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In case you missed it: the D-word looms eerily
Jim posts about President Bush's new war adviser saying in an interview on NPR that he thinks we should certainly consider re-instating the draft.
In case anyone's wondering, I would be, uh, against that. I think any conflict where an insufficient number of our youngsters (and other healthy people) are willing to go in service is a conflict we shouldn't be involved in. That's aside from the whole question of whether or not there are better approaches to conflict than fighting, much of the time.
In case anyone's wondering, I would be, uh, against that. I think any conflict where an insufficient number of our youngsters (and other healthy people) are willing to go in service is a conflict we shouldn't be involved in. That's aside from the whole question of whether or not there are better approaches to conflict than fighting, much of the time.
no subject
I guess my thinking is, I don't mind mandatory service, in principle, as long as pacifists can request non-military service, but I think such service should be an integral part of the system, as it is in Israel (last I checked), rather than a "whoops, we're running out of bodies, let's draft some people" kind of thing (you could set up a system where the recruitment rate is higher in times of war, I'm just saying there should be ground rules in play, not a hasty patch-job produced by an administration that's fucking up big time). And there should be a perfectly legal way for soldiers who've been on the ground to say "no, this is fucked up, I'm not going back" when we're in a situation that's being mishandled by the higher-ups. At which point *hopefully* the higher-ups would be required to, like, replan or something.
Wouldn't that be interesting? Compulsive service, but higher than 10% defection rate means you have to give the opposition voice a chance to run the military? If there were a clear "opposition voice" that might even work.
But, in point of fact, I might rather have a draft system than a system where we just start putting our military and especially our reservists in for longer tours than they signed up for, breaking up families, and generally mistreating the very people we're counting on. The stories about lack of medical care and funding for Iraq war vets (especially the ones where they get re-classified, post-duty, as having had a pre-existing psychological condition (from before they signed up) that means they don't get medical benefits and furthermore have to pay for their training. That shit is FUCKED UP!)