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| War Czar: US should consider a draft |
| 2007-08-11 |
| Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday. "I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's All Things Considered. "And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another," Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June. President Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Restoring it, Lute said, would be a "major policy shift" and Bush has made it clear that he doesn't think it's necessary. The repeated deployments affect not only the troops but their families, who can influence whether a service member decides to stay in the military, Lute said. "There's both a personal dimension of this, where this kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living room conversations within these families," he said. "And ultimately, the health of the all- volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions." The military conducted a draft during the Civil War and both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. The Selective Service System, re- established in 1980, maintains a registry of 18-year-old men. Rep. Charles Rangel, (D-Al Queda) has called for reinstating the draft as a way to end the Iraq war. Bush picked Lute in mid-May as a deputy national security adviser with responsibility for ensuring efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are coordinated with policymakers in Washington. Lute, an active-duty general, was chosen after several retired generals turned down the job. The US should consider a February Revolution to depose the czar. I can argue that if you need a draft, you shouldn't be fighting. We have plenty of volunteers, and it we took in more, we could rotate units out more often. |
| Posted by:Gary and the Samoyeds |
| #13 "The present confusion in the civilian mind and the true military mind respecting the purposes of armies and limits of warfare is attributable to many circumstances. Among them, no doubt, is the character of military history as it has commonly been written. Ordinary citizens are lacking in the raw experience of combat, or deficient in technical knowledge, and inclined to leave the compilation of military records to “experts” in such affairs. Writers on general history have tended to neglect the broader aspects of military issues; confining themselves to accounts of campaigns and battles, handled often in a cursory fashion, they have usually written on the wars of their respective countries in order to glorify their prowess, with little or no reference to the question whether these wars were conducted in the military way of high efficiency or in the militaristic way, which wastes blood and treasure. Even more often, in recent times, general historians have neglected military affairs and restricted their reflections to what they are pleased to call “the causes and consequences of wars”; or they have even omitted them altogether. This neglect may be ascribed to many sources. The first is, perhaps, a recognition of the brutal fact that the old descriptions of campaigns are actually of so little value civilian and military alike. Another has been the growing emphasis on economic and social fields deemed “normal” and the distaste of economic and social historians for war, which appears so disturbing to the normal course of events. Although Adam Smith included a chapter on the subject of military defense in his Wealth of Nations as a regular part of the subject, modern economists concentrate on capital, wages, interest, rent, and other features of peaceful pursuits, largely forgetting war as a phase of all economy, ancient or modern. When the mention the subject of armies and military defense, these are commonly referred to as institutions and actions which interrupt the regular balance of economic life. And the third source of indifference is the effort of pacifists and peace advocates to exclude wars and military affairs from general histories, with the view to uprooting any military or militaristic tendencies from the public mind, on the curious assumption that by ignoring realties the realties themselves will disappear. This lack of a general fund of widely disseminated military information is perilous to the maintenance of civilian power in government. The civilian mind, presumably concerned with the maintenance of peace and the shaping of policies by the limits of efficient military defense, can derive no instruction from acrimonious disputes between militarists, limitless in their demands, and pacifists, lost in utopian visions. Where the civilians fail to comprehend and guide military policy, the true military men, distinguished from the militarists, are also imperiled. For these the executioners of civilian will, dedicated to the preparation of defense and war with the utmost regard for efficiency, are dependent upon the former. Again, and again, the military men have seen themselves hurled into war by ambitions, passions, and blunders of civilian governments, almost wholly uninformed as to the limits of their military potentials and almost recklessly indifferent to the military requirements of the wars they let loose. Aware that they may again be thrown by civilians into an unforeseen conflict, perhaps with a foe they have not envisaged, these realistic military men find themselves unable to do anything save demand all the men, guns, and supplies they can possibly wring from the civilians, in the hope that they may be prepared or half prepared for whatever may befall them. In so doing they inevitably find themselves associated with militaristic military men who demand all they can get merely for the sake of having it without reference to ends." Vagts, Alfred, History of Militarism, rev. 1959, Free Press, NY, pp 33-34. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-08-11 21:22 |
| #12 A draft is fine when we need millions more fighting men (i.e. for if we ever get into that much-feared land war with China). But all we need for now is perhaps 50,000 more. For that many men, a draft is a nutty idea. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-08-11 20:41 |
| #11 I guess like Nixon, Charles Rangel can now profess: "You All don't have Rangel to kick around, anymore!". |
| Posted by: smn 2007-08-11 20:20 |
| #10 I agree with a draft. All the anti-war crowd should be drafted and equipped in their beloved PC manner. No guns, no body armor, no weapons beyond a club or perhaps even a copy of geneva convention to fight with. They would serve proudly as mine dectectors, being first through doorways to draw fire and used as human shields to protect our troops from enemy fire. Isn't that what they believe in? We should let them benefit by serving in this way. They can then have all the 'moral authority' they so crave about the issue, assuming of course, they live long enough to speak. Yeah, not in a very generous mood toward the left today. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2007-08-11 19:38 |
| #9 I want some of whatever Lt Gen Lute has been smoking. The president doesn't want a draft. The Congress doesn't want a draft (except for nutcases like Rangel). The people don't want a draft. The military doesn't want a draft. So why does Lt. Gen. Lute want a draft? I think we should all discuss it for a nanosecond or two. OK. The answer is no. |
| Posted by: Rambler 2007-08-11 18:35 |
| #8 I would like to see the politicians and MSM in the U.S. give the military a fair break. Helping out may just mean STFU and leaving the military alone to let them do their job. I would hate to dilute the existing military with a bunch of guys that don't want to be there. We have created a very professional warrior class in the U.S.A. There is no military that is better in this world. We have often handcuffed them and put them at peril with unrealistic ROE. I tend to think the draft is not needed and it would play into the hands of liberals as Bobby said. At the same time, I think Americans should share the burdens of war. There are lots of ways to do this. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2007-08-11 18:33 |
| #7 I think the Left is gonna run with this as a reason to end the war now, before the draft comes back. They'll stop at nothing. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-08-11 15:57 |
| #6 Are enlistments down because of anti-war media pressure ? If the answer is yes, then a draft can be used to remove the pressure. That is when almost everyone has to report for a physical, the recruiters can work the crowd for volunteers. With 10 million boys passing through, a class of 40 thousand would be easy to field from volunteers. It would also help the general public to realize we are at war, all of us. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-08-11 13:40 |
| #5 As an effective and low cost alternative, I strongly suggest that the US create a foreign legion garrisoned outside of the US, perhaps on a further enlarged Johnston Island in the Pacific. Staffed by US military officers, but manned with Gurkhas, Sikhs, Samoans, etc. Trained as light mechanized infantry, their role, unlike the French foreign legion, would be in the performance of rapid deployment peacekeeping missions, humanitarian relief, and other armed services for which using US personnel is egregiously expensive and wasteful. They would not have significant support assets, which would be supplied by the US military, but would be able to perform extended duty in places where the US has marginal interest, such as Kosovo and Sudan. The value of doing this is enormous. First and foremost, as part of the US commitment to UN operations, there would be no hesitation in placing them under foreign command or UN ROE, which are patently offensive to US personnel. Second, it would be a tremendous cost savings to the US in both "treasure and lives". Since most of what they would be doing would be light infantry training, the majority of costs would be in salaries, food, medical and training support. Just a fraction of what a typical US unit costs. And such a Regiment could augment US forces in a situation like Iraq or Afghanistan, as extra "boots on the ground." In fact, it might even be to our advantage to create a second training installation on one of the more isolated Aleutian islands, for mountain training during the summer months. Eventually, such a Regiment could be as large as a separate Brigade of 5,000 men. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-08-11 13:29 |
| #4 The predicate's in place for when the balloon goes up. |
| Posted by: mrp 2007-08-11 13:08 |
| #3 All these assholes who don't want to pay to equip an 11 division army instead of a 10 division army are suddenly going to be able to equip a 100 division one, or come up with a fair draft scheme? |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2007-08-11 12:52 |
| #2 Rep. Charles Rangel, (D-Al Queda) SNARK!!! |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-08-11 12:37 |
| #1 A draft is slavery. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2007-08-11 12:24 |