SwiftVets.com

[Clockwise]

Kerry more likely to reinstate draft

By BRUCE CHAPMAN
GUEST COLUMNIST

Of all the upside-down, misreported issues of 2004, the phoniest is the Kerry camp's assertion that a re-elected George W. Bush will bring back the draft. The case is much stronger that John Kerry himself would do so.

Military conscription was abolished more than 30 years ago by Richard Nixon (yes, that's right) after a six-year campaign by Republicans to replace draftees with volunteers attracted to service by decent pay and better living conditions. I know, because my book, "The Wrong Man in Uniform," in 1967, helped launch a movement for reform that borrowed heavily on the ideas of economist Milton Friedman and was led in Congress by a young Illinoisan named Donald Rumsfeld.

Fighting on the other side of the issue were Democrats led by none other than Ted Kennedy. President Johnson's administration had resisted draft reform and Kennedy and company wanted to retain conscription and make it more universal. Since only a small share of each age cohort of young men was needed to serve in the armed forces, Republicans sought to enlist that share with positive incentives while the Democrats proposed to draft everybody for "National Service," a new kind of conscription that could be fulfilled in the military, but also in various government-assigned jobs.

The volunteer military was a political victory by libertarian conservatives against social-engineering liberals, and its success, as nearly all military leaders acknowledge, has been a significant factor in improving the quality and motivation of America's armed forces in the years following the draft-driven (and protested) Vietnam War.

But liberals have never given up the idea of national service. Funded by fat grants from major foundations, a long parade of studies and schemes to introduce the idea has marched forth in a seemingly endless column from think tanks and academia. In the face of the military's own desire never again to rely on coerced recruits, such organizations as the Brookings Institution have proposed instead an ever-expanding realm of paid voluntarism in the social service sector.

President Bush, like his father, has supported voluntary service, too, even with government funds, but nothing like the scope and cost envisioned by such liberals as Kennedy, and now John Kerry. Candidate Kerry wants to enlist a half million people in his plan, many doing "service" for indirect pay, such as schooling grants, that taxpaying citizens perform now, or could perform if compensated.

But always lurking in the background for liberals has been the idea of getting "service" out of everybody and the full awareness that that will entail coercion in the form of conscription someday. Democrats are the main backers of comprehensive national service proposals in Congress and two Democrats, Charles Rangel and Jim McDermott, were the sponsors of the bills on the draft that the House voted down recently.

Meanwhile, the military (despite misreporting to the contrary) continues to meet and exceed its recruiting and re-enlistment quotas, even as the total size of the armed forces has been increased somewhat. Only the National Guard has failed, in August this year, to fully meet its re-enlistment quotas, largely, one suspects, because of recent unanticipated extensions of service in Iraq. The latter is a concern, though temporary, but it does not bear on the case for and against a resumption of a draft. Much more serious threats to enlistments and re-enlistments were experienced in the Clinton years when pay scales and health services were allowed to erode.

If anyone doubts what is going on here, he might simply examine who backs Kerry, and he will find that almost all the longtime advocates of national service (including many who wish to resume a draft) are among them. On the other stand nearly all of us who worked to introduce a volunteer military in the first place and have worked ever since to preserve it.

Polls show that military families will vote for Bush over Kerry by ratios of up to 3 to 1. Among other things, they know who wants a competent professional fighting force and who would allow it to degrade to the point that a draft became necessary.

It is demagogic, therefore, for Kerry to claim that it is Bush who would like to bring back the draft, not him. It is even more reprehensible that Kerry's friends in the media have refused to explain the background on this issue to a generation of voters who are too young not to be gulled by campaign propaganda.
_________________
Sergeant - 2531/2542/2875/2171 - USMC, 1983-1993.

Sergeant - 19K - M1A1 Tank Commander - C Co, 2-112th AR, 56th BCT, 36th ID, TXARNG, 2003-Present.

[BuffaloJack]

Kerry would have to have a draft.
I don't know anyone in the military who would stay if he were CinC.
They'd all leave the service.

[Snipe]

Well, yeah a draft. With a draft you can then cut the pay of E4 under 4
so they just about have enough for a couple of beers at the PX every
other weekend. That way you can have a large military without spending
all those tax bucks that are better used hiring those Political Science
and Sociology majors that keep graduating from universities and wanting
good paying Government jobs.

A better way to go would be to give the military a pay increase and RIF
the rest of the Federal Government 10% across the board for starters,
then figure out who needs to get RIFed another 20%.

Hey, RIF worked for the Clinton administration for the Military didn't it?
Spread the joy to the rest of the government for a change.
_________________
Tin Can Sailor

[USMCWayne]

As usual, another issue I'm apparently clueless on.

Kerry promises 40,000 new troops and to double the number of Special Forces, and no one calls him on it.

Where does he plan to get these 40,000 troops from, if not a draft?

As for the Special Forces, I guess Kerry thinks it's as easy getting into the Boy Scouts as it is to qualify as a member of the Special Forces.

You guys know as well as me that it takes a certain person to be in Special Forces. Maybe Kerry just plans to lower the standards, add a few thousand more people to his imaginary pool of new soldiers, and give everyone a green beret before he annoints them. That seems to be about the only way he's going to double the number of Special Forces.

I know we're all frustrated as the guy will say and do anything to get elected, and the truth be damned.

[RogerRabbit]

Certainly with sKerry, the volunteer force would drop off, and those nearing retirement would do just enough to just keep them in while waiting for "twenty" to arrive.

This would require a draft in which sKerry would blame the previous administration for the "mess" he left in true fashion of liberals never accepting blame for what they themselves have created
_________________
"Si vis pacem, para bellum"

[Otis]

Thanks for posting a very interesting article.

Kerry and his ilk might want to re-institute a draft but don't they have to get the legislation through Congress? Right now that is a political impossibility. I think the only way it would happen is if there were a terrible terrorist attack here in the states and Kerry used the attack as a pretext to assume extra-constitutional powers. I certainly woudn't put that past him.
_________________
"It is not a smear, if you please, if you point out the record of your opponent."
-Murray Chotiner-

[ArmyMedicsMom]

This was from a Debate between McAuliffe and Rocicot on Cspan Oct 18 at Potomac School, WV I think.


Question asked by Mariah:
I think the possibility of a draft is an important issue to our generation. So Chairman McAuliffe, if Senator Kerry wants to add two new active divisions to our military, if this plan is supposed to fulfill the pressing needs for our American Troops in Iraq and around the globe, how can we possibly fill the Ranks without a Draft.

Chairman McAuliffe:
"Well the reason we may have to have a draft in..it's..it's a discussion we need to have cause nine out of ten active troops are committed over in Iraq.

I spent last week traveling thoughout the country with Tony McPeak, a four star General in the Airforce. He ran George Bushes war...the Gulf War one over..uh..when we first went to the Gulf War.

He supported George Bush in 2000. He now supports John Kerry because he says this nation can't afford 4 more years of George Bushes go it alone arrogent foreign policy.

And if we let the President continue on that way, we may have to have a draft. We don't know today but if I'm a younger person today, it's worth something we ought to discuss.

This is what a Democracy is all about. We've got to have a discussion on these issues.

What John Kerry has said, he wants to do, is to bring 40,000 new troops in. Right now as you know, all of our troops are committed to Iraq. We do have a back door draft. People who have joined the National Gaurd are being called up 3 or 4 times longer then they originally signed up for. They're not allowed to come home.

Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfield, last week in Iraq told the troops when he met with them, you are not coming home.

And we are going to be here for many years.

Well we don't have enough troops today to do the rotation for us to be in Iraq many years.

It would be OK if other allied troops were bringing their troops in and we could reduce our troops levels.

But as I just informed you...Guess what?...Allies are pullng their troops out.

Every time we lose another nation, the target goes on the backs of our young men and women today who are in Iraq.

We need a foreign policy working with our allies. This is how we won the World Wars. We won the Cold War by working with our allies for over 40 years. This is the foreign policy tht we need in this country. Working with our allies, all of us sharing the burdens with one another, thereby bring our troop reductions down.

And I believe with 40,000 more troops and beginning to get our troops out of Iraq, that we will have sufficient military force.
But we won't if George Bush continues to be President of this country."
_________________
Support Our Troops with a Letter or Care Package:
http://www.anysoldier.us/WhereToSend/

http://www.alsabaah.com/iframe.php?file=http://www.alsabaah.com/English.html