07 Nov 2004
Vet Called Up Years After Discharge Sues (AP)

Wanna know the dirty little secret behind all of the recent campaign allegations of a restarted draft? They're true ... and they would be no matter who had won the last election. Be aware I'm only saying the the allegations of "plans to restart" are accurate, I'm not saying that the draft will be actually restarted...

As long as we insist on being the world's policeman, we will be in need of vastly increased military forces: I'm talking boots on the ground: the infantry, the grunts. That's where wars are won or lost, and we simply don't have enough of them in Iraq to contain the current insurgency.

Of course, the danger with a conscript army is that it's a conscript army: I know, I was in one! Morale is going to be much lower, and combat capabilities always degrade when your forces are composed of virtual slaves.

But no matter how much military planners recognize these facts, it's simply politically impossible to implement the draft now. It would result in a virtual civil war, and insure that the President who signed the orders (or his party) would not be reelected. So I doubt that Bush would actually do it, or that Karl Rove would let him. And I'm certain a President Kerry would not have.

But that means we'll continue to be undermanned - which leads to political consequences as severe as implementing the draft. Iraq will continue to be a drain on our resources and a quagmire, and we'll be prevented by lack of manpower from dealing forcefully with any new situation that may require it (North Korea comes immediately to mind). And those kinds of scenerios can chuck a party from power as surely as a draft.

I sometimes wonder if Osama & Co. didn't plant the intelligence pointing to WMD's in Iraq precisely to get us involved. Was he figuring on letting us eliminate a secular tryant for him, in order to ignite a jihad agsinst us and eventually impose Islamic state tyranny in place of Saddam? Could he really be that clever? Naw ...

AP - A veteran of the first Persian Gulf War is suing the Army after it ordered him to report for duty 13 years after he was honorably discharged from active duty and eight years after he left the reserves.

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