Time to reinstitute the draft to win this glorious “War of Civilizations”
There are still plenty of hardliners left who will tell you — in all seriousness and with a palpable sense of fear — that the U.S. is in a battle for its existence. That the U.S. is fighting a determined enemy that will follow us home if we leave Iraq. And now that President Bush has made it abundantly clear that he will veto any emergency supplemental funding bill for the Iraq occupation that includes any type of wording regarding withdrawal, the time is now.
It’s time to reinstitute the draft. And not just the draft. Because if this is an actual “War of Civilizations” it’s time all Americans joined in the fight.
We need to suspend all sporting events.
We need to sell war bonds and raise taxes.
We need to draft every able bodied American to fight against the enemy.
If Bush is going to veto the bill given to him by the Senate, and he truly believes that the U.S. is fighting for its very existence, then it’s time to implement programs designed for the nation to win.
The war hungry have long been using the insulting refrain that this generation could never deal with what the World War II generation dealt with. But do you think the “Greatest generation” would have sat back and watched the Nazi threat blast through Europe, while having their only responsibility be to shop more? They were asked to make sacrifices, and they did. Thus far, the Bush Administration and its PNAC overlords have refused to ask anything of Americans that aren’t in the military to fight this heinous threat of Islamo-blah-blah.
What could possibly be the reason for that? Well, as Space Cowboy wrote at Shakesville:
“With a draft, there will be simultaneous epiphanies across the land while even (Bill) Kristol might come to admit that the war is lost.”
It’s time someone in Congress introduce a bill for the draft. And that bill had better be embraced by every last member of Congress that voted against the emergency supplemental funding bill.
Because if they are going to continue to use the scare card and endlessly tell us how Islamic fundamentalists want to rule the world and we have to stop them, then it only stands to reason that they’d want every American available to fight against that threat.
So reinstitute the draft.
Or get the fuck out of Iraq.
–WKW
April 27th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
- “But do you think the ‘Greatest generation’ would have sat back and watched the Nazi threat blast through Europe”
They did. There was great divisiveness about sending troops into Europe. It took Pearl Harbor to throw overwhelming support toward the war and by that time Hitler was all over Europe.
But when we went in, we fought a clearly defined enemy. Not a war on “bad stuff”.
Four years after the US declared war in WWII, the imperialist war machine of Japan was done and Hitler’s insane vision of a great Aryan kingdom was in ruins, along with most of Europe.
In September 2001 al Qaeda attacked the US. Almost 6 years later and al Qaeda, a relatively small organization compared to the nations of Germany and Japan, is still attacking our allies, recruiting new members and inspiring similar organizations, and broadcasting threats on television and radio. Not to mention the fact that Iraq is now in the midst of a civil war and our actions in Iraq have caused great tensions amongst some of our long standing allies as well as creating another focal point to rally anti-American sentiment amongst Islamic extremist.
So what’s the difference between WW2 and WOT?
Sure we could blame the American people for all of this. But with foreign policy issues the buck normally stops with American leaders. So I prefer to put the blame where it belongs. FDR. I mean, GWB.
April 27th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Oh, I agree. Republicans had to be dragged kicking and screaming into WWII. But “conservative” meant something completely different.
And I don’t blame the American people. I blame a movement that has spent six years talking about Islam being the greatest threat to the history of mankind, then going to get bogged down in an occupation that makes it all worse.
Basically, my point is this: shit or get off the pot. And the simple fact is, Bush & Co. know there’s no way of selling a draft. No shot in hell. Because the majority of the public has finally wised up to the fact that the U.S. is fighting a war against a tactic in the middle of a civil war.
But they are still playing the fear card, as Giuliani did so horrifically the other day. So someone has to give them the ultimatum - either full-scale, national war against every enemy the U.S. has or perceives, or go back home, and start the long process of making the U.S. safer.
Bush and cronies got away with scaring everyone to hell all the while not asking for any type of sacrifice. So when the crew at the top balks at a draft, or higher taxes, we need to press them on why, with such a horrifying, existence-ending threat facing us.
It won’t happen, likely, but it’s a nice fantasy. On the bright side, Congress has made it clear they are going to impede Bush’s grand vision of a neverending war against boogiemen and a tactic.
–WKW
April 28th, 2007 at 6:14 am
“And the simple fact is, Bush & Co. know there’s no way of selling a draft.”
As fonzi would say, exactamundo.
I dug up an old post I made about this on one of the various forums I waste all my time on. This was a while back when support for the war was not quite a dismal as it is today.
—
“Draft. We need a draft.
But why don’t we have one?
Not because us unpatriotic, communist, fascist, terrorist loving liberals would fight it, after all who cares what we think, but because small town America would turn vehemently against the Bush administration over it and the 35% support for the war in Iraq would turn into 2% over night.
You see, as long as someone else’s sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers are having to go to Iraq, fence sitting and patriotic macho ‘bring-it-on’ opinions are no problem. But the minute your close kin are forced to go, the whole damn thing changes. At that point we have to take an informed, serious look at the situation.
For now we can continue to stick our head in the sand and waive the flag with our ass cheeks.”
—
However, I think now we are now a bit past the luxury of time afforded us during the ass-cheek-flag-waiving stage.
April 29th, 2007 at 6:40 am
[…] Any volunteers? Maybe it’s time to get that draft going, don’t you think? […]
August 20th, 2007 at 8:17 am
look, we do not need a freakin draft. Thats just dumb, what is the point of sending someone to war if they don’t want to. This is a very big statement. america is in huge trouble but we have enough soilders to fight this god dang war. if we do start the draft, well then you do not know what you are thinking. AMERICA WILL FALL IF WE START A DRAFT it will be a war in are own country for gods sake.