There's nothing to suggest the right wants to publicly get behind the draft, or at least a massive untrained draft as in Vietnam. Hollings's and Rangel's bills are probably going to die in committee, and Rumsfeld and Bush love to talk about how effective the all-volunteer force is. At the same time the SSS is restructuring and preparing new draft boards. There was a lot of noise about this a few weeks ago, when the agency had job postings on its Web site for draft board positions and then abruptly took them down.
I think the right would prefer to keep the military as it is, all volunteer, for the sake of the "'patriotic' rationale" Ralph outlined below, but that may be impossible if we invade another country before we leave Iraq and Afghanistan or if the situations in those countries continue to worsen. The SSS also admits that it may have to draft trained personnell (doctors and translators) because they "are difficult to recruit and hard to retain." My guess is, if it comes to this, it will come by way of a quiet EO and not through Hollings's or Rangel's bills.
For a good read, check out the SSS Register at http://www.sss.gov/PDFs/NovDec2003-Register.pdf. The article on the perfomance plan is full of some great corporate-governance language. It reads like a memo to white-collar workers who are about to be laid off (or "affected by a RIF," to use the language of a tech company where I recently temped), which it is: "'To be honest, not everybody in the Agency will be happy with the outcomes . . . change is not easy when you've grown accustomed to doing things in certain ways. But "status quo" is not an option.'"
Brian
Ralph Johansen wrote:
What of the contradiction here: if the right really wants to get behind a draft, why is it that the sponsors in the House are Conyers and Rangel, who would be in favor because 1) selective service this time would, in the bill drafted, not allow loopholes for the privileged, and 2) the absence of a 'patriotic' rationale for this blighted war in the minds of more and more people could very well spell disaster for the sitting administration?
Ralph
----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 3:20 PM Subject: Re: dems, etc snip
***** For Immediate Release: Wednesday, January 8, 2003 Contact: Andy Davis (202) 224-6654
Hollings Sponsors Bill to Reinstate Military Draft Senator cites current heavy use of reserves and national guard, need for shared sacrifice
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings last night introduced the Universal National Service Act of 2003, a bill to reinstate the military draft and mandate either military or civilian service for all Americans, aged 18-26. The Hollings legislation is the Senate companion to a bill recently introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).
Specifically, the bill mandates a national service obligation for every U.S. citizen and permanent resident, aged 18-26. To that end, the legislation authorizes the President to establish both the number of people to be selected for military service and the means of selection. Additionally, the measure requires those not selected specifically for military service to perform their national service obligation in a civilian capacity for at least two years. Under the bill, deferments for education will be permitted only through high school graduation. . . .
<http://hollings.senate.gov/~hollings/press/2003108C06.html> *****
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