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Bush Administration Prepares to Bring Back the Military Draft
(Dave Lindorff, Salon.com, November 3, 2003)
The Pentagon is quietly moving to fill draft board vacancies nationwide. . . . The community draft boards that became notorious for sending reluctant young men off to Vietnam have languished sinced the early 1970s, their membership ebbing and their purpose all but lost when the draft was ended. But a few weeks ago, on an obscure federal Web site devoted to the war on terrorism, the Bush administration quietly began a public campaign to bring the draft boards back to life. Especially for those who were of age to fight in the Vietnam, it is an ominous flashback of a message. Even floating the idea of a draft in the months before an election would be politically explosive, and the Pentagon last week was adamant that the push to staff up the draft boards is not a portent of things to come. Increasingly, however, military experts and even some influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to consider a draft to fully staff the nation's military in a time of global instability. . . . Not since the early days of the Reagan administration in 1981 has the Defense Department made a push to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots. . . . "The experts are all saying we're going to have to beef up our presence in Iraq," says U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat. "We've failed to convince our allies to send troops, we've extended deployments so morale is sinking, and the president is saying we can't cut and run. So what's left? The draft is a very sensitive subject, but at some point, we're going to need more troops, and at that point the only way to get them will be a return to the draft." . . . The draft, ended by Congress in 1973 as the Indochina War was winding down, was long a target of antiwar activists, and remains highly controversial both in and out of the military. Most military officers understandably prefer an army of volunteers and career soldiers over an army of grudging conscripts; Rumsfeld, too, has long been a staunch advocate of an all-volunteer force. . . . According to some experts, basic math might compel the Pentagon to reconsider the draft: Of a total U.S. military force of 1.4 million people around the globe (many of them in non-combat support positions and in services like the Air Force and Navy), there are currently about 140,000 active-duty, reserve and National Guard soldiers currently deployed in Iraq -- and though Rumsfeld has been an advocate of a lean, nimble military apparatus, history suggests he needs more muscle. . . . "There the British needed a ratio of 10 soldiers per 1,000 population to restore order, and at their height, it was 20 soldiers per 1,000 population. If you transfer that to Iraq, it would mean you'd need at least 240,000 troops and maybe as many as 480,000. "The only reason you aren't hearing these kinds of numbers discussed by the White House and the Defense Department right now," Pe�a adds, "is that you couldn't come up with them without a return to the draft, and they don't want to talk about that." . . . Stars and Stripes, the Army's official paper, reports that a poll it conducted found that half the soldiers in Iraq say they are "not likely" or are "very unlikely" to reenlist -- a very high figure. Consider that the total enlistment goal for active Army and Army reserves in the fiscal year ended Oct. 1 was 100,000. If half of the 140,000 troops currently in Iraq were to go home and stay, two-thirds of this year's recruits would be needed to replace them. And that does not take into consideration military needs at home and around the globe. . . . "The government is in a bit of a box," Lebow says. "They can hold reservists on active duty longer, and risk antagonizing that whole section of America that has family members who join the Reserves. They can try to pay soldiers more, but it's not clear that works -- and besides, there's already an enormous budget deficit. They can try to bribe other countries to contribute more troops, which they're trying to do now, but not with much success. Or they can try Iraqization of the war -- though we saw what happened to Vietnamization, and Afghanization of the war in Afghanistan isn't working, so Iraqization doesn't seem likely to work either. "So," Lebow concludes, "that leaves the draft." . . . Already, the American public is almost as split today over the war in Iraq as it was about the war in Indochina nearly four decades ago, though not yet as passionately. But a new draft would likely incite even deeper resentment than it did then. In the last war fought by a conscript army, draft deferments for students meant that nobody who was in college had to worry about being called up until after graduation, and until late in that war, it was even possible, by going to grad school (like Vice President Dick Cheney), to avoid getting drafted altogether. In the Vietnam War era, college boys could also duck combat, as George W. Bush did, by joining the National Guard. . . . But that's all been changed. In a new draft, college students whose lottery number was selected would only be permitted to finish their current semester; seniors could finish their final year. After that, they'd have to answer the call. Meanwhile, National Guardsmen, as we've seen in the current war, are now likely to face overseas combat duty, too. "If Congress and Bush reinstitute the draft, it would be the '60s all over again," predicts Lebow.

posted by Lorenzo 10:30 AM