But how long can we put off the question? It’s only a matter of time before tens of thousands of soldiers will return from Iraq, their obligations finally complete.

LINK

Kerry said the Pentagon's expansion of the "stop-loss" program -- a device that prevents military personnel from leaving when their time is up -- may have increased U.S. forces by 30,000 troops. "But this has happened on the backs of the men and women who've already fulfilled their obligation to the armed forces and to our country -- and it runs counter to the traditions of an all-volunteer Army," he said.

The administration has "effectively used a stop-loss policy as a backdoor draft," Kerry said during a speech on modernizing the military at the Truman Presidential Library.

Alright, all you young guys & girls that think the draft is a fantasy and that kerry does not support it should take a good long look at the articles posted at these links. Bush has been using stop-loss to keep soldiers in service, regulation states that a soldier may only be stop-lossed once before being released from service, hence eventually we get out.. Bush says he does not support the draft, hence, he has to resort to some method to keep the army's strength numbers up.
Kerry has stated that stop-loss is unfair, and he would not support stop-loss if elected, he also claims to not support the draft. He can't have his cake and eat it to. He has to get troops from somewhere. He is lieing about one of the two. Who knows which. Bush could also be lieing, eventually he will need troops from somewhere as well.

The military's enlistment and retention goals are structured around the needs of the army. There has always been enough volunteers to fill those needs in the past few years. What do think happens when the needs of the army exceeds the available volunteers?
The army met its enlisted goals this year by sending half of the new enlistees they had reserved in the Delayed Entry Program. Leaving them already short for the upcoming year of 2005. Meaning they will be hustling their asses off to make up for the shortage. The situation is very quickly coming to a head.
The ironic part of all this is that I voted for Kerry, but I am not particularly worried about being drafted since I am already in the military.

Edit: Ok, I was'nt really trying to make a point about the issue, just wanted to spark some thought. If I was trying to make a point, it would be that although both candidates say they would not reinstate the draft, there is equal potential for both to be put in a situation where they may have no choice.

 

[DanGeo23]

this backward draft thing is called "stop loss" its in your contract when you sign up... also .. you don't just sign up for 4 years or 3years or whatever.. you sign an 8 year commitment... and you sign for whatever amount of that 8 as active and the rest is inactive.. which means you are at the militaries disposal and subject to call back at any time. all is explained at the time of enlistment... those that don't know.. didn't pay attention...

 

[breakology]

Poor officers, lol ... can be recalled anytime after they get out.

 

[RageAgainst]

This would be a good point, if we were in a war that was absolutly necessary to protect the US. I've said it before, if a nation directly attacked the US I'd wait in line to sign up to defend the homeland.

good point. A draft for iraq would be ridiculous. But a draft in the case of a direct threat to your country would be vital. If the russians had not been forced to fight the nazi invasion, they might would have lost.

 

[bigck3000]

kerry has said, many times now, that he plans to shift the burden of troops onto the iraqis, and our reclaimed allies. i realize that this a "plan" but its better than nothing and hollow promises, i dont believe that the american people will allow them to reinstate the draft, unless they want another vietnam on their hands, and to the kids who said they'd go to defend the country. how the hell is the severly wounded Iraqi resistance a threat to america....propaganda much...we are no longer fighting a war on terror, it has transformed into a pissing contest with a proud group of people who have just as much if not more to lose. before fox news puts a hit out on me, i realize that there are terrorists jumping the border into Iraq to fight us, but do you think if we left this second they would follow us, and even if they did, what the hell could they do? this war is won....were just kicking them in nuts when they're down.

 

[RageAgainst]

I don't think the war is exactly "won" ck... I don't think it will ever be

 

[bigck3000]

Purpose for war #1: Locate the WMD's.....whoops!!
Purpose for war #2: Get Saddam out of power....."mission accomplished"

what now, fight the terrorists? i'd argue with you over our ever expanding definition of terrorist...i'd say the Iraqi resistance could be equated to our militias here, and certainly not terrorists. but hey, its all relative right?

(sorry about the mission accomplished thing, that was really cliche)

 

[breakology]

kerry has said, many times now, that he plans to shift the burden of troops onto the iraqis, and our reclaimed allies. i realize that this a "plan" but its better than nothing and hollow promises, i dont believe that the american people will allow them to reinstate the draft, unless they want another vietnam on their hands, and to the kids who said they'd go to defend the country. how the hell is the severly wounded Iraqi resistance a threat to america....propaganda much...we are no longer fighting a war on terror, it has transformed into a pissing contest with a proud group of people who have just as much if not more to lose. before fox news puts a hit out on me, i realize that there are terrorists jumping the border into Iraq to fight us, but do you think if we left this second they would follow us, and even if they did, what the hell could they do? this war is won....were just kicking them in nuts when they're down.

Kerry can say all of that, but getting the iraqis ready to fight for themselves and getting other countries to commit troops to iraq is goning to be a very involved and arduous task.
I recieved this in an email today, it is semi-relevent to this discussion. :

This unedited e-mail below, sent privately to
friends by Wall Street Journal correspondent
Farnaz Fassihi, was posted on pointer.org, a site
run by the Poynter Institute journalism school.

In an Oct. 4 note to Editor & Publisher magazine,
Fassihi said she never meant the e-mail to become
public. She is now on a vacation that she and her
employers say was planned long before the
controversial posting.

Subject: From Baghdad

9/29/04

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under
virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a
chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away
lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those
reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a
scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the
streets.

I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike
a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any
thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories,
can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road
trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be
curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling.

And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a
car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most
pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay
alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a
security personnel first, a reporter second.

It's hard to pinpoint when the "turning point' exactly began.

Was it April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was
it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it
when Sadr City, home to 10 per cent of Iraq's population, became a nightly
battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading
from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq?

Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under
Saddam it was a "potential" threat, under the Americans it has been
transformed to "imminent and active threat," a foreign policy failure bound
to haunt the United States for decades to come.

Iraqis like to call this mess "the situation." When asked "how are thing?"
they reply: "the situation is very bad."

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control
most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the
country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads
are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of land mines and explosive
devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations,
kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging
barbaric guerrilla war.

In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The
numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health — which was attempting
an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers — has now
stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young
men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They
melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt
and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is
booby-trapped.

He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen land mines per
every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them.
Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an
American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was
supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of
abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad
because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between
towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11
p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in
broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the
Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood.

They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from
their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m.
when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown
back near the neighborhoods.

The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If
anything, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every
day. The various elements within it — Baathists, criminals, nationalists and
Al Qaeda — are cooperating and coordinating.

I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military
and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would
largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was
determined we were missing.

Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in
Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons
flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathists to the criminals. My
friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has
been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still
alive.

America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard
units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being
murdered by the dozens every day — over 700 to date — and the insurgents are
infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military
has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to
get rid of them quietly.

As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate that
almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18 billion
Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so
has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improving security,
a sign of just how bad things are going here.

Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotage
and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did this war
exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up
and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?

Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for
insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day,
even if it means having a dictator ruler.

I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to
run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.

Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about elections
here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting.
He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be
an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a
model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost."

One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us
on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from
its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has
been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it
can't be put back into a bottle.

The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months while
half of the country remains a "no go zone" — out of the hands of the
government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other
half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling
stations.

The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving the stage
open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed
as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.

I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the
Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree
elect a leadership. His response summed it all:

"Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents
and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice
democracy? Are you joking?"

— Farnaz