This is perhaps the single stupidest thing Mr. Crittenden has ever written… and there is some pretty stiff competition for that title.
Don’s reference to Starship Troopers is correct, but this goes far beyond that. Heinlien’s idea centered around VOLUNTARY service, and the Government could NOT fire you…if I recall correctly there is a quote about how someone who was blind, deaf, and paraplegic would be put to work counting the hairs on a caterpiller by touch.
This proposal is basicly Fascist. (Have you read Mr. Goldberg’s book? I know it has lots of big words in it, but I think it would be worth your effort.) Compuslory work in the service of the Volk, “honest, sweat-of-the-brow work” (is what you do “dishonest” work Mr. Crittenden because you don’t sweat while doing it?). All of course ” For the benefit of their nation…” pulling all those upper class kids with Wii’s and Gambeboys down to “our level” so they can see how “real people” live. Gee all we need is Leni Riefenstahl to film all those burning dorms and sweaty, toned, bodies.
(This of course leaves aside the fact all of this violates the 13th Amendment, and would be hideously expensive to boot.)
Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg is right only the Democrats want a draft. This is because they nailed their political futures to the mast of anti-war movement’s ship, (or 454 foot yacht?) and that ship is starting to take on water pretty fast. The Dems NEED a draft (or at least talk of a draft) to make the war unpopular enough they can pull us out of Iraq before Gen. Petreaus actually wins this thing.
The military, on the other hand, does NOT want a draft. I’m not kidding. This was looked into early in the Iraq War and it was decided that a draft would be bad for the military. The Army doesn’t want the sort of loosers and whiners and whimps that a draft would send them.
According to Gen. William S. Wallace, commanding general of Training and Doctrine Command, only 27 percent of youth between the ages of 17 and 24 are eligible for recruiting. The remaining 73 percent, he said, “are morally, intellectually or physically” unfit for service. “It’s the lowest it’s been in more than 10 years.” If you don’t believe me, click on the link I included.
Yes, almost 3 out of draft age 4 kids are to fat, to out of shape, to stupid, to lazy, to uneducated, or have drug, legal, or medical problems serious enough the Army DOES NOT WANT them. The Army has standards, and those standards are so high enough that almost 3/4 draft age kids simply can’t cut it, and the Army does not want them, even today, in the middle of the war.
A draft would just mean that the Army had to spend a great deal of money on weeding out and training and re-training draftees, most of whom just don’t want to be soldiers and a fair percentage of whom simply do not have what it takes to be a solider. None the less the Army would be required to make an attempt to try to make them marginally competent. Then they would have to send said draftees home after two years when their tour was up. The Army would thusly only get one tour out of them. The Army can, and does, do better using the money to pay bonuses to the REAL soldiers who are allready in (men and women who and are motivated and want to be there) and recruiting the 27% of the kids who DO have what it takes.
History has shown time and again that a professional, well trained, well lead, and well supplied force can defeat a much larger a mass Army of conscripts and draftees. Look at Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela, Alesia, Huan Er Tsui, Liegnitz, Crecy, Agingcourt, Omdurman, the Six Day War, Desert Storm, and the inital invasion of Iraq for examples.
A draft would compell the U.S. to move away from the sort of force that WON in Desert Storm and require it to become more and more like the forces it DEFEATED in Desert Storm.
This is a stunningly bad idea on the political, social, legal, fiscal, philosophical, and military level.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archive…
