What a fascinating article you have found for us! (And well-introduced by your goodself if I might say so.)
I don't belong to any of the categories you cite in your last introductory paragraph (Vietnam or Gulf War veteran, supporter of preemptive action) but I have a tentative view --- put forward with some hesitation because, if the experts are in some disagreement, then who am I to come up with the reason? But my interpretation goes along the following lines.
Occupancy of the draft boards are not so low that they need to be replenished just at the present time. Indeed, even though the advertising is low key, it's quite risky for Bush to do this at the present time in view of the Nov 04 election coming up -- it might just possibly cause more opposition to the present occupation of Iraq.
However, events in Iraq and possible subsequent policy changes in the next few months are very much in the lap of the gods. If, for example, there were two or three more terrorist incidents in the near future that were as productive as the 16 killed in the recent attack on the Chinook then it is quite possible that public opinion would turn ferociously against Bush and he would have to revise radically the whole occupation policy of Iraq -- or certainly lose the election.
Replenishing the draft boards must be a product of longer-term thinking in the Pentagon and State Department. Internal think-tanks must be coming to the conclusion that a large conscripted army might be required in due course -- that is, from about a year from now and onwards. Now why should this be in a modern world in which, with little doubt, the developed countries do not need large armies? All of them -- and including Russia and China -- have been reducing their armed forces quite substantially in the last decade.
It can only mean that there is a body of thought which considers that a major war might be on the cards a few years down the line. Now who could that war be against? It couldn't be against Russia because that country's armed forces, while still fairly sizeable, are in tatters. It couldn't be against China because there's no particular dispute that could build up between them and, in any case, the economies of America and China are becoming too interwined.
I suggest that that the only real prospect of major warfare is in the Middle East. There is little doubt that the de-stabilisation of the Middle East, which many critics of Bush were warning about before the invasion is, in fact, coming about and is very obvious in the case of the other two major Middle East countries with large oil supplies -- namely Saudi Arabia and Iran. The former is in a state of extreme jitters, well aware that Al Qaeda has been accumulating large amounts of explosives and that well over a million of their young men are without jobs and have no prospect of them in their lives if present circumstances continue. In Iran, even the mild reforms of President Khatami have been stomped on by the leading clerics. To quote from a recent article in the FT by Roula Khalaf and Najmeh Bozorgmehr:
"Iran's youth -- more than 60 per cent of the population is under the age of 30 -- describe a growing sense of despair and a thirst for change that even the most reformist among their leaders are unable to satisfy. In a proud and nationalistic country, some admit that they now look to the outside world -- even to the vilified US -- to help them."
I think that long-range policies for the Middle East are now shaping up in America. The experts have already realised that the present policy in Iraq must end in disaster, but that, overall, the supply of oil to the developed west (and America in particular) is in even more danger. Insurrections and shake-outs are almost certain to happen in the Middle East and American troops in large numbers might be required to invade and occupy the oilfields in several countries and emirates if oil supplies are to continue.
Keith Hudson
At 13:06 05/11/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Is this a hush-hush jobs program, filling positions on Draft boards?
Given the Bush2 administrations deliberate exclusion of allied forces in the invasion of Iraq and its unilateralist policy, it is not surprising that it has had difficulty persuading other nations to contribute to the war efforts there. First we had the coalition of the billingand then we had attractive offers designed to attract buyers, like home sellers adding the drapes and refrigerator when listing a house with a leaky roof.
There was a sigh of relief when Turkey announced it would send troops, and then another sigh of frustration as it become apparent that Iraqisformer occupiers were not welcomed by modern Iraqis already in a new occupation.
In the meantime US troops are overwhelmed and under-supported in an increasingly hostile environment. The official line is still that a small force is all that is necessary, even when evidence abounds that they significantly underestimated retaliatory guerrilla warfare, infrastructure sabotage and both the density and breadth of the territory the troops would need to cover after military operations phased into occupation, or so-called peacekeeping operations.
So, it should be no surprise that talk of reinstating the draft has been recycled. Up until now, it seemed like just political fodder, but this below indicates there is more going on, bureaucratically. Legislative bills reinstating the draft remain in the hopperin Congress, awaiting an opportune time.
What this means in terms of timetables and the upcoming presidential campaign cycle, I do not know. Is it possible that organizational work could be hidden under the publics radar for another year, until post-election? Could there be a hidden campaign underway to so overtax the current service commands that the public will succumb in desperation by spring? Experts disagree about the need and the timing.
I am wondering what Vietnam and Gulf War I vets think of this. I wonder what supporters of the preemptive doctrine think? Comments? - KWC
Excerpts: Oiling up the draft machine?
The Pentagon is quietly moving to fill draft board vacancies nationwide. While officials say there's no cause to worry, some experts aren't so sure.
By Dave Lindorff @ http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/03/draft/index.html
Nov. 3, 2003 | The community draft boards that became notorious for sending reluctant young men off to Vietnam have languished since 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.
"Serve Your Community and the Nation," the announcement urges. "If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men ... receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service." Local draft board volunteers, meanwhile, report that at training sessions last summer, they were unexpectedly asked to recommend people to fill some of the estimated 16 percent of board seats that are vacant nationwide
Especially for those who were of age to fight in the Vietnam War, it is an ominous flashback of a message. Divisive military actions are ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. News accounts daily detail how the U.S. is stretched too thin there to be effective. And tensions are high with Syria and Iran and on the Korean Peninsula, with some in or close to the Bush White House suggesting that military action may someday be necessary in those spots, too.
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. Recognizing that even the mention of a draft in the months before an election might be politically explosive, the Pentagon last week was adamant that the drive to staff up the draft boards is not a portent of things to come. There is "no contingency plan" to ask Congress to reinstate the draft, John Winkler, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary for reserve affairs, told Salon last week.
2& Beth Asch, a military manpower expert at the Rand Corp. think tank, agrees that current retention and new enlistment figures are holding up. But she cautions that it may be too soon to know the impact of the tough and open-ended occupation in Iraq. "Short deployments actually boost enlistments and reenlistments," Asch says. "But studies show longer deployments can definitely have a negative impact."
While she thinks it is unlikely that the military will have to resort to a draft to meet its needs, Ned Lebow, a military manpower expert and professor of government at Dartmouth College, is less confident.
"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."
3& Under law, the first batch of new conscripts must be processed and ready for boot camp in 193 days or less after the start of the draft. But if the mechanics of the draft are difficult, the politics could be lethal for Bush or any other top official who proposed it.
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.
4& Even among those who think the public might support a draft, like Bandow at the Cato Institute, few believe Bush would dare to propose it before the November 2004 election. "No one would want that fight," he explains. "It would highlight the cost of an imperial foreign policy, add an incendiary issue to the already emotional protests, and further split the limited-government conservatives." But despite the Pentagon's denials, planners there are almost certainly weighing the numbers just as independent military experts are. And that could explain the willingness to tune up the draft machinery.
John Corcoran, an attorney who serves on a draft board in Philadelphia, says he joined the Reserves to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. Today, he says, the Bush administration "is in deep trouble" in Iraq "because they didn't plan for the occupation." That doesn't mean Bush would take the election-year risk of restarting the draft, Corcoran says. "To tell the truth, I don't think Bush has the balls to call for a draft.
"They give us a training session each year to keep the machinery in place and oiled up in case, God forbid, they ever do reinstitute it," he explains. "They don't want us to have to do it," agrees Dan Amon, a spokesman for the Selective Service. "But they want us to be ready to do it at the click of a finger."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
salon.com is a subscriber online site. I got to this article by watching an ad for a free day-pass. If you want the rest of it, 64 KB, please contact me.
Karen Watters Cole
East of Portland, West of Mt Hood
Mail scanned by NAV 2002
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
