The sense of duty.
By trevino Posted in War — Comments (181) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I say again: it is time for a draft. Some days ago, I had this to say about the lessons of the American volunteer Army's first prolonged war:
The volunteer soldiers have proven themselves fine warriors. But the volunteer Army has failed. [The present war in Iraq] is its first war of any meaningful length, and its lessons are clear: it cannot sustain this effort, through no fault of its own, because, in the end, its discrete parts are rational actors. It is impossible to externally incentivize war. The choice is therefore between that Army's continuance and a draft. If the choice is for its continuance, then the subsequent choice will probably be between losing Iraq and losing the Army.
There are actually two postulates above: first, that the volunteer Army as an institution cannot sustain the present effort; second, that the war is not sustainable in the long run without substantial American involvement.
Read on.
These are not, I think, particularly debatable points, though this does not mean some won't try. On the first, it is enough to note that we cannot plausibly threaten another nation should we need to (Iran, Syria and North Korea come to mind); that our Reserve and Guard units are tapped out at a rate previously envisioned only for a third world war scenario; that our existing formal and informal commitments (to South Korea, to Taiwan, to Israel, to Europe) are now mostly hypothetical or Navy/Air Force affairs; that recruiting is, as has been well-documented, suffering badly; and that many units and personnel are on their third battlefield rotation in two years. Against this is usually stacked the factual point that retention is going unexpectedly well -- stop-loss helps, no doubt -- and the crackpot point that we don't need more troops in Iraq anyway. Silver linings everywhere.
There's another point invoked in response to the realization that the Army is slowly breaking in Iraq: that this, and the restrictions that it places upon the exercise of American power, is not a bug, but a feature. The theory goes that a nation unable to sustain a credible war effort for a reasonable time is a more just, less warlike and more cautious nation. Furthermore, the lack of volunteers is a form of pressure on the political leadership wishing to sustain a war: they must keep it popular; popularity in turn is an indicator of the Will of the People, which in turn is somehow synonymous with Just and Right and Honorable and whatever other legitimizing concept the democratic age has managed to conflate with morality. The Iraq war doesn't attract sufficient volunteers because it is, at bottom, wrong. A war that is right, by contrast, would have the support of the people, and thus be ipso facto justified, to say nothing of well-manned.
This argument requires four things to be advanced in seriousness: ignorance of history, a naive exaltation of the wisdom of the mob, ignorance of war, and a petty inability to take a broad view of current events. No surprise, then, that it is libertarians and hard leftists who advance it most often. The reality, of course, is that the war in Iraq fails to attract recruits not because it is "wrong," but because it is war. Proper motivation can and does send men to war -- witness the horrors of the 1914 frontiers battles -- but these cases of enthusiastic flinging of selves into slaughter are the exceptions rather than the rule: the more common experience, as documented (albeit controversially) by SLA Marshall and much later confirmed by LTC Dave Grossman, among others, is reflected in the effect of basic human instinct. This is not to kill, but to avoid, to flee, or to lay low -- even to suffer oneself before harming another. Armies have struggled with counteracting this impetus from time immemorial: the Greeks did it by locking men into a phalanx that compelled action by physical momentum; the British at Waterloo (and up through 1918) did it by shooting down men who might flee the field; the modern American Army does it through desensitization exercises and the building-up of counteracting social values. But these things work only when the men are already in the ranks: when they are not, given the choice, most will not join, because they quite sensibly do not wish to subject themselves not merely to the possibility of being killed, but vastly more important, to the possibility of killing. The ignorant call this "chickenhawkery," and in doing so reveal how little they grasp plain humanity.
There are a select few wars in American history that can genuinely said to have commanded the enthusiastic endorsement of the American public for the duration of the war: the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the First World War, and the Second World War. Among these, only the first and last can be said to constitute legitimate wars of national survival (although many libertarians disagree, further confirming their rightful place in society somewhere beneath the furries). In which of these wars did the nation not require conscription for the maintenance of the war effort and eventual victory? The Spanish-American War, of course: and here historical example nullifies the arguments of the feature-not-a-bug camp. Because war is war, you are always going to have to rely upon state coercion to muster sufficient numbers for truly sustained and difficult efforts. This is not an illegitimate function of a democratic state -- how easily we forget that citizenship in the prototypical democracy of the Greek polis entailed responsibilities as much as rights -- and now, we are finding, it may even be a necessary one.
Finally, need it be said, popularity is never a measure of justice or morality. Those crowing that a right war would command the participation of the masses are never to be found asserting the same principle as applying to the lynch mob.
What is the volunteer Army good at? It is quite obviously good at creating a corps of professional soldiers, within which are fostered the qualities of operational and tactical brilliance, and amongst whom are passed the institutional knowledge that truly excellent armies need to fight and win. But this hardened core of warriors existed even in the conscript army of 1940-c.1970; indeed, it it too often forgotten that the Army of 1965-1966 is regarded by many historians as the single finest Army modern America has ever fielded. The volunteer Army is also good at something else: insulating the mass of Americans from the realities of wartime and its demands. The post-Vietnam Army that could not go to war without uprooting the Guard and Reserves was supposed to convey that sacrifice to main street America by dint of that uprooting: we can now fairly say that its effect does not even begin to approximate that of the draft. Whether these positives outweigh the massive negative of an Army under crushing strain a mere two years into a prolonged insurgency depends entirely upon one's point of view. Libertarians unable to give a damn about persons neither American nor within line of sight will think so. Leftists of the type whose hatred of the Bush Administration outweighs the normal impetus of patriotism and humanity will think so. "Conservatives" busy rehabilitating the Jew-haters of the America First movement will think so.
Americans of ordinary sense will not.
I mentioned that there was a second postulate above: that the war is not sustainable in the long run without substantial American involvement. This we leave for another time.
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agrees with you.
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The article can be found here.
Hagel:
Meanwhile, U.S. troops are under severe strain. Troops are stationed in more than 100 countries, and their rapid tempo of deployments with little time off leaves them fatigued and in danger of making mistakes.
"We are destroying the finest military in the history of mankind, and the (National) Guard, too," he said. "We're stretching our Army to the breaking point.
The entire article is worth the read, Hagel has a lot to say.
You reference the Civil war, and the First and Second World Wars as conflicts that "commanded the enthusiastic endorsement of the American public for the duration of the war...."
I omitted the Spanish-American War. By the time the folks out here in what is now flyover country knew it was going on, it was over.
In the case of the Civil War, that's a bit of a strain. A third or more of the Nation was at war with the rest of it. And I'll point you to such things as the draft riots in New York and the substantial question of Lincoln's re-election right up until the polling took place to add fuel to that fire. IIRC, Lincoln, like Bill Clinton, never got a true majority of the popular vote. And one could hardly count 1864 in any case, with the South not voting.
WWI? Wilson would have had substantial trouble keeping us involved had it gone on another two years.
The Second World War was when we were committed.
And now to the meat of the matter. I will support a draft if and when it is universal. No C.O. status. No physical deferments. No student deferments. No nothing.
If you can pass a law that on the day someone turns 19, or 20, or whatever age, they serve for two years, or whatever the term is, I'll be OK with it.
But if it's pick and choose, it's a batch of crap. Always has been, and always will be.
Can you go "all or nothing"?
And then tell me how you are going to pay for it all.
Aye, there's the real rub!
Do you mean the Spanish Civil War, or the Mexican American war?
If the former, most of the folks who fought in it who were from the US were eventually run up in front of the Dies Committee.
If the latter, not everyone loved it.....
The drafted army has its place -- when you need large numbers of troops to either absorb the shock from the opponent's army or when a numbers are necessary to put pressure on a weaker force in many places. Neither of these are in play now.
The US military is the best because it can equip and train people who want desire to be a part of the effort. People benefit from the training and discipline because they want to be there. Teaching a draftee anything of the intricacies of soldiering beyond point-and-shoot is a very difficult. They serve well when the number of pieces of information can be kept to a minimum --kill them, don't kill us. When the lessons of soldering include things like local public relations and Quran handling etiquette a draftee will do more harm than good.
Draftees cause at least as many problems as they solve in a war zone. The last thing the military needs is to spend effort in Iraq to patch relations after drunken brawls - a fairly common feature of drafted military. The Military Police can only be used for convoy escort if they aren't spending their time rounding up desserters and keeping soldiers from smuggling drugs into the US.
Virtually nobody in the military wants to see a draft. It's way more trouble than it's worth. Getting a few good people that want to be there is much better than getting millions who resent the fact that they were torn from their civilian life.
Most calling for a draft do so because they do not wish the military to succeed. They long for the days when the American Soldier was synonymous with drug crazed killer. The volunteer army doesn't give nearly as many stories of mad rampages or rape of local women as some would desire. I don't put you in that category, but many are.
Also known as war of 1898. It's neither the Spanish Civil war nor the Mexican-American war. It's when we siezed the Phillipine Islands and Cuba from Spain.
Brain finally engaged fully. My bad.
The drafted army has its place....when a numbers are necessary to put pressure on a weaker force in many places.
Which is, of course, precisely the case in Iraq and Afghanistan now.
Teaching a draftee anything of the intricacies of soldiering beyond point-and-shoot is a very difficult.
I disagree, of course. Historically, American conscript armies have done quite well at handling difficult situations and advanced technology. You may be thinking of the Russians.
Draftees cause at least as many problems as they solve in a war zone.
Except, of course, when they win said war. On the subject of relations with the locals, I find it difficult to accept the argument that volunteer soldiers do a better job after Abu Ghraib, et al.
Virtually nobody in the military wants to see a draft.
Well, that's quite true. But it doesn't take much research to figure that what the preponderance of the military wants is not always what the military needs.
Except when he agrees with me, of course. But in seriousness, he's busy positioning himself as the antiwar GOP candidate -- as he always has, apparently. Hagel wouldn't defend Taiwan, either, so we can see how staunch his support of liberty abroad is.
It's one thing to point out that there are serious problems in the war -- it's another to proclaim that we're "losing," as Hagel does. I find that irresponsible and detestable.
And I would really appreciate a plausible explanation why, here, not just some mention of a 'crackpot idea why not' -- that having more U.S. troops in Iraq would help this situation?
Are you honestly asserting that it is the American troops who are not doing their jobs well enough? That they are not training Iraqi troops to take control over their own country? Let's speculate -- what would happen if the United States decided to send another 100,000 troops to Iraq tomorrow. Assuming we could provide all the elaborately armored vehicles needed to support those troops (because, if we don't the New York Times would certainly object!) but let's imagine we did.
Is there any evidence that those troops would be doing a more effective job in the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis? The British have done such a wonderful job in Basra with their relatively few troops -- why do people think that more for the United States would be better?
Do you honestly believe that a new influx of American troops to Iraq would scare the people coming across the border to fight Americans, or further embolden them? Our stated objective in the war, as far as I've been able to tell from the President's lips, has been to stay until the job was done, and Rumsfeld's prescription has been to use the minimum number of American forces possible to get the job done. Would more American dead coming back home in body bags make the war effort seem more worthwhile or less? Would it help stanch the flow of people across Iraq's borders -- Iraq is now a sovereign nation, so why should we send more troops to help their own people defend it?
Please, give me some answers to these questions. I don't see how any of the things you prescribe would help the war effort succeed, or proceed more quickly, or in a less costly way. In fact, I think you're dead wrong.
I once again find myself in disagreement with my esteemed colleague.
Beyond the fact that a draft is politically untenable, a draft isn't compatible with the way we currently fight wars. Since the end of the Cold War, and especially since the battle at Mogadishu, the Army has been refocusing on the threat of unconventional warfare. Things like "network-centric warfare" and MOUT training are critical towards creating a military structure that's resilient and flexible enough to fight the kind of low-level warfare we're facing in Iraq right now.
Our problem isn't that the military is breaking in Iraq - it's that we've been breaking it for years now. Most of my military buddies have said that the current situation isn't all that different than the way things have been for the past decade. We've been stretching our forces thinner and thinner as we've been cutting back on military manpower. We've put our forces on what amounts to a constant war footing for years now.
A draft isn't going to fix this problem. It takes too long to train draftees into competent soldiers. Our military doesn't need more cannon fodder - it needs trained and effective fighters. Conscripts can't be plopped into a modern battlefield straight out of basic and expect to integrate into a modern military unit. They're not a force multiplier - they're a force diminisher.
In order to maintain a conscript army, we'd need to further stretch our forces in the short-term, which is only going to make things worse.
The fact is that our "exit strategy" in the short term is exactly what it always has been - get the Iraqi military ready enough to start providing for their own defense. A draft won't help us in Iraq - by the time we can get one going we should be able to begin drawing down our forces as the Iraqis replace coalition troops.
In the long term, we need to spend the money to expand our professional volunteer military. That means increasing base pay, streamlining the requisition process to keep our soldiers well-equipped, and continuing the process of military transformation from a military based on countering the threat of the Soviet Union to one that's designed to deal with the threats of the 21st Century.
If our military was truly "breaking" in Iraq, our operational tempo would be slowing dramatically. Instead, the tempo of operations in Iraq has increased with Operation Matador, Operation Spear, et al. This is the first war we've fought using the principles learned since Mogadishu, and we're still adapting to the realities of 21st Century warfare. Resorting to what is a dramatic and radical change to our entire military infrastructure is an action that won't help us in the short term and would eat away at the espirit de corps and technological excellence that makes our military as deadly as it is. The Joint Chiefs are unanimous in their opposition to a draft, and for very good reason.
I don't think this is possible:
And now to the meat of the matter. I will support a draft if and when it is universal. No C.O. status. No physical deferments. No student deferments. No nothing.
It might be, if you had some kind of national service draft, where people could opt to serve in ways, but there are just some people, who aren't going to be capable of serving in the military-there are real disabilities, and to be honest there are some people I wouldn't want in the military (do you think having paranoid schizophrenics on the frontlines is a good idea?).
There is also a place for conscientious objectors-there are some religious groups that truly are pacifist (Amish, Mennonite, Quaker), but during WWII many CO's were still required to serve, but they served in the medical corps where they wouldn't be required to actually fight anyone.
It is going to take a lot more tha what is happening right now to convince me that we should reinstate the draft.
The question is this: If the very presence of Americans in Iraq is such a colossal instigation for violence, why do you think sending more troops to build on that presence now, after elections have taken place, as Iraq is in the process of forming its own government, as conditions in Iraq are improving with the exception of the insurgency why -- why would that escalation necessarily make things better? It sounds a little to me like LBJ's strategy, which failed. Completely.
So why in the universe do you think we should adopt it now?
Numbers aren't what are needed or wanted in Afghanistan or Iraq now. They need to project power while making the populace turn their back on the insurgency. That's done by skillful soldiering backed by overwhelming force and equally skillful diplomacy.
As to the difficulties of teaching draftees -- the US has done without the draft for most of it's history. Only in times of major wars has the draft been used. There's a reason for that. A drafted army may be cheaper to assemble, but the costs in lack of preparedness and turnover.
If you "find it difficult to accept the argument that volunteer soldiers do a better job after Abu Ghraib, et al." -- then you obviously haven't studied atrocities done by armies over the years. Abu Ghraib was an poorly trained group of night shifters having what they considered harmless fun. When everything is called an atrocity it's hard to differentiate the power trip pranks like Abu Ghraib from the really nasty stuff. Real atrocities are much worse. The US Army in Europe swept from Normandy to Berlin in less than a year, but it also had to execute nearly 100 of its own for crimes against locals, mostly rape and murder. These are the types of atrocities that will become much more prevalent with a drafted army.
But I do agree on one point -- the military doesn't always get what it wants. Civilian control of the military has a long history is the US. However I would be very surprised if anyone who is responsible for the outcome of military action would actually ponder a draft. The likelihood of good outcomes is just so much lower than with volunteers. Any SecDef or President that reinstitutes the draft will have to live by the outcome -- and the probability of that outcome being bad will be greatly increased.
untrainable.
I think you may have attitude issues with draftees, but there are a lot of men who would probably do fine in the military-they are highly educated but chose to forgo military service, because they had other goals.
I think the problem with a draft is that do we really want men in the military who do not want to be there? I imagine that most men would step up to the plate and do fine-and it is doubtful, if a draft was started that the military would need every man drafted-they could probably tell the numbskulls to hit the road-we don't need a million man force now or anytime soon.
are a mild instigator, but their presence right now does have a net increase in Iraqi security-- even if it just slightly outweighs their provoking effect on the insurgency.
Why we need more troops is simple-- beyond security, it is army engineers in coordination with Iraq civilians that are being charged with rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure. Schools, roads, electricity, sewage. Right now, they are largely failing to accomplish this or moving staggeringly slowly. There has been some progress, but it is almost exclusively in the peaceful Kurdish and Shiite sections (which weren't as desperately in need of this infrastructure as post-war Baghdad/Sunni Triangle).
More troops (combined with something like a civil engineering draft) would be able to provide the broad security and manpower needed to get average Iraqis back to a normal life-- which would not only shorten the amount of time we will need to be there, but should also contribute much to the "hearts and minds" battle.
Let us assume that both of you are approximately correct, i.e. both of these things are true:
- At our current level of commitments, we are grinding our own military into dust
- Adding large numbers of low-level people who will not stay long will not make things better
Well then, we have stumbled onto the answer to the question, "What is the largest and longest thing we can reasonably take on with the world's only superpower military?"
We always knew it wasn't infinite. Now we know precisely how big it is. That's useful. May our future leaders take heed.
I tend to agree with you that the way out of where we are now is proceed with all deliberate speed with teaching the Iraqis to defend their own country, so that we can leave. We may suffer a bit more "grinding" while that goes on, but it's much more in line with the mission. The object of this was never to occupy Iraq as a colony, it was to get in, remove Mr. Hussein, and then extract ourselves as quickly as events would allow, given that we didn't just come in to wreck the place. We want to leave something behind that the Iraqis can run by themselves. They seem to be well on the way to doing that, so at this point we might as well do it right.
Although to be honest, my own tendency in these matters would be to tell the Iraqis that we must, for domestic political reasons, start removing our troops, and that we will work with them to make an orderly transition, but they simply must get on with the business of preparing their own defenses. This is admittedly a designed kick in the butt, but odds are, one wouldn't hurt.
The puzzling thing for me is that I have seen no evidence that anyone is taking this seriously. If we need civil engineers in Iraq, there are lots of them in America, over 40 years old, who could be contacted to help provide their expertise. Nothing so far that I've seen has even hinted at that. Why? Nobody knows....
Numbers are precisely what's needed in both theaters right now. The line that we're adequately manned -- or ever have been -- is mere cant for the politically-motivated. The central strategic problem for our war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan is and has been insufficient American and Western manpower. The key to defeating insurgencies, as you note, is winning over the populace. Historical experience strongly suggests that this is best done through a pervasive, persistent, locally-based small-unit infantry presence concentrated in insurgent base areas; this in turn backed up by heavy units on-call as needed. Does this characterize our operations in Iraq? In Afghanistan? No? Why not?
It's not because the US military doesn't understand the above.
Finally, your accusation of historical ignorance is misguided on two counts. First, because I wasn't making an assertion about the relative merits of various "atrocities," but of the relative merits of conscripts to volunteers in that regard; second, because your own historical assertion that the draft was only used in time of "major war" is outright false. Unless you subscribe to the idea that the years 1940 through 1972(?) were ones of unremitting major warfare, which would be a surprise to us all.
Institute a draft, lose support for the entire war on terror.
The Conservative movement has committed to the claim that this a war that we can win 1) without a draft and 2) on a board that is markedly different than wars in the past.
The war against terror is a war being fought in banks as much as it is one being fought in Fallujah.
The Bush Administration will essentially admit that Iraq was a failure, which will turn public favor from overall disapproval to out and out hostility toward Iraq and whatever initiatives, like the war on terror, are an extension of that.
Me about Iraq isn't manpower, in terms of ground forces. It's that I don't believe most Americans really think there is a war going on (except for the families who have dead sons and daughters coming back.) We haven't done anything to mobilize nationally to support the war. Look at the pissant efforts to even get money and supplies looking trying to help soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sure, there was an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, then a few people had a crappy advertisement on their websites, but all of that is gone now. My real sense is that Americans have a kind of deep ambivalence about the war -- first because they are living in a quasi-realisitc state of denial about it, and second because they don't think we should be having one at all. So, apart from a few dedicated people, not many average Americans feel much impetus to do anything at all. Everyone has forgotten about Iraq and gone back to worrying about the pH balance of their summer pool water, and the war is just an annoying nettlesome distraction now. It's like a sideshow that nobody is paying attention to. It's surreal.
And I would really appreciate a plausible explanation why.....having more U.S. troops in Iraq would help this situation?
See my reply to Buckland above.
Are you honestly asserting that it is the American troops who are not doing their jobs well enough?
On a per-man basis, of course they are. This isn't a question of the quality of the individual American soldier: it's a question of whether there are enough of them.
That they are not training Iraqi troops to take control over their own country?
How's that been going?
Let's speculate -- what would happen if the United States decided to send another 100,000 troops to Iraq tomorrow.
Then we would be at the minimum force level that competent strategists estimated at the get-go would be necessary to occupy Iraq.
Is there any evidence that those troops would be doing a more effective job in the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis?
Yes, thanks.
The British have done such a wonderful job in Basra....
Come now, Kowalski. First, and I ask for heuristic purposes only, is Basra representative of the rest of the country? Second, are you aware of the state of law and order in Basra these days?
Do you honestly believe that a new influx of American troops to Iraq would scare the people coming across the border to fight Americans, or further embolden them?
Heh. Surely you're not arguing that we don't want to provoke the jihadis?
....Rumsfeld's prescription has been to use the minimum number of American forces possible to get the job done.
Which is why we're using the maximum number of American forces possible in-theater, right? Whatever.
....Iraq is now a sovereign nation, so why should we send more troops to help their own people defend it?
How deeply dishonest. We invade, do our part to create the situation, and suddenly, whoa, it's their problem? Markos Moulitsas agrees with you; I feel a bit more responsibility.
In fact, I think you're dead wrong.
You can't be right all the time, I guess.
The fact is that our "exit strategy" in the short term is exactly what it always has been - get the Iraqi military ready enough to start providing for their own defense. A draft won't help us in Iraq - by the time we can get one going we should be able to begin drawing down our forces as the Iraqis replace coalition troops.
Personally I think we're closer to this point than many think. Rumsfeld made the point today that our troop strength has been lowered over the last year. I think it will continue to fall until within about 2 years it's in an advisory (and possibly air support) role only.
The Shiite community is pretty united that the insurgency has to stop. With the numbers, the military, and American equipment they would be able to stop the insurgency. Shiites can be pretty good at these things -- think Iran in the early 80's.
However the amount and type of force that they would use is not what we would want to associate with the US role in Iraq. Paradoxically our role right now in Iraq may be saving the insurgency from confronting a foe that has no qualms about using torture and massacre as tools of suppression.
If the very presence of Americans in Iraq is such a colossal instigation for violence....
Your argument, not mine. I tend to find them a force for peace there.
....conditions in Iraq are improving with the exception of the insurgency....
Ha ha. Gaah.
Can someone tell me how a Draft is any worse than the deliberate targeting of Junior HighSchool Students?
I don't know about the rest of you but I have seen Recruiters show up in the Internet Game Worlds like Everquest and Diablo. The aggressive methods they use on teenagers is beyond compare.
Is THIS what a volunteer army supposed to be?
All that is what I have been told, Trevino. Here and elsewhere, and by this administration. So maybe the Administration is all wrong and you are right. I guess we're going to find out, because as far as I can tell, you have no power to influence anything.
would be ineffective without real and broad security, which our level of troops cannot sustain across the country. They'd be sitting ducks without a real army presence, and we barely have enough of that to keep central Baghdad secure.
More troops would give us a shield under which we can begin to provide those services. There is something similar going on right now with the oil fields and pipelines, but sadly Iraqi utilities are not as large of a priority.
Even with large American troops presence, the construction would be vulnerable to sabotage. But I tend to think that Iraqis will be far more outraged at the insurgency when it's destroying their clean water supply, vs. destroying an oil pipeline whose US protection is viewed very cynically.
We do not want a draft because it pulls in people who do not want to fight for this country. We do not need a draft, we need Congress to allow troops now in reserves or guard the ability to go back to active. We don't need the draft because the wave of 9-11 kids has not yet hit recruitment age. My son is 15 and joined HS ROTC two years ago. That was when the 9-11 wave hit the high schoolers and participation in ROTCS programs sky rocketed. We have two more years before that wave hits.
Be patient, don't panic, stay the course.
Regardless of your support (or lack thereof) for the Iraq war, the reality is that Americans are growing more and more uneasy with the war and the reasons why we fought it. The only way I see the draft being reinstated in the next 10 years is a war with China over Taiwan, a 2nd Korean War or (God forbid) a nuke go off in any major city.
Just thank your preferred diety that Kerry was not elected last year. He would of screwed Iraq up so much by now he would have to reinstate the draft (think Johnson and McNamara)
When was the last time you saw Bush urge anyone to enlist?
The thing is Bush, Cheney and Karl Rove are caught in a quandary. How do you get anyone to go when you won't go yourself? I can just see a kid saying, "I have better things to do", to the Draft Board. It becomes even more embarrassing when Bush has those Twins to send to Iraq. Fat Chance they would go.
The White House has no choice except silence. Let the Recruiters do the job.
I won't comment on the meat of the argument at this point, but I would like to mention the results of the AP/Ipsos poll from June 20-22.
"If you had a son who was the right age to serve in the military, would you encourage him to enlist in the military now or would you discourage him from enlisting in the military now?"
Encourage - 32%
Discourage - 55%
Neither - 12%
Unsure - 1%
"If you had a daughter who was the right age to serve in the military, would you encourage her to enlist in the military now or would you discourage her from enlisting in the military now?"
Encourage - 22%
Discourage - 66%
Neither - 11%
Unsure - 1%
"Do you favor or oppose the reinstatement of the military draft in the United States?"
Favor - 27%
Oppose - 70%
Unsure - 4%
"If the military draft were reinstated, would you favor or oppose drafting women as well as men?"
Favor - 43%
Oppose - 54%
Unsure - 3%
....a draft isn't compatible with the way we currently fight wars....[T]he Army has been refocusing on the threat of unconventional warfare.
This is sort of right, but mostly wrong. First of all, the notion that a draft force is incompatible with the demands of counterinsurgency is deeply wrong. Our last draftee Army destroyed the Viet Cong and increased the control of the Saigon government from c.20% of its territory to c.80% before withdrawal -- at which time the Communists were forced to pursue the war with regular NVA units. So let's not pretend that only volunteers can win this thing. Second, while you're right that the Army has been paying attention to MOUT, it's not quite correct that pre-Iraq, it was uniquely focusing on "unconventional warfare." You might as well have made the same claim c.1963 with the establishment of the Green Berets. The Army is the Army, and while Rumsfeld certainly has his erratic vision for it, it doesn't follow that since the end of the Cold War it's done anything but try to figure how to maintain optempo with less.
A draft isn't going to fix this problem. It takes too long to train draftees into competent soldiers.
Sorry, but where's the evidence that a draftee is less able to master soldiering than a volunteer, or at the same rates? Did they shorten Basic and AIT and all the service schools post-1972 once those unmotivated draftees were out of the way?
Conscripts can't be plopped into a modern battlefield straight out of basic and expect to integrate into a modern military unit.
Of course. No one can. That's why the Army sends you to AIT.
A draft won't help us in Iraq - by the time we can get one going we should be able to begin drawing down our forces as the Iraqis replace coalition troops.
While I hope you're right, let's note that none of the timetables for this ephemeral drawdown have proven remotely realistic -- remember, we're supposed to be down to c.30,000 men now -- and I would think that reasonable folks would at this point shy away from predictions based on pure optimism. Let's start planning for contingencies, yes?
If our military was truly "breaking" in Iraq, our operational tempo would be slowing dramatically.
A total non sequitur.
....we're still adapting to the realities of 21st Century warfare.
You realize this is meaningless cant, yes? What exactly is "21st Century warfare" about the insurrection in Iraq? Seems pretty standard insurgency to me.
The Joint Chiefs are unanimous in their opposition to a draft, and for very good reason.
That reason being, their only experience of it was in its disastrous late-Indochina years.
I'm in no position to help those who take the Administration at face value. That's something even Republicans shouldn't do.
Another interesting Gallup poll from June 16-19:
"If you had a son or daughter who was planning to enter the military, would you support that step or would you suggest a different occupation?"
Support That Step - 51%
Suggest Different Occupation - 48%
Unsure - 1%
(I think the above question is somewhat unfair. Parents like to be encouraging of their children.)
"Would you favor or oppose requiring every able-bodied young man in this country, when he reaches the age of 18, to spend one year in military training and then join the reserves?"
Favor - 35%
Oppose - 62%
Unsure - 3%
What is most telling, I think, is the response to the same question in December 1955:
Favor - 69%
Oppose - 23%
Unsure - 8%
My how the times have changed.
All the whining about the methods of recruiters from the soccer mom contingent is getting pretty freaking old. This is the price they pay for no draft. And it's a small one. Vanishingly small.
It is not possible for anyone including Kerry to screw Iraq up more than Bush. Would Kerry cut a BILLION Dollars off Veteran's Affairs? Would Kerry STILL have Rumsfeld working for him? Nope. That's Bush.
The case you make is very persuasive, but . . .
What if the goal of Rumsfeld and the chain of command is to begin the slow withdrawal very soon? By this I mean that as the constitutional process, and political developments proceed (a big if), and as Iraqi force training continues, the US soon and slowly and unannounced, begins pullout out town by town, city by city? We are approaching the cusp of these events.
The only democrat who I've heard through the noise who even hinted at this is Senator Levin - it's there problem, we don't want to occupy indefinitely, etc...
This policy has many advantages in not being announced, but it argues against increasing troop levels.
The problem of course is it appears as a retreat under fire. But, the good news is how successful the efforts have been to pacify Al-Sadr's crowd in the slums, how united the Kurds remain, and how restrained all the shiites have been.
Adding troops upsets this environment.
The obvious problem is it risks civil war, which is the nub of the specific anti-draft issue here - why should there be a draft to prevent an Iraqi civil war? That would be a tough sell.
Generally, though, we need greater force levels for all the reasons listed, independent of the next year or two in Iraq.
This is to be expected. Doesn't alter the argument that it is the right thing to do for the Army, though.
Politically, well, I'm not going to grow old waiting for courage from the current crop of leaders.
The 9/11 kids are going to give us a recruiting surge? I'd like to see that one.
....though I am convinced Kerry was more than ready to withdraw from Iraq without regard to the Iraqis left behind, the irony is that for the Army as an institution, this might have been the preferable option.
Either your judgement was faulty or there are certain limits that they will not cross that you go past.
Either everyone...And I do mean "everyone" is elegible, or it won't fly with me.
You go where they send you, do what they tell you, and sleep when they let you.
I'll go along with a "deferment" for the mentally challenged who can't be trained to pick up litter on the drill field, or brass at the range.
Either we all are equal or we're not. If we are, everyone goes who possibly can. The "physically challenged?" We have lots and lots of clerk-typist type positions. Or programmers. Or whatever.
I'm down with a universal service requirement. But when you say "Selective" Service, you are out of line.
Freedom isn't free. But it's not "Selective" either. I don't get any more rights for serving, so there shouldn't be exceptions for the priviliged, blind, lame, mute, or whatever. We all have the same Liberty. And the same obligations.
And that's the name of that tune.
Which, of course, is one more reason Americans in general hate nation building. It still boggles me how Bush could sound so adamant in 2000 about it and do such a volte face. It's not like he was a PNAC guy to begin with, but he has been completely coopted by them.
I have 3 cousins, like brothers to me, who have all joined the Army since the invasion of Afghanistan. One finished his tour in Fallujah just 2 weeks before all hell broke lose there last year.
There are and always will be plenty of patriotic young Americans willing to sign up to fight for their country. It offers tremendous advantages to them for the rest of their lives. Some still go there one step ahead of juvenile detention, others because they've played "Army" since they were 5, others for the training or to get out of the ghetto. We may be having a temporary recruiting slump right now, but I have no fear the numbers will pick back up again. Particularly if the media would stop slandering our troops.
So please, instead of giving aid and comfort to Charlie Rangel, target the many who slander the very concept of military service, fight against the universities who won't allow ROTC or military recruiters on campus, and anybody who looks down on the men and women who risk their lives for us.
....caused by what, exactly? The war, yes?
Don't tell me you think this is all the media's doing.
As a Civil Engineer I worked on many projects in the Middle East. I never traveled to see the projects I worked on.... no women allowed.
I worked in the states with 100's of engineers on these projects. The vast majority of the design work can be done here, it's the construction mangement that's the security problem.
I am one of the over 40 you mention and as a civilian I would provide my services gratis if asked.
There is a draft for people with special skills already in the works.
.
This is different than what I think you are suggesting. Civilian support vs drafting people with special skills.
Since you're getting such a thrill out of kicking around my comments here:
If we truly need to reinstate the draft to win the war and increase "American involvement" as you're arguing for, why are none of the people in command of the armed forces even broaching the subject seriously? Are they all just deluded? Is it peer pressure? They're not allowed to say certain things or admit they've said them? A conspiracy of secrecy, an oath of "our way, at any cost, even if it means we lose!"
I mean, Josh, what you're arguing for here doesn't make any sense. We've sent troops to Iraq and defeated all of their armed forces handily, and now we're facing somewhere between 10-30,000 insurgents (if you take the upper estimates) and now, at this point, it's time to reinstate the draft?
I suppose you guess that the insurgency is going to continue for so long at its current strength that the current troop levels are incapable of defeating it, even with new Iraqi forces brought to bear. Is that so?
...proceed with all deliberate speed with teaching the Iraqis to defend their own country, so that we can leave....
As shown here (hat tip: Van Steenwyk). Largest organized assault in months and it was defeated by policemen with no help from the multinationals. Progress. But let's not let that get in the way of Trevino's crusade to see a draft reinstituted.
....to see why the military itself isn't agitating for a draft. Several factors collude:
- Those still on active duty who remember the previous draft remember its latter years, when it was a source of division in American society and terribly bad PR for the military.
- It is not their place to publicly advocate such policies in the first place.
- The present Secretary of Defense has a track record of professionally humiliating and even dismissing those who deviate from his line. See one Eric Shinseki.
I suppose you guess that the insurgency is going to continue for so long at its current strength that the current troop levels are incapable of defeating it, even with new Iraqi forces brought to bear.
Current troop levels won't defeat it, no. And yes, it can certainly continue on for quite some time -- the rest of the decade, even. As for the new Iraqi forces coming online, I will wait and see. There's little there to impress so far. Prudent planning demands a known quantity -- in this case, the American soldier.
Yeah, "no help from the multinationals" because said multinationals ran into an effective insurgent blocking force on the way.
Don't get me wrong, it's good that the police held out and repelled the attack, but portraying this as unvarnished good news -- trouble you at all that the bad guys are mounting these operations in the capital? -- is just foolish.
since he'll be effectively proven utterly wrong. Of course, until that day he'll stay on message and only after that day will he pick up the "It Could Have Been Better" banner.
Isn't that great? You have to go over to the UK to read about that, and even then the "journalist" paints it as a victory for the insurgents.
I don't necessarily disagree with you regarding what's best for the military. I'm just reporting. Consider me FOX News - I'll report, y'all decide. I haven't opined on the issue yet, and I may not. It's something I haven't made up a complete opinion about yet.
Policemen. Not infantry. Not special forces. Not U.S. grunts. Policemen.
You want to know what is foolish? Leaving out the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the post-Spanish Philippines War, and the near insignificance of conscription during the Civil War. Now that's foolish.
I have been running into this alot lately. I am most likely in the same place Trevino is in his views on this war. But I do find myself wondering at many of the "support the troops" magnets, or rather some of the people who buy them: slap them on their cars and drive away not really thinking about it much after that.
It is terrible to me. Silly as it is, I feel like I should sacrifice somehow, I don't drive my car very much to conserve gas, and have this urge to plant a victory garden. I know that sounds almost sarcastic, but perhaps being raised by parents and grandparents who remember what it meant to really sacrifice for the war stuck with me. I work with veterans groups in my little city, even something as safe as that doesn't garner much support. I don't understand it.
Is that I hope you're wrong. Because I don't think reinstating the draft will help us in Iraq by one iota. I think it will make the war more unpopular than it already is, and I can't see how anyone can claim that training those troops in time to get there and move them into the country so that they could be effective in time to do anything meaningful against the insurgency is possible.
The most important milestones in Iraq, it seems to me, are being measured now in months, not years. Even if we could reinstate the draft now, and even assuming that more troops would have been beneficial, I don't understand how you propose to get them there in time to do much good.
I know that Democrats have been calling for the reinstatement of the draft since before the war began. And, truth to tell, I would agree to a form of the draft -- one based on mandatory service in the military for all Americans of age, men and women alike, a-la Israel. In fact, I wish that had been the policy when I graduated high school; I think everyone could benefit from 2 years in the service.
But try hard as I might, I just can't share your pessimism that this war is unwinnable without it right now. I truly believe, and it may just be a kind of blind faith right now, that the Iraqi people want to have sovereignty over their own country and that the vast majority of them wish to see the insurgents defeated, and that's what we should be concentrating on encouraging. And I completely agree with PatHMV that we should be working much help our military recruiters here in the U.S. to relieve the strain.
People really aren't talking much about the idea that the largest danger to American troops in Iraq passed a long time ago. It just seems counterproductive to me that we should panic in the way your suggestion sounds to me.
Guerrillas are repelled by policemen who appear to have (though the article is not explicit) M60-style machine guns. These same guerrillas mount an effective blocking operation against bona fide American soldiers. Now, what does this tell us about the policemen in question?
Which is to say, I'm not sure you're making the point you think you are.
As far as "leaving out" the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Philippine Insurrection, I leave it to you to peer through the mists of history and figure out what the level of popular support was for each. That you don't understand why none were invoked isn't particularly a problem for me. Finally, re: the "near insignificance" of conscription in the Civil War, two questions -- first, did the leadership at the time on both or either sides find it so; second, assuming you are completely correct, does that wholly invalidate the argument presented? I'm pretty sure the answer to the second bit is "no."
A Draft would be a good thing BEFORE the war. Can you imagine Bush sending his kids to Iraq? How about those Top 1% who support Bush? This nonsense happened because people who never fought before like Karl Rove decided to send other people's kids into harms way.
There should be a Law that a President's First Born should enlist. THAT will ensure competent Leadership.
for the report. I was surprised at the difference in the numbers for gender
Hagel has, basically, only recently popped up on my personal radar. I don't know that much about him.
Why do you think he's a fool?
Thanks -
I don't think you should go back to Democratic Underground. Your posts are always exceedingly well-thought out and composed and I know you put a lot of effort into them. Which is one of the reasons I disagree so strongly with some of them, but that doesn't mean I want you to stop writing them. :)
I know it wasn't you who said that to the person who had it said to him, so no worries. And thanks.
....back when all I knew about him was his gadflying of the Administration on DOD-related points. And he can be a good gadfly. But once my eyes were opened (by Augustine, really) on Hagel's essential spinelessness -- and sorry, but I think defending Taiwan is really a no-brainer -- I came to see him for what he mostly is: a prairie isolationist throwback whose foreign policy is, if it can be characterized at all, basically mercantilist.
I'm trying to pick out other metrics which may have been overlooked. One may be the gap in time between announced or planned events.
So far there has been an invasion, an appointment of the interim (Allawi), an election, a seating of the elected, and next - meetings for the constitution, followed by permanent parliamentary elections.
It seems the worst of the setbacks are at the midpoints between these events - Kidnapping/Beheadings; Abu G.; Fallujah conquest; now car bombings.
Some of the effect is simply media attention, but others may not be random.
We ramped up for the invasion and elections, and have tried meagre w/drawals in the interims. I don't think there is another ramping up coming (the effect of the training), but I think scaling back is ahead. Also, the negotiations may start buying peace in select areas to allow small drawdowns.
It is a plan, while the insurgency seems to be lurching, although with horrible effect. I think this is what Cheney sees, and simply hopes it's the last lurch.
I'm not "chief" and I've seen no one here tell you go back to DU(thanks for putting that in the REDHOT where only the annointed can respond). The closest mention I've seen to DU was a mention of Kos which you made. You can cop an attitude while you preach from your high horse about all the things we little people can't understand but you're not omniscient. In fact I'd save your OP as an example of someone who knows just enough to convince themselves their opinion is the right and proper one.
Revolutionary War. Sure there were loyalist sympathizers but the idea of revolution was a popular one dating all the way back to the Jenkins' Ear war and subsequent conflicts when the Brits forced colonialists to return captured territory. It was a popular war and if you're going to honestly contend that it wasn't then maybe you should keep the dismissiveness a few more days. You'll need it. States had conscription in the war but nothing was dictated from the national government. You know...the one that wrote the Declaration.
War of 1812. Again, a popular war. British impressment and privateering were played up in the press and public sentiment supported war. And again, no conscription.
Civil War. Around 5% of the North's soldiers were conscripted and it prompted massive draft riots. It was a war that had a draft but a fairly insignificant draft for the North. For the South, conscription played a much larger part in their force but they lost so I don't really care how it played there.
War in the Philippines. It was a popular war. The U.S. managed to support a large(for that time, 70,000+) overseas deployment for over a decade without a draft. Sure there were anti-imperialists that opposed it but it was favored by the public atleast until the brutal policies surrounding the Moro uprising. Again, no conscription.
Now, again, please explain why leaving these out was not foolish. I'm interested in what you see when you "peer through the mists of history" with your acute vision.
As for the news report, you can focus on whatever angle you want. Given your current crusade all I can say is I'm not surprised you think cutting off a road with car bombs is the paramount fact cited. But let's see. Cops hold off guerilla fighters. Fifty-five calls from ordinary citizens relaying tactical information. Ordinary citizens joining the fight against the guerillas. About 50% of the assaulting force killed or captured. Pride shown by the Iraqi commander. Woe is me. Where do I sign up for your draft, Trev?
Historical experience strongly suggests that this is best done through a pervasive, persistent, locally-based small-unit infantry presence concentrated in insurgent base areas; this in turn backed up by heavy units on-call as needed. Does this characterize our operations in Iraq? In Afghanistan? No? Why not?
Please elaborate. I thought this was what we were doing.
While I was opposed to the war from the start, I sure kept my mouth shut around the time of the election. I really wanted it to work, and I hoped it would. Now it's clear to me that Democracy does not by itself foster peace. I still respect the war supporters who are in touch with reality. A draft or withdrawal is the reality. Personally I favor the latter, but mainly because, in all honesty, I am afraid to fight there.
I'm inclined to disagree with Trevino on the general thrust of his argument (i.e. draft=never gonna happen), but I have to concede that many of his points are sound.
Now he and I (and others) are of different opinions on the war, but you can't say he's wrong that people don't want to enlist because they just don't want to go to war. People can be patriotic without being crazy. I read LTC Grossman's book, too, and it's kind of shocking to realize the lengths men will go to on the battlefield to NOT shoot at their enemy.
I agree with kowalski that Americans are insulated from war, slapping yellow ribbons on their cars and forgetting about it. Trevino might want to debate the level of commitment of the average American, but I think it's pretty self-evident. For what it's worth, that's both a good thing and a bad thing. There is no form of mandatory national service, and we have seen the risks inherent in that.
We can bandy around statistics and facts about events in Iraq and never come to an agreement, construing a multitude of these facts a million different ways. And threads like this can go on until the last American leaves Iraq, hanging off the skids of a helicopter lifting off from the roof of the American embassy.
I would, however, like someone to remind me why we decimated the ranks of our Army over a decade ago to save money. And, as per smagar's diary earlier today, how good a job are we doing of rotating, resting, and refitting the troops we have now?
the constitution are the big events looming. So 08/05(constitution is finalized), 10/05(ratification is voted on), and 01/06(elections). Atleast 3 more chances to hear how all is doomed.
The DU comment wasn't in comments here. You noticed.
I gotta say, your grasp of American history isn't what it ought to be. The Revolution, for example, is estimated to have commanded the active support of roughly 1/3 of the colonists, with another 1/3 opposed, and 1/3 of wavering loyalty -- it was hardly a universally popular cause. The War of 1812 was only popular in the south and west; the New England states, by contrast, continued trading with the British and contemplated secession. The Philippine Insurrection resulted, among other things, in the uproar over the Samar atrocities; its growing unpopularity was quelled in no small part by Roosevelt's unilateral declaration of victory (in 1902, I think).
Finally, regarding the police action that's exciting you so -- and hey, why not focus on a single anecdote versus the big picture? -- it's great that good things happened there. Yes, the police ended up repelling the attack. Bravo. But what do we learn from the guerrillas' ability to have mounted such an operation in the first place? (I'm not sure you really grasp the significance of the blocking force here, but we'll let that go.) Any ideas, chief?
Our forces aren't locally-based, nor pervasive, nor persistent. The model here is the Marine CAP program from Vietnam.
We have to remember that the idea of a 'preemptive' war is not one that's been embraced by America in it's history. No one in the Clinton Administration (and, frankly, not many conservatives either) were thinking in the direction that the PNAC crew were. In fact, compared to, say, the pre-Civil War state of the Army, you can see that Clinton and the Congress left the Army MUCH more prepared. The ONLY rationales in which they're not prepared are the total war and the preemptive war with a bonus time-insensitive occupation.
As far as how we're doing, I'd characterize the statements coming from the military as that they can do what they're doing now for a while, but they can't take on anything extra. This, to me, is VERY worrying since we still have North Korea making noise and increased unrest in Afghanistan - not saying anything about the growing civil war in Iraq.
Of course, we lost the war in Vietnam despite our military victories - and we incurred 54,000 American casualties in the process.
We're facing a new kind of warfare. This is much like the insurgency in Vietnam except for the fact that there's 24-hour news coverage, the Internet, and the technology of warfare has taken a quantum leap in the intervening 30 years. We've adapted quite well to the changing nature of the threat, but we can't expect some shmuck from off the street to suddenly become part of an effective American battle force. Even after Basic and AIT, it stil isn't feasible to argue that a conscript is going to be effective.
A draft doesn't fix our short-term problem. I doubt it's going to fix our long-term problem.
The problem is that we spent the last 15 years eviscerating our military. A draft won't fix that problem, and has a good chance of exacerbating it.
I'm not saying it's all the media's fault, though I do believe they play a role.
But it's not all the war, either, not in the sense that potential soldiers are too scared of dying to sign up.
We haven't seen that much of an increased recruiting effort (though maybe they're advertising on MTV and I'm missing it). We haven't seen ads with President Bush going "I want you" to bring democracy and stability to the world. Of course, we haven't seen these kind of ads in part because the head of the Department of Defense believes that we don't need more soldiers (a subject of vigorous debate on both sidees by serious, studied people in and out of the military).
Myself, I'm far more concerned about the lack of trained MPs and interpreters than I am about the lack of infantry. Secretary Rumsfeld's reshaping policies do call for increasing the number of those kinds of soldiers in the future, as I understand them. We have to root out insurgents who look just like the people we are trying to protect, and who are living among those innocent people. We're in a highly urban environment, where we can't easily call in air strikes. We did a good job in Fallujah, but we can't empty out every problem city, destroy it, and then let the innocents back in.
We need soldiers who are always wary but still able to gain the trust of local inhabitants and be nice to the little kids. That means we need cops, not infantry. And of course they need to be able to speak the language. None of that will be supplied simply by drafting people, and reinstating the draft would cause all sorts of social upheavals, bringing with it so many new problems.
We did lose, yes -- but that doesn't affect the argument here, which is that conscripts can conduct counterinsurgency. On which subject, if you're going to insist it's so without evidence, there's not much counterargument I can offer that I haven't already. You generally don't make it through the Army's system of schooling without achieving some basic competence in what the Army wants you to know. If you think a volunteer will yield a qualitatively -- and meaningfully -- better result than a conscript, I guess that's what you think. Me, I'll look to the actual history of conscripts in American history.
You're right that American battle technology has changed. But the insurgents are not mounting a campaign that is terribly different from guerrilla efforts of the past half-century. Sure, there are tactical advances, notably in detonator tech; and yes, Zarqawi does pop up online; but bombings and assassinations and ambushes are not new. The war, and the threat, are not particularly "21st century." If anything, we've seen this before.
I just graduated from high school this past May--it ain't happening.
roughly 1/3 of the colonists, with another 1/3 opposed, and 1/3 of wavering loyalty
Yes, that comes from a John Adams quote and is usually cited by people on the internet despite the fact that it describes, generally, the state of things prior to the war. And that trumps the history of discontent after the Jenkins' Ear war, Louisberg, and all the other outrages noted in the colonial press leading up to the Revolutionary War?
universally popular cause
So that's the benchmark now? Should we go back and reconsider your list then?
The War of 1812 was only popular in the south and west; the New England states, by contrast, continued trading with the British and contemplated secession
And what happened to the participants of the Hartford Convention? The war was unpopular with the merchants who lived off trading with Britain. They didn't care about occassional loss of property but even the NE was outraged about impressment.
The Philippine Insurrection resulted, among other things, in the uproar over the Samar atrocities; its growing unpopularity was quelled in no small part by Roosevelt's unilateral declaration of victory (in 1902, I think)
Actually, the pacification of Samar was popular. The American public demanded retaliation after the massacre of U.S. soldiers. The anti-imperialists didn't get much out of it. Things changed after the wholesale slaughters of 1906-08.
But re-reading your OP you said "for the duration of the war" so I'll drop the Philippines since it dragged on for quite some time.
Finally, regarding the police action that's exciting you so -- and hey, why not focus on a single anecdote versus the big picture? -- it's great that good things happened there.
Why do you think I'm excited about that one anecdote? I posted it to someone who mentioned the need to have Iraqis take more responsibility. And what "big picture" would you be referring to? I don't watch or read the MSM so maybe I've missed the "big picture" assessments by the professionals.
Yes, the police ended up repelling the attack. Bravo. But what do we learn from the guerrillas' ability to have mounted such an operation in the first place? (I'm not sure you really grasp the significance of the blocking force here, but we'll let that go.) Any ideas, chief?
We learn that there were atleast 100 yahoos in Bagdhad who couldn't successfully assault a police station. Did I miss something? Is the ability to mass into groups a sign of impending doom? Are you one of those people who thought Lightning would turn the city into Brussels? What's the significance of the "blocking action"? The article merely states 3 suicide car bombers blocking a route. Is the significance that they had a map? Or reconnoitred preferred routes? Or is it that despite delaying aid they still failed? Hrmmmmm.
Really, lay off the "chief". You deride anyone who doesn't merrily hop onto your coattails. You call people "cheerleaders", non-adults, detached from reality, claim they get their news solely from the administration...all for disagreeing with you. The horror.
Would be to pull out prematurely. Surest way to push that from a possiblity to a probability is to completely destroy any support for the action. Surest way to destroy that support, a draft.
-bro
Behind institution a draft - politically at least - is that I can't see anyone with a family member who gets drafted supporting the war. A family who has a loved one or friend drafted and then killed will be even less likely to vote for the current administration. At best, if the Republicans manage to sweep again in '06, a draft will be something to consider. By then, they'll be so firmly locked in their power base that they can call for a draft while holding Congressional Committees naked without fear of losing the vote. <
There is no support among the American people for a draft - I'm sure you've seen the polls.
The politicians in office will not risk the seats that they spend so much time making comfortable for themselves by offering something that would be the equivalent of arsenic for their careers.
The ONLY time it might have worked would have been right after 9/11. That window has closed.