News: US militery draft is back (I'm not joking)

[rgraham666]

I deeply believe that the need/desire for Power is at the root of all evil, whether it is pursued through religion, wealth or pride; no matter the cause or vehicle, at its root is a quest for Power. I also believe that the opposite of this need/desire is Love, and that the worse thing a human being might do against their self and others is renounce Love for Power.

Perdita

Good one perdita.

I think one of the smartest thing I ever did was to give up ambition. At least the kind related to anything other than wisdom or love.

 

[Guest]

O, Allah! O, Allah! O, Allah!
I'm dying! I'm dying!
I'm cuminnnnng!

A haiku by cv

Copyright-cv

 

[Jagged]

Hate to ruin your theories, but if it was revenge on Saddam why wouldn't they just he the CIA kill him? The elder Bush I am sure still has plenty of friends there....


A Defensive war? What were we doing on 9-11? Oh yes it is because we are imperialists....that is why we leave every place we have troops better then we left it....Even Vietnam thousands took to boats after so they could make it to America.

Hate to break it to some of you we are the Good Guys We have taken a country with the 4th largest oil reserve and we planned to give in back at the end of the month?

Nobody has said anything official about the draft and even if they did it is not the end of the world. Keep in mind the military can barely handle all the fresh recruits. Volunteers mind you....

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Not always so in the UK. During the first years of WWI the sons of most of our nobility volunteered and died on the Western Front. It was called 'noblesse oblige'. The memorials at all the major public schools show what a high proportion of the priviliged and rich died for their country. They saw it as their duty and the other side of privilege - those who had more should do more when their country needed them.

During the 18th and 19th centuries officers paid to be in the army. They couldn't afford to live on their pay. Most officers in those centuries were 'come-on' officers. They went towards the enemy ahead of their troops. They paid for the accident of birth by serving their country at their own expense.

Og

Let's remember that up until about the American Civil War and the Boer War, war itself was a different kind of business. The idea that an officer should also be a gentleman harks back to the days of Chivalry and was still alive during the last days of the 19th century all the way up to WWI.

The machine gun and mechanized warfare changed all that. WWI was probably the last war in the west that people were eager to fight. It started out with colorful uniforms and thoughts of glory, mounted cavalry charges and officers leading their troops with sabers, and they were just slaughtered by machine gun fire in the thousands and tens of thousands. Men actually charged machine guns on horseback, waving their lances. Lances!

The generals never did figure out how to win at trench warfare. Up until the end they were sending their men out in human waves to be cut down by machine gun fire, and they kept on doing it, battle after battle after battle. If you ever want to see a good reason why not to ever fight in a war, read about the stupidity of these commanders in chief and the ease with which they sent men to die, knowing they would die but not knowing what else to do. It's just terrifying. Such a waste!

So there's not much glory to be had on a modern battlefield and so no sense of noblesse oblige on the part of the upper classes. If anything, those with money and clout learned their lesson in WWI, and they'll sit the next ones out, thank you.

---dr.M.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Hate to ruin your theories, but if it was revenge on Saddam why wouldn't they just he the CIA kill him? The elder Bush I am sure still has plenty of friends there....


A Defensive war? What were we doing on 9-11? Oh yes it is because we are imperialists....that is why we leave every place we have troops better then we left it....Even Vietnam thousands took to boats after so they could make it to America.

Hate to break it to some of you we are the Good Guys We have taken a country with the 4th largest oil reserve and we planned to give in back at the end of the month?

Nobody has said anything official about the draft and even if they did it is not the end of the world. Keep in mind the military can barely handle all the fresh

1st paragraph: true
2nd paragraph: Iraq did not attack us on 9/11, al-queda did. Vietnamese people left because the huge marching army of communists were coming down and would kill many of them for sympathizing with the Americans. This is what they believed and some were right.
3rd paragraph: We weren't going to give them power. They want an islamist theocracy, we said we will not allow an islamic theocracy, only a pro-american democracy, thus...
4th paragraph: 2 bills in congress right now, draft boards are all hiring staff. June 2005 is the tentative date.

Minor unrelated point. We will not win a war in the middle East. These are people who've seen us and our ancestors (white european christians) beat up many cultures, destroying their gods and replacing their systems of government with our own capitalistic, chain restaurant, assembly line culture. They believe that they are protecting their culture from this (whether or not this is true is immaterial, because this is what the majority believe). They also see mostly christian individuals heading these campaigns and much of the rhetoric they hear is about how God is going to kick Allah's ass. If Mullah Omar was in Kentucky, forcing people to draw a five pointed star on their forehead (the equivalent of pushing their heads to the ground in a non-holy manner) and saying how Allah was going to kick God's ass, you'd bet there'd be a counter-attack.

What I'm saying is there is a war on. It's draw rests on the promise of glory and rightness it can claim. Afghanistan, WW2, and the early days of WW1 held this in spades, Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea don't and didn't.

With WW2, everyone was proud to serve, in Korea, people were hesitant about the cause but they figured that America couldn't lose so it'd be easy. With that stalemate and the revelation that Vietnam was not only a war where we were getting our ass kicked, but was started on false pretenses, the youth revolted. With this war, a return to the draft will awaken a revolution, ESPECILALLY if college deferment is out and Canada closes its borders to draft dodgers (as is being planned in the two resolutions).

Going to war because it's honorable and you want to is commendable. Being forced to go to war because you're young and the old people want to conquer somebody is not. Worse you get the same flak as the people who volunteered and planned it and you took the heaviest hurts.

My friends in high school and the lowest reaches of college are scared to death about this and I'm scared for them.

P.S. E tu Boomers? What're all these 60s era liberals doing backing this bill? Don't they remember how hard you fought in their youth? How much do those greedy bastards hate gen X and Y anyway?

 

[shereads]

Hate to break it to some of you we are the Good Guys We have taken a country with the 4th largest oil reserve and we planned to give in back at the end of the month?

Nobody has said anything official about the draft and even if they did it is not the end of the world. Keep in mind the military can barely handle all the fresh recruits. Volunteers mind you....

You're a teensy bit naive if you think there's a plan to "give back" control of the oil fields. The Good Guys/Bad Guys thing is a childhood fantasy. Not even George W. believes that silliness; he just finds it useful when talking to "Joe Public" as he calls us.

With all those fresh recruits, we're still notifying people who were supposed to be in Iraq for six months and have been there a year, that they may be there indefinitely. "Fresh" isn't what they're feeling right now.

Read a newspaper. The president lied. There was no connection with 9/ll; there are more terrorists now in Iraq than before we got there. And in Vietnam, there are still deaths and injuries each year from the land mines we left behind.

Open your eyes, for God's sake. Don't be a puppet.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Open your eyes, for God's sake. Don't be a puppet.

Why not???? Why do I have to be a "real boy"?

Cuz non-sequitars are everyone's business

 

[shereads]

P.S. E tu Boomers? What're all these 60s era liberals doing backing this bill? Don't they remember how hard you fought in their youth? How much do those greedy bastards hate gen X and Y anyway?

Disagreeing with you about the justice of the draft, Boomer though I am, and stupid as I think this war is.

Not everyone who volunteers is doing it out of patriotic fervor. The poor need jobs. It's not fair that they should die because they can't afford college and the local mill is laying off workers.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Disagreeing with you about the justice of the draft, Boomer though I am, and stupid as I think this war is.

Not everyone who volunteers is doing it out of patriotic fervor. The poor need jobs. It's not fair that they should die because they can't afford college and the local mill is laying off workers.

There are a lot of options before traveling across the world and shooting strangers. I'm not saying the poor should die, I'm saying that the people who have enough intelligence to get into a good college by sacrificing all of their free times for the prime of their lives, shouldn't be punished by being sent overseas to die in front of the volunteers (you know like what's happening to the national guard right now).

Call me a classist, i'm just middle by the way, straight up had to everything the hard way middle, but I feel a small twinge of intellectual pride at being good enough to get into college, do well in it, and get into a phd program on my merits. My friends who did the same, didn't get drunk, always studied hard, went outside classes to learn (most classes of the middle class contrary to popular belief suck as bad as poor schools. The teachers are as bad and underpaid. The only difference is the structure is upheld and sometimes (not always) we all have textbooks) should not be sent to die in a war they opposed for it.

Let the old who think this war is a great idea pay the blood cost and leave the young alone.

 

[shereads]

I agree that nobody should fight an unjust war. A war that they oppose? If we were under attack, I'd think that everybody - rich, poor, male, female, would share the obligation to defend our borders, even those who, like Dick Cheney, had "other priorites" and would rather go to college and provide spiritual support for the war through their patriotic thoughts.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of options for jobs right now, and it's not a just war, and it's not moral to assume that because someone is an unemployed auto worker instead of an unemployed student, he ought to go first.

I don't want the draft, for reasons I've stated: war ought to be a last resort, conducted with skill and intelligence by leaders whose motives are unassailable, The chances of that happening are slim. And if it does happen, how will we know whether to believe it?

So I'm against the draft, only for the reasons I'm against the war. But we're stuck with the war, and may soon be stuck with a draft. If that happens, it can't be done in a way that penalizes minorities and the poor and smart kids who went to lousy public schools and can't qualify for scholarships. A fair draft would put the children of our leaders and their financial supporters at the same risk as anyone else's children. That's the only thing that would hold back someone like George W. from Bringing Democracy to hell itself, assuming hell has oil reserves.

You might make an exception for kids who were on college scholarships, to eliminate wealth and family influence as a loophole - but then colleges would be bribed or otherwise pressured to provide scholarships to every C student in the Bush clan.

Think of a loophole-free draft the way your congressman, or the CEO of Bechtel might think of it: "Holy Mary! My kid? In a lottery? To live in a tent in the desert, near bombs? Get on the phone. Cancel the war."

 

[MightyZor]

I am sorry guys but you're a bunch of uneducated impulsive panickers who know nothing about US government or specifically congress, except that its divided in three branches.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

My bad...The point I was making was that no one should be forced into a war and the draft is bad. That it will also target students will bring a revolution more powerful than if it didn't. Even without the student targeting there will be a revolution (people do graduate and have kids and have friends).

Don't be naive enough to assume that Congress or the government is stupid enough to let their children come to real harm. No, the wealthiest children will always escape somehow (maybe officer school or a new homeland security unit). It'll just mean that now the smart poor and middle class kids will be shot as well. The wealthy'll like that, less competition.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I am sorry guys but you're a bunch of uneducated impulsive panickers who know nothing about US government or specifically congress, except that its divided in three branches.

I am? Wow. Didn't know that. Thank you Zor, without you I'd be lost without knowing my true self and woud've surely embarrassed myself for many a hour. I truly owe my life to you.

All I'm going to say is that if people get wise of this, they will punish congress for it. Or maybe they wont if Congress can sell it right. As it stands, all the prepatory work is already in motion and there is very little noise in the American press about it. What little noise there is is frighteningly supportive. Panicky, aye. I'm not sure my fellow citizens are not stupid enough to stop this in time. That's all. Call me paranoid Cuz I am

 

[shereads]

I am sorry guys but you're a bunch of uneducated impulsive panickers who know nothing about US government or specifically congress, except that its divided in three branches.

Oh please. Not another one. Please educate us.

So far, we know that only one congressperson has a child fighting in Iraq, and that no one in the White House or at the top levels of the Pentagon or the Defense Department has a child in the military.

If that didn't enter into their decision to invent this war, I'd love to see you provide evidence to the contrary.

 

[shereads]

I am sorry guys but you're a bunch of uneducated impulsive panickers who know nothing about US government or specifically congress, except that its divided in three branches.

Is that a lot of branches?

I missed that episode of West Wing.

If the president doesn't need to know stuff, neither do we. It was a proud day for C students and college cheerleaders when George W. Bush won the White House...Did I spell "W" right?

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Is that a lot of branches?

I missed that episode of West Wing.

If the president doesn't need to know stuff, neither do we. It was a proud day for C students and college cheerleaders when George W. Bush won the White House...Did I spell "W" right?

Nah, just 4

 

[shereads]

No, the wealthiest children will always escape somehow (maybe officer school or a new homeland security unit). It'll just mean that now the smart poor and middle class kids will be shot as well. The wealthy'll like that, less competition. [/B]

Not true! Without the poor and jobless, salaries will be pushed up for the ones left alive. Workers will cop attitude again, like they did in the Nineties.

And don't dis Homeland Security. Where would we be without Tom Ridge and the color-coded alerts?

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Not true! Without the poor and jobless, salaries will be pushed up for the ones left alive. Workers will cop attitude again, like they did in the Nineties.

And don't dis Homeland Security. Where would we be without Tom Ridge and the color-coded alerts?

I got a burnt umber terror alert to match my dress. He's such a kind man, always helping people out.

Nah, send a few more jobs to India and it'll be back to parity before you know it.

 

[MightyZor]

Why exactly do you think Congressmen's children should serve in Iraq? Those who volunteered for the military are mostly those men and women who for one reason or another decided not to go to University in many cases.

If someone doesnt go to war does it mean they dont honestly belive in it? Are you saying all supporters of the war on terrorism should volunteer to go to Iraq?

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Why exactly do you think Congressmen's children should serve in Iraq? Those who volunteered for the military are mostly those men and women who for one reason or another decided not to go to University in many cases.

If someone doesnt go to war does it mean they dont honestly belive in it? Are you saying all supporters of the war on terrorism should volunteer to go to Iraq?

Yes.

 

[minsue]

Why exactly do you think Congressmen's children should serve in Iraq? Those who volunteered for the military are mostly those men and women who for one reason or another decided not to go to University in many cases.

If someone doesnt go to war does it mean they dont honestly belive in it? Are you saying all supporters of the war on terrorism should volunteer to go to Iraq?

I'm confused. It's early still here so that, hopefully, has something to do with it.

Are you honestly saying that men and women who "for one reason or another decided not to go to University" are worth less or more expendable than those who have?

 

[Guest]

Is this a trick question?

 

[shereads]

Why exactly do you think Congressmen's children should serve in Iraq? Those who volunteered for the military are mostly those men and women who for one reason or another decided not to go to University in many cases.

If someone doesnt go to war does it mean they dont honestly belive in it? Are you saying all supporters of the war on terrorism should volunteer to go to Iraq?

This has such a high "duh" factor, that I think Zor must be trolling. I'll go along.

No, I'm saying that people who are not in favor of the war in Iraq are in favor of terrorism.

With the same blade-sharp logic, you're saying that those who knew the war was based on either lies or erroneous assumptions (and that it would lead to more terrorism, not less) should be gratified that we've been proven right, but we should still be willing to send our kids to die while those who were too blinded by their knee-jerk "patriotism" to know any better stay home and support the troops with their prayers.

In other words, your superior education makes this point obvious to you: those who fought to stop this lock-step march into the abyss before it began - struggled against the foolishness with our hearts and souls and our votes and our phone calls to our congressmen - should ignore the irony of there being no one at risk in the families of those who made the decision; moreover, we should be happy to share the consequences right alongside those of you who supported the war. For which we should accept the only reasons anyone has outlined lately: "Staythecourse willofGod staythecourse." Because it never had anything to do with terrorism, beyond the use of 9/ll as an excuse. Unless you're more educated and know more about government than Colin Powell, Richard Clark, Ambassador Wilson, and the many other people who warned the president that this was a fool's mission.

Try this tact: If you think the war is a good idea, why don't you go before my nephew turns 18? You, and the Bush twins. Maybe your personal risk will be the one that makes his unnecessary.

Turn off Fox News and read a newspaper.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I am sorry guys but you're a bunch of uneducated impulsive panickers who know nothing about US government or specifically congress, except that its divided in three branches.

Um.

2 branches.

House & senate.

-Colly: uneductaed panicker

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Damn have we spent too much time around Amicus lately. Let the poor kid go with only minor scathing. He's just a naive little guy. He's not mr. flame bait, i'll insult your entire family, whine like a drunken hooker, give LC fabulous head while sobbing like a 12 yr old milkmaid, born of goats raised by pigs, lacked a testes at birth but the leisons almost look right, damn am i troll licking ass pirate or what.

Anyway, give the poor kid a break. Give him the benefit of the doubt.