If you wanna throw the proverbial bull about Rep. Charles Rangel’s call to bring back the draft in the United States, feel free to do so in the comment section below
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33 Comments
I’m not really sure why this is such a big new story. I remember hearing him calling for the same thing years ago. It’s not really anything new, nor is there widespread support in congress for his proposal. It will never have a chance of passing.
What James said as well as the fact that there is no need for it. The current volunteer military system is doing well (remember the surge of enlists after Pearl Harbor and 9/11?) and the nation’s selective service is there as back-up.
Seems like this is only being proposed as a way to keep America out of future wars with the thought of politicians’ children being potential draftees. If that is the case, why not go all the way and make the draft cover both men and women? Being that the current US president has no sons of his own…
Let me guess: he has two grown children that are too old to be drafted.
Rangel did propose the same thing years ago. I saw him say it once on the Bill O’Reilly Factor show. Years ago, I say.
The Bush daughters turn 25 Saturday. Not too old for the draft under current regulations…the age range is 18-26 right? Not that I think a draft would ever happen…
Rangel has been proposing this for a long time. What is funny is that the Democrats in the run up to the 2004 election kept saying that Bush was going to draft you if elected:
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006397.htm
When in fact it is the Democrats that want to bring back the draft. Rangel continues to believe the false stereotype that blacks make up a disproportionate amount of the front line troops and that a draft would bring equality. This is totally untrue. Front line units are in fact over represented by whites (slighty) when compared to population percentages in the US and blacks make up an ornate amount of the rear forces when compared to national population percentages. Hispanics not blacks are the ones who are over represented in frontline units, yet I have never heard hispanics complaining about this. Could it be because they volunteer to be on the front lines? It is a volunteer military, no one is forced to be in a combat arm branch.
So his draft idea would actually cause one of the things he says he is trying to fix; more blacks would end up in front line combat positions.
Granted now Rangel is back tracking saying he meant “national service”. I actually would be for a national service program where everyone had to spend two years in the police, fire dept., peace corps, red cross, etc. of your choice. No one should be forced into the military because it is definitely not for everyone. I think it would be a great educational experience for every American to see how good they got it if they go some place overseas for national service. However, it will never happen because people would demagouge the issue as a “draft” for political purposes as Rangel has just done and make it seem like people are going to be getting shipped off to Iraq. Plus to many Americans would complain about it and say it is a human rights violation or some kind of similar nonsense.
Well, a national-service draft is a human-rights violation — compulsory labor, also infringing on a person’s freedom of occupation. It’s something that should be invoked only in times of national emergency.
By the way, even during World War II we had a military-service draft in place. It wasn’t all volunteers. Conscription was reinstated in 1940 after France fell to the Nazis, and ultimately 10 million men (out of a United States population of 132 million) were drafted into the service for the duration — basically all the young men fit to fight ended up in a uniform. Yes, there were tons of volunteers after Pearl Harbor but the draft was critical to our war effort.
But I bet if you asked currently-serving soldiers if they would rather be rotating in and out of Iraq, or staying there three years with a vastly-stronger complement of brothers-in-arms, “go big or go home” would be the preference.
I’m with Brendon. I thought that mandatory labor for the state went out at the end of the middle ages.
Please, no draft. We’re already having one Hell of a time with all the thugs and idiots as it is.
Brendon: For the Supreme Court case precedent holding that selective service/conscription is not a violation of the US constitution, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....ice_System.
I suppose you could still argue that it’s a violation of some abstract international notion of human rights.
An academic point anyway, since a draft is not going to happen; as GI Korea argued this is just a story being played up again because of the “Rangel angle”.
Nevertheless, I got interested. because I see the Supreme Court precedent is dated 1916! Butler vs Perry, I followed the wikipedia link (have to use the one at the bottom of the page) to “Findlaw”, here it is:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/.....;invol=328
I presume when ambitious constitutional lawyers see a precedent that old, they simply burn to get back in front of the modern court and reargue it.
This made me wonder — I knew the US had no draft in 1916, so what was the basis of this case? Turns out it was from a county in Florida, requiring mandatory involuntary labor from male residents to work on the county road system!
Amazing! Never heard of this before, though I suppose it could be a well-known case to US law students. I bet it really got the goat of guys like Kunstler back in the 60’s; there must have been endless attempts to relitigate it back then.
“…But I bet if you asked currently-serving soldiers if they would rather be rotating in and out of Iraq, or staying there three years with a vastly-stronger complement of brothers-in-arms, “go big or go home” would be the preference.”
As with all polling, it depends on how you frame the question:
1) If you ask GI Joe:
“would you rather the Army be bigger so the burden gets spread out more and you don’t have to do repeat tours here in Iraq?”
you’ll probably get the enthusiastic “yes” you anticipate.
2) If you ask him:
“Do you want to go out on convoy duty today with a bunch of guys who didn’t volunteer to be here and will do anything to get out of it” —
I suspect you’re liable to get a very different answer.
BTW, you’re not going to get 3 year tours in a combat zone.
One other way that today’s military is very different from WWII/Korea/Vietnam is that there are many more married soldiers of all ranks with families — and the wives work.
Which is a big part of the reason why we’re doing battalion/brigade rotations into Iraq/Afghanistan, a system IMO far superior to the individual rotation of new draftees used for Vietnam (which was a legacy of the Korean war and which in Vietnam almost destroyed the unit cohesion of the Army).
Rangel is smart enough to know all of this if he cared to learn it, which is what makes his proposal a blatant attempt to play politics.
Paul H. — good points, but as you note, I didn’t assert that conscription violates Constitutional rights. Military conscription and labor corveé do, however, violate general human rights. To pick another example, torture is a violation of someone’s human rights, but it should not always be unlawful — in exigent circumstances some individuals’ human rights get set aside.
While I will say that this is, so far, the most civil discussion of this issue I’ve seen in a while, it’s still rife with misinformation. Every time you type “the Democrats” in a thread like this, you out yourself as having no idea what you’re really talking about.
If anyone bothers to research this guy, you’ll find that his point was to prevent wars of aggression by ensuring that the people who make the decisions also have the chance of having something at stake. He’s recognizing that the US military is overwhelmingly funded by the “haves” but participation is overwhelmingly among the “have nots” and attempting to put measures in place to ensure that this won’t be the case if we decide to fight aggressive wars.
Also it should probably be noted that Rangel knows for a solid fact that this will never pass and is trying to spark some discussion, at least among elected officials, on this topic. No one wants a draft. Most Americans are too soft and lazy to fight, anyway. Whining and bitching on the internet does not win wars and that’s what far too many American males are good at.
Pelosi has already stated that the Dems won’t pursue a draft, and that she thinks Rangle knows this but is just trying to “make a point.” It’s a complete non-issue, although the irony that GI Korea points out is amusing.
“….his [Rangel's] point was to prevent wars of aggression by ensuring that the people who make the decisions also have the chance of having something at stake…”
How about instead of a draft, let’s simply pass a constitutional amendment requiring members of Congress (435 Reps, 100 Senators) and the Pres & Vice-Pres to have sons (daughters too in this modern era) on duty in the US military? Maybe we should include the SecDef as well.
Ok, not every candidate can meet this requirement, we can be flexible, extend it to nieces/nephews, younger cousins, etc. Also maybe an exception for those members who have served themselves (such as Rangel, I gather he is a Purple Heart veteran who was drafted (?) and served in Korean War).
Of course this isn’t going to happen, still it’s remarkable to me that you never hear this particular argument. The only precedent I can think of is the science fiction author Heinlein’s argument for veterans only to hold citizenship/voting privileges; if you haven’t read his novels (I haven’t), maybe you’ve seen that bizarre movie version of a few years ago.
Of course, if you were to bring Heinlein’s argument up “cold turkey” (ie separated from its Iraq war context), the veins would bulge out on the lefties’ empurpled faces and they would draw in a huge breath, preparatory to yelling “fascist!” at the top of their lungs (or at least so I like to imagine). Thus, we would come full circle, and all things are relative, in this best of all possible relative worlds.
That’s a logical implication of what you are saying. Frankly, I’m being just like Rangel here, in that I don’t really believe in my own argument, and I think your argument is fallacious.
You implicitly assume that members of Congress are completely “disconnected” from those of their constituents who either are servicemembers or who have family members who are servicemembers. I would argue that the opposite is the case, see how often Murtha mentions how he has gone to constituent’s funerals and how that has changed his mind reference Iraq war.
Disconnected as compared to what? I would say that the “Dear Leader” is “disconnected” from the suffering of his own people, as was Saddam, who I see is now beginning his “rehabilitation” as the former bringer of much-needed “stability” to pre-invasion Iraq. Oh yeah.
We all knew there were going to be funerals as result of the Iraq intervention of March 2003, the question is whether or not there is going to be “victory” in a “timely” manner — however one chooses to define “timely victory” in Origami’s relative universe.
I agree Paul, soldiers would tell you they would prefer more time between deployments but if you ask them in meant spending a year in Iraq with people who don’t want to be there forget it. It is tough enough do a year in Iraq with people who want to be there; I would hate to go back to Iraq again with people who don’t want to be there. The military needs to stay a volunteer force and professional.
This whole draft question is just political posturing, but one interesting qusetion is where would the US get enough troops to fight a major war in Korea AND Iraq & Afghanistan without activating the draft? Can we raise another 3-4 divisions of volunteers at a time when we are having problems sustaining current troop levels in that way? Rangle’s point is also that it might make our leaders think twice about starting trumped up wars of choice if their own kids could wind up in the maelstrom. This is not an unimportant question.
Rangel’s angle is simple : he’s calling the chicken-hawk’s bluff and creating a debate for aligning foreign policy with ethical decision-making. He knows the draft will never happen. It’s a political maneuver (whether you like it or not is a different matter).
By ethical behavior, I am referring to the moral delimma of making decisions without having to deal with or be affected by the consequences. Politicians, think-tankers, war-profit companies and those who benefit from war currently have to sacrifice very little. Rather, they are putting the lives of others (not their own and not their children or family members) on the line.
By foreign policy, I mean (mis)using the U.S. military as an invasion and occupation force rather than as a defensive or humanitarian (Darfur, anyone ?) force. (Then again, Somalia was a disaster, but I digress).
If the U.S. military had more closely represented the spectrum of the American population, including those in power and also those who greatly benefit from war, Iraq would likely not have happened the way it did.
To cite examples, look at WWII. Enough people were convinced that fighting and risking death was worth keeping the U.S. safe from Japan and Germany. Hence, the huge numbers who volunteered.
Then, look at Vietnam. Not exactly the most popular of wars and for good reason. So, the U.S. had to draft unwilling soldiers which caused morale problems. However, it wasn’t morale that caused the U.S. to lose nor was it micro-management of the generals. Rather, it was supporting an extremely unpopular puppet government in S. Vietnam while the Communist promised equal treatment of all. You can’t win a war if enough people on the side you’re fighting for don’t want you to win. Same thing in Iraq now. “Which faction are we fighting for ?” But, again, I digress.
My point is that the military of a properly functioning democracy should not be asked to fight a war if the sacrifice is not equally shared by all. Otherwise, the military becomes too greatly seperated from the population and can be used as a tool by those in power for personal gain.
The “personal gain” Bu$hitler McHalliburton angle is so tired.
GI Korea,
“The military needs to stay a volunteer force and professional.”
From a soldier/general’s point of view, I agree 100%. Keeping morale high and weeding out ineffective soldiers is crucial to winning.
However, a volunteer and professional force risks becoming a mercenary force that can be used for personal gain of those in power, against the long-term interests of the democracy it’s supposed to protect.
A gun is a tool. What it’s used for depends upon who’s holding it and pulling the trigger. Having the best gun in the world is secondary to making sure it’s used effectively and safely.
Personally, I’d feel much better about my children serving in the military if I knew they were fighting alongside those and the children of those who made the decision to go to war in the first place.
Brendon,
“The “personal gain” Bu$hitler McHalliburton angle is so tired.”
Nice move “Hitler” and “Mc”.
I see you’ve read the chapter on “Putting charged words into someone else’s mouth” from “Dirty Debating Tactics 101″
Do you have an actual argument or is slander simply easier ?
Joseph, what’s the “personal gain” you allege? Talk about slander — what could be more base than to claim our elected representatives are feeding on the corpses of volunteer soldiers?
Good lord, did you even read your own writing ?
“feeding on the corpses”
Be careful you are reading my words and not other, poorly-chosen words said by others whose arguments happen to have a high level of correlation with my own. I make my arguments for myself, not as part of some group you seem to dislike.
To clarify the point specifically, it’s very easy to make unethical decisions if the decision-maker is too detached from the consequences. There doesn’t have to be anything intentional about it. Thus, did our duly elected representatives make the decisions (or, rather, lack thereof) that they did. I also believe that Bush and his administration did not properly plan for the intra-Iraq, inter-factional fighting and thus did not envision the level of casualties seen today.
I fault them for poor planning and simple greed rather than “feeding on the corpses” of volunteer soldiers.
Fortunately, I don’t think I have to educate you on studies of ethics and morality : you seem bright enough and educated enough to understand. However, please refrain from inserting words into my mouth. You’ve done that twice now.
Sorry, I didn’t address “personal gain”. Take your pick of these, some of them well-known and “tired” while others not-so-well-known:
-Oil (which equals money)
-Contract money (War service and war hardware both)
-Vanity
-Fear/war keeps people distracted while other, more self-serving legislation gets pushed through
Nobody can dispute that the war did not go as planned. I thought it was a well-known maxim that no plan survives first contact with the enemy — this means that no matter how much you game it, the actual game will be different. Anyway, despite the lack of rose petals at our feet, the level of casualties seen today is lower than any conflict in United States history, so I’m not sure that the body bags merit revolution. Here are some statistics for you. I’m not saying it’s great over there, but I believe the left is overstating things.
MiNam,
Rangle is not calling any bluff because there is no bluff to be called. He is just blowing hot air.
Also, you seem bright enough and educated enough to understand that your “personal gain” reference is analogous to Carr’s “feeding on the corpses,” so I cannot help but suspect you are being disingenuous in feigning ignorance about what he is talking about.
BTW 1: Draft numbers for WW2 and Vietnam Wars:
World War Two era (1940-1946): 10,110,114
Vietnam War era (1964-1973): 1,766,910
Granted, WW2 was a much larger conflict.
BTW 2: Not directly related, but in case this debate gets around to race, here are the US military deaths in Iraq by race (of all causes) compared with 2004 census data (does not include ‘other’ races):
RACE - Iraq deaths - US population
White - 74% - 67.4%
Black - 10% - 12.8%
Hisp. -11.3% - 14.1%
Asian - 1.3% - 4.2%
The casualty numbers are not far out of line with the general population except that Asians are proportionally underrepresented. By Rangle’s twisted logic, this should be taken as proof that Asians are the power elite of America.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/ETHNICITY.aspx
http://members.aol.com/warlibrary/draft2.htm
Andy,
“personal gain” is actually quite different than “feeding on the corpses”, especially in this context. I did not imply something as cold and callous as that brings to mind. As I said before:
“I also believe that Bush and his administration did not properly plan for the intra-Iraq, inter-factional fighting and thus did not envision the level of casualties seen today.”
…which is quite different than “feeding off the corpses”, which implies pre-meditated sacrifice of our soldiers.
While the Bush administration should have listened to voices of wisdom (including and especially Bush 41 people) and studied the history of the region a little bit better, they didn’t. I’m faulting them for willful ignorance and incompetence, not murder. Quite different.
Again, do not associate my arguments with those that are similar, but different than mine. I’m on the “left” of the political spectrum, aye, but I don’t knee-jerk support everything anyone from the left says. You’re not implying that, I know, I just want to make that clear.
As for volunteer vs. draft, I don’t remember reading about people protesting WWII, burning draft cards, and getting gunned down by the National Guard, like what happened in the Vietnam-war era.
And, like you said, the scope of the conflicts was quite different. WWII required the mobilization of much of the man/woman-power of the U.S. (mostly in support, but certainly in direct combat as well) whereas Vietnam required far less.
Brendon,
“I thought it was a well-known maxim that no plan survives first contact with the enemy — this means that no matter how much you game it, the actual game will be different.”
This is quite true, yes. However, I don’t believe that justifies having no plan at all if things turn sour.
Specifically, I fault the Bush administration for not respecting the history that Iraq was artificially created by the British, held together only by the iron fist of a ruthless dictator, and had inter-faction hatred waiting to explode once that control was removed. Thus, the Bush administration and war planners did duly ignore the writing on the wall that by supporting one faction, they’d make enemies of the 2 others, and by supporting all factions, they’d make equal enemies of all.
Did they think that many of our soldiers would die ? No.
However, like Roh who keeps repeating “it must not happen”, Bush and his administration kept and keep repeating “it must not happen” with respect to a chaotic, divided, and violent Iraq.
We never should have gone into Iraq in the first place, and having a conscription-based armed forces would likely have forced more forethought.
The Bush plan was bold — shake up the dynamics of the Middle East, and attempt to inject some hope into a grim, hopeless region. If you accept the premise (as I do) that free and prosperous democracies do not make war on each other, it was a sensible gambit. Iraq may yet be a success, even if that success takes the shape of safe, free and prosperous Kurdistan (mission accomplished), and Iraqi Shiite and Sunni areas that sort themselves out after a bloody civil war. As you say, there is no one “Iraqi nation” but two, possibly three, nations cohabitating uneasily in a single artificially-constructed state. But if that is correct, then Bush has done nothing wrong — civil war would seem to have been inevitable, and all that American intervention has done is accelerate the timetable. Oh yeah, and put paid to a horrible, sadistic dictator.
That the US now has a core cadre of battle-hardened veterans with experience fighting in the very same environment which will most likely be the theater of war for our next few conflicts, well, so much the better.
MiNam,
I went back and reread your posts and it appears that you were making a hypothetical statement about folks using the military for ‘personal gain.’ The problem is that you are intermingling hypotheticals with opinions about what the Bush administration (and members of Congress who voted for the war) did. I need to know if we are having an argument about the actual Iraq war or hypotheticals.
So, to clarify, do you believe that members of Congress or the administration supported the war for personal gain? If so, then they are indeed “feeding on the corpses of soldiers.”
Do you believe that members of Congress or the administration acted unethically in supporting the war?
Back to the draft, I think WW2 is a poor comparison. Every other conflict the US has fought in was a ‘war of choice’ to at least some degree while both Japan and Germany declared war on us first. But even in the “Good War” we had to use the draft to get 10,000,000 soldiers. There was significant resistance to the draft in the Civil War and WW1.
A relatively small professional army is fine as long as there is civilian control.
Andy,
Who’s feigning ignorance now ? Have you been hiding under a rock ?
I’ll re-post the four points I posted earlier:
“-Oil (which equals money)
-Contract money (War service and war hardware both)
-Vanity
-Fear/war keeps people distracted while other, more self-serving legislation gets pushed through”
Oil - Bush Family, Blair (super-tight with BP’s John Browne)
Contract money - Cheney, Defense Contractor lobby
Vanity - Many, including Bush Jr. (to show Bush Sr. how to “win”)
Fear-driven Politics - Rove, many high-ranker GOP’ers
Dismiss these with a wave of your hand if you will, but it’s awfully convenient the key decision-makers made enormous profits personally off the war.
Also, “feeding on the corpses” is rather against the best interests of all except our enemies since “feeding” implies no corpses, no gain. The last thing Bush and his administration wanted were large casualties. So, again, what I’m saying is quite different than “feeding on the corpses”.
‘Rangel continues to believe the false stereotype that blacks make up a disproportionate amount of the front line troops and that a draft would bring equality’
Rangel wasn’t making that argument. He was talking about how the poor and the lower middle class of any race were making up a disproportionate amount of the front line troops.
Regardless, a draft wouldn’t bring ‘equality’ anyways. Upper middle class and rich kids would get student deferments in far higher numbers than the poorer ones.
In that case the ‘feed of the corpses’ phrase sticks since you are claiming the administration and members of Congress who support(ed) the war are profitting off of putting our soldiers in harms way. It actually is quite the same.
I’ll dismiss it and I don’t even need to wave my hand. Try again next time.