Political Discussions
Reinstitute the draft now!
Posted by BillGardner • 9/28/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: afghanistan, iraq, the army, the draft, was and peace
Here is my argument for the draft, and why the Army will never let it happen.
idiotsworld.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/recycled-soldiers-mission-creep-nation...
User Comments
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How many threads do you need to push your blog?
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Yes, let's force more young men and women to go and kill other nations' men and women! Sounds like a great idea! Thanks for revealing to the world the epitome of 21st century enlightenment!-
Well, if you read his blog, he explains what he means.
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Interesting polybore was thinking about this the other day while thinking of comparisons between the Vietnam and Afghan wars. One thing that really stood out is the average age of combat personnel in each war. 19 in Vietnam, 30(ish) in Afghanistan/ Iraq.
Rightly or wrongly polybore put this down to the absence of the draft for the Afghan/ Iraq wars.
Coincidentally while thinking about the average age component polybore was also researching the background of the guy who shouted at Obama during that speech to Congress. Noticed that during the time of the Vietnam War he was serving with the Army reserve. Don't know if it was the case for Wilson but joining the reserve was an accepted way for some to avoid being sent to Vietnam without pretending to be sick, gay or studying abroad. Like Bush Jnr or the male Clinton (assign their method of avoidance as you feel appropriate). Of course US reservists are being sent into theatre for Iraq and Afghanistan and that is a noticeable difference as well.
Anyway your post has reminded polybore and tied together these two trains of thought.
Polybore tends not to agree with your reasons for reinstating the draft.
Firstly. If Vietnam was anything to go by the age of combat personnel would drop significantly. Polybore tried to do a horrible calculation on whether it was better for soldiers to die at 19 or 32. In the end from a purely personal point of view decided polybore would rather get killed in 30's rather than 19. Terrible for polybore's young family but at least polybore had a chance to have one.
Secondly. These middle American families that you think would withdraw their support for the War if their children faced the draft would simply do what they did during Vietnam (apart from the reserve option this time) and find ways for their kids to avoid the draft. Study abroad would be at an all time high.
Having said all that polybore knows exactly where you are coming from on recycling. UK troops now have a higher chance of being killed in Afghanistan than US troops had during Vietnam
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-475213/Afghanistan-death-rate-tops-Vietnam...
and that probably goes for US troops as well. As you say this increased chance of injury or death is not due to the intensity of combat but the repeated exposure to risk (repeated long tours) over long periods.
Well just polybore's thoughts on the matter just now. Bit rough and ready. What do you think of 'em?-
you might find this funny
books.google.com/books?id=igqMIP7OjrAC&pg=PA235&lpg=PA235&dq=%22operation+c...
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I do not believe that government slavery and ineffective models for how to fight wars in the 21st century are acceptable policy solutions. When it was necessary to fight wars properly, it was a necessary evil, but today, in the age of easily manufactured explosive, insurgencies, and Laser Guided Bombs, we need soldiers who can operate in small groups making most of their decisions for themselves, and it's hard enough to be a good soldier in this environment if you want to be.
And no, survival is not a good enough incentive because, as we found in WWII, the best soldiers were not usually the ones who lived - the ones who lived hid behind rocks and didn't shoot their rifles. The best soldiers aren't really afraid to die, and love fighting. They enjoy the battle; I've met a few they're beautiful people and you can tell they are a terror to the enemy. I'm actually kind of happy for them, and even happier that people like them exist.
Further, killing people for the sake of winning votes is not acceptable conduct in a democracy! It is an irrational and crass argument and one that should be avoided, not encouraged. If anything, I think the fact that those Middle American families can look at foreign policy with "eyes unclouded by hate" as Miyazaki would put it is a major plus. -
wp
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Why would we need a draft these days anyway? Thats what we pay independent contractors better than our actual troops for.
As divided as we are as a country right now, what makes anyone think that we all have a common trust in our government and would want to serve "our" country. I don't know about you, but I see my government (both local and federal) as being corrupt and it gets worse each year. Sure, there are those that would fight for a system that works against them and their loved ones, but there is no way I would fight for a country that can only tolerate my "freedom" if I offer up my life. I will give my life on my own terms so that I would at least know what I am fighting for.
I hate to break it to you but our country isn't as great as the old patriotic stories that we remind our children of. We torture people, spy on our own citizens, the Posse Comitatus Act is a joke, citizens can't even get the same socialized helthcare that our military gets and the list goes on and on. Maybe thats why we have to keep re-sending the same troops, because the majority knows that this place is jacked and it isn't worth fighting for at this juncture. Right now, I see more of a threat from out of control police and unjust laws than from terrorists overseas.-
Then I'm glad you didn't sign up. I at one point wanted to be a Marine, but about halfway through my application process I got to in a car wreck that pretty much ruined my back and have had poor health ever since, having recently been in and out of hospitals nearly every week. I'm glad if you don't care or see the point that you did not endanger and burden your comrades with your presence. How you act out there matters, and it's the kind of servicemen who doesn't give a **** that gets his comrades killed and puts the world to turmoil.
I disagree with your assessment of our country (to think I'M the one with the rebel flag), but agree full-heartedly with your decisions as to whether to serve. This is exactly the kind of free choice that I want to protect, the invisible hand of human allocation. Further, you have the right to your own life, and that's a right no one should take from you.
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We already have plenty of service people to accomplish the "Common Defense" of our borders... just not enough to "Clear, Hold, Build" the world.
the employment argument reminds me of that Tom Paxton song...
www.mtv.com/lyrics/paxton_tom/lyndon_johnson_told_the_nation/1499508/lyrics... -
When I entered the army in 1983, some of us saw it as Reagan's economic draft. My enlistment was voluntary in the sense that I volunteered in order to have a viable job, because there were no others in my state.
While I was in, I remember the perennial draft question coming up. This was the time when career privates and career buck sergeants were disappearing, because one now had to make progress to stay in. It was also a time of increased education standards and much harsher penalties for failing drug tests, which themselves were on the increase. It was my understanding then that the army was happy it could choose its soldiers instead of having to act as a clearing house, school, etc., for all kinds of people it would rather not have had in the first place.
I can't remember if I was reading this discussion about the draft in the Stars and Stripes or the International Herald Tribune, but those were my two options at the time. -
Germany is clinging to the draft as an achievement of democracy where every man must serve. If he doesn't serve, he is supposed to do civilian service. A professional army, from the point of view of nineteenth-century liberalism, amounted to an instrument of repression by the government. Only the citizens' active involvement, both in the officer corps and the enlisted ranks, ensured that it would do the people's will, not the monarch's (or later: the undemocratic tyrant's).
The problem with clinging to this admirable liberal part of the past in Germany is that a whole lot of men do neither military nor civil service. They either don't get called up, because the numbers aren't needed, or they can get out of military service for a medical reason and so don't need to consider civil service. In other words, the problem is that the draft over there is not fair.
The draft there is even less fair if you start considering the question of gender equality, since women go to university and enter the same professions, but don't have to sit out this process for a year or two of military or civil service either.
As far as the US goes, I'm against the draft, both because of the fairness issue and because I don't think it would be good for our military. On the other hand, it is interesting to speculate how lightly Bush & Co. would have taken the question of war if they had had to go to war with a true people's army, for then the people of this country would have paid much more attention to what was and is still happening to those soldiers.
As far as promoting a service mentality goes, we can do that with programs like AmericCorps, Teach for America, the Peace Corps, etc., in addition to making military service a more attractive option. A lot could be done towards the last goal by expanding the army to a size that permitted far fewer overseas deployments in these times of unending wars. Presumably this wouldn't be all that hard in these tough economic times, though personnel could get a little more expensive as the economy improves.-
How, exactly, can enslaving people and putting them at tremendous danger of death for an ineffective model of millitary prowess be an "achievement of democracy?" Is that your view of democracy? Further, in the majority of countries that have modern, professional militaries, from India to the US to Japan to Canada, have little or no political involvement or tyranny as a result. Maybe the problem is your "liberal democratic" theory.
In fact, the majority of countries that DO have tyrannical militaries it is because they drafted a whole bunch of pissed off 18-year-olds who then used their assorted weapons to cease tremendous political power (Nicaragua, for instance, and Pakistan, and China). I also know, as a matter of fact, that not everyone who was 18 in 1983 joined the military, even if they were poor. Some of them were willing to tough it out and some of them saw that by 1984 things would be better. The ones who were least suitable for military service toughed it out. -
Let me stick to the case I know, Germany. Broadly speaking, were two competing models of the military in nineteenth-century Germany. The liberal vision included not only universal military conscription, but an officer corps rooted in the citizenry. That vision lost to the monarchical, professional officer corps with the Roon army reforms in the 1850s.
The other point of dispute was the length of service, with those wanting a professional military insulated from civilian influences to have the soldiers serve for as long as possible. That was three years until relatively late in the German Empire's life. The other thing the monarchy did to curb the influence of the citizenry was to avoid drafting too many people from urban areas, for fear of Social Democratic influence. The idea was to have an army that would not hesitate to shoot at its own people.
So you are right, the liberal vision of the military that informs German policy today does not comport with much of modern Prussian-German history. Nonetheless, there are traditions that go back to the days of the Napoleonic Wars and which received new impulses during the revolutions of 1848. These are the traditions that inform German thinking today.
For a decent introduction to this aspect of German history, I can refer you to a classic study by Gordon Craig, Politics of the Prussian Army. It is outdated in some ways now, but it captures the key issues to which I am referring. A more recent book, which I only just now found out has been translated from German into English, is Ute Frevert's excellent A Nation in Barracks: Modern Germany, Military Conscription, and Civil Society. I've only read the parts for the nineteenth century leading into the First World War, but the language I hear German politicians speaking is oriented towards that nineteenth-century discourse, at least by implication. -
The fraught German case of the nineteenth century had a rough analogy in a dichotomy in our own history. Take the dichotomy between the professional, long-service British armies of the eighteenth century and the Colonial militias, guerillas, and citizens armies that fought against it.
I know I'm stretching things here, but it might help you to understand the two competing visions of a military in the then modern world that I am talking about. -
@candm: Okay I see what you're saying now. It's the overall effect on society, whereas here in America or in India you have civilian heads of important military functions (Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Navy, et cetera) that help to relegate that. Goes back to the old Feudal system I suppose...
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I don't think that anyone (outside of consientious objectors) would mind pitching in for the "common defense" of America. Unfortunately our military policies are about ideology instead.
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@Agit8r: "Pitching in" for the common defense is but a small piece of the responsibilities of a soldier. It's hard-work, and involves literally warping your mind to fit a mold. It also involves giving up all your right to challenge authority, giving years of your life to the government, and not being allowed to hold a civilian job or pursue any career of your own during that time. It means personal affects taken away, creativity and education stifled, and all individuality being put on hold for the sake of the platoon. The very conditions and requirements of warfare mean that your whole soul and being have to be dedicated and sanctified in the temple of killing. You are a living sacrifice to the God of War, as you must be. And if your mind is weak or your spirit unfit, they have every right to destroy it, dismember it, mold it to whatever they need and it has to be this way. To force someone to make that decision is no better then slavery, though still perhaps better then allowing foreign conquest and making slaves of us all.
I can see maintaining a civilian militia like the one in Switzerland for the case of domestic invasion and emergencies, though I would doubt its effectiveness and overseas use would be out of question. and I don't believe anyone would mind pitching in to it, but NO ONE should be forced to make the decision to be made in to a soldier. They play with your mind, as they have to. -
I can't for the life of me, in the age of jets, guided missiles, nukes, etc, think of why we might need to deploy a conventional army OVERSEAS in order to defend our borders. It defies logic.
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Actually that's exactly why. Jets become jetliners, missile guidance systems become the technology for the internet and advanced computing, nukes become nuclear power and a major security hazard. Bottom line: world's gotten smaller and technology more mighty then we are.
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you've lost me there. What does this have to do with "overseas contingencies"?
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When you can reach the United States with an atom bomb in 16 hours from any part of the world, what happens on the other side of the world becomes much more relevant.
When AK-47's allow a single person the potential of killing off a crowd of armed men, the small and easily hidden becomes very potent against the big and well organized. -
I'm still not seeing how this relates to jigoism vs. nonintervention.
I mean we created the CIA to deal with those threats not practicably fought against with armies... and our current jingotopia is proof that we are not dealing with said threats practicably. -
@Agit8r: Not sure what you mean by Jingoism, but I guarantee if you do not take and hold ground in the middle east to stabilize the situation, no number of CIA kills is going to bring peace. Add to this how incompetent the CIA is, and, well... And anyways, it actually is working pretty well in Iraq now and if progress continues (which I realize is assumption) the Iraqi state well help undercut Al Qaida and other such groups throughout the region.
Of course, even if you don't fight overseas, you will still need a professional millitary to maintain heavy equipment and high quality light infantry for full millitary maneuvering. Civilian militias would mainly just be there to terrorize anyone who actually is foolish enough to enter an American city, and would maybe use grenade launchers and shoulder-launched SAM's tops. -
"how incompetent the CIA is"
You mean how they helped BUILD al Qaeda?
In any case, the provisions for maintaining a volunteer force IN TIMES OF DECLARED WAR, is provided for in the constitution. Imperialism is not.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism -
@Agit8r: Foreign policy is not the place for idealism.
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But Jeremy, whether for better or worse, a huge chunk of American foreign policy has been built on precisely that. Idealism doesn't just lead to noninterventionist notions. It can lead to quite the opposite result as well. An early, perhaps the earliest example: Wilson in WWI. (Think 14 Points.) A more recent example: Bush 43 in Iraq. (Remember Bush, despite his talk of WMD and interests in oil, also once liked to wax poetic about bringing democracy to the Middle East.) I don't want to take sides here. Just thought that this point about idealism was worth making.
And just to muddy the waters still more: one can take a "realistic", by which I mean "nonidealistic" standpoint and still end up advocating not only interventionism, as you are, but also noninterventionism. -
@Mark: I agree completely, but right now that's not where Agit8r is going. Care to make the argument for it?
I would also point out, and you'd probably agree, that philosophy will determine a lot of how you see reality, and from that stand point ideology (in the softer, original connotation) may still apply even though idealism does not.
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