William Haskins said:
Kind of a strange bit of "posturing", isn't it, considering how unpopular his position is right now?
Give us another wee break, William. In another thread I gave sincere kudos to Bill O'Reilly (not exactly a guy I often admire) about another issue. I don't even agree with Rangel in this particular issue right now, but I'm happy he's brought it up in a way that is sure to generate some open public discussion of it. That, at least, needs to be done.
There's another matter about a military draft that I don't yet hear anybody talking about: Money. I was drafted in 1968 (just before the advent of the draft lottery); initially, I got paid $90 per month. I spent just under three years in the Army, the last year-plus as a buck sergeant, still making not very much money (so little that I honestly can't recall what it was). Point being, that in the draft era, it worked only because drafted soldiers were paid next to nothing, getting housing, food, medical care, uniforms
gratis, courtesy of the Military. Oh, yeah, those things and weapons and ammunition and other lethal equipment.
Now, to make an all-volunteer Military establishment work, the first thing that needed to be done was to increase the amount of direct compensation significantly. It still isn't enough; lots of the families of lower-ranking military people are on food stamps (yet another program conservatives would like to see die, Support-the-troops be damned). But it's a lot more than we could possibly afford to pay an expanded Military drawn from conscription.
So . . . if we somewhere along the line actually do want to re-establish a Military draft, how do we deal with this problem? No way can you have a two-tier payment system; you want morale problems, try
that one for size. No way can you cut compensation for volunteers, especially pre-draft volunteers. I see BIG problem looming.
In retrospect, killing the draft back in 1973 probably is going to be regarded ultimately as a mistake. Unfortunately, at the time, there was little other choice politically acceptable. The 1960s draft system had been so blatantly abused that it had to die. But the pretense that the strongest nation in the world could maintain a Military establishment on a purely volunteer basis is now in serious question. That idea drove the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush axis to support the idea of a "smaller, lighter" Military force dominated by technology. We've now seen what that has got us in Iraq. The rest of the world, notably Iran, has too.
John McCain is calling for big increases in the troop numbers in Iraq, and recognizing openly what this means: that current deployments of Reservists and Guard units will need to be extended, and further tours of duty there will likewise be mandatory. Or, in other words, we ain't got enough Military personnel in boots right now; not anywhere near enough.
And we ain't about to raise taxes or ask for any sacrifices from the American public for a war that turned out to be based on faulty intelligence and rose-colored ideology. And the Iranians and the North Koreans (and God knows who else) recognize that, too.
Well, finally, long overdue, Rumsfeld is gone. Wolfowitz left a while ago. Nobody's heard doodlysquat from Wolfy's lieutenant, mystery man Doug Feith, anytime recently. And Republicans just got kicked in the teeth largely because of public dissatisfaction with the White House crowd, and that message seems to have been heard. That's a start. We can always hope that Bush is listening more these days to Condy than he is listening to Cheney.
Draft? Let's at least talk about it. Kudos to Rangel.
caw
