[Peace-discuss] Only way to peace: Bring back the draft

[patton paul]

This article actually makes a pretty good case for re-instating the draft.
-Paul P.

Only Way to Peace: Bring Back the Draft
by Ed Garvey


How could it be that a majority of American people believe that Saddam
Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks?

How could it be that a majority of those polled still believe that Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction when all the evidence shows there were
none?

After the books by Paul O'Neill, John Dean, Bob Woodward, Richard Clarke
and Kevin Phillips exposing this administration as the most dishonest and
incompetent group to ever occupy the White House, how could President Bush
be ahead of Sen. John Kerry in the polls when it comes to the question of
handling terrorism?

Indeed, after we found out that Saudi Arabia was briefed on the war plans
before Secretary of State Colin Powell, and that a deal was struck with
the Saudis - we turn Saddam into "toast," you cut oil prices in October -
could anyone seriously trust the Bush/Cheney team?

With 700 dead soldiers and thousands wounded, plus thousands of dead and
wounded noncombatants - or as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls
them, "collateral damage" - how can a majority of Americans trust Bush
more than Kerry on anything?

The answer is that most Americans are not paying close attention because
it doesn't directly affect them, their children or their grandchildren. In
"You Back the Attack," Micah Ian Wright points out that in 1956, 400 of
750 Princeton graduates went on to serve in the military and last year
three out of 1,000 Princeton grads signed up. I suspect the same is true
at the universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, Chicago and at Harvard. With a
volunteer army, we can fight a war or invade a country without bothering
to get permission at home because those with influence are not affected.

The Bush advisers did not see action in Vietnam or the first Gulf War.
Verbal combat at the Cato Institute would be as close as Paul Wolfowitz
got to real action. Karl Rove avoided the draft.

Cheney, who according to Powell was "in a fever" to invade Iraq, did not
serve during Vietnam. He has never seen young men die in combat. "No," he
told the Washington Post, "I had other priorities in the '60s than
military service." Disdain for those who did serve drips from his lips. He
had "other priorities," as if the 58,000 men and women listed on the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall did not!

Oh yes, there was USA Patriot John Ashcroft. He got a teaching deferment.
And how about members of Congress who remain silent?

Our armed forces are not made up of a cross-section of our society. Those
National Guard members aren't in on the upcoming Google stock offering.
The death of an NFL player, Pat Tillman, brings that message home because
he was someone of means and was therefore different. He was the only NFL,
NHL, Major League Baseball or NBA player we know of who enlisted in the
service after 9/11. Celebrities, athletes, actors and bankers don't have
to fight. Nor do their kids.

Will the president attend Tillman's funeral? Will photos be permitted?

World War II and Korea were not like that. The wealthy and well-connected
Kennedys fought, as did hundreds of athletes and hundreds of thousands of
wealthy and middle-class sons and daughters. World War II and Korea, and
even Vietnam, were "our" wars.

Our Army now is disproportionately black, Hispanic and poor white. It is
not made up of children of privilege who worry more about their portfolios
than a possible assault on Fallujah. This, or any other war, won't disrupt
the well-off. Their families will not join with the families of our
current troops at food pantries. And so they are not paying attention.

But Fallujah exposed something equally sinister. We have more than 20,000
"hired guns" working for us in Iraq. Mercenaries. The very word sends
chills. Coalition administrator Paul Bremer is guarded in Iraq not by
Marines but by mercenaries from a shadowy outfit in North Carolina. And
these soldiers of fortune are paid up to $1,500 per day while our soldiers
take in $16,000 per year.

What does it mean in our "war without end" if we take the next step and
truly "outsource" our fighting? Will anyone care if 10 or 1,000
mercenaries are killed near Basra or Kabul or Caracas? I don't think so.

Why would our president refuse to permit photos of flag-draped coffins of
our dead soldiers and refuse to attend even one funeral of one soldier
killed in his war?

You know why. It would bring the war home. They want the middle class and
the wealthy elites to think about something else, like the all-important
NFL draft, the NBA playoffs or the start of the baseball season, while
others fight and die.

The Bush formula is intriguing. Cut taxes, borrow the money to pay for the
war, send the poor to fight, hire mercenaries. Make the invasion as
comfortable as possible at home through November.

So, friends, there is but one way I know of to get the attention of the
American people and stop the madness. It is called the draft. We need one
and we need it now. No exceptions, no student deferments, no excuses.
Married, single, gay or straight, male or female - everyone between ages
18 and 30 should be subject to the draft. Our sons and daughters should
fight our wars or force the country to seek peace. It is that simple.

Would there have been an invasion of Iraq if we had had a draft in place?
No way. Period.

Time to return to the public good. Time to assert that all of us, poor,
middle class and rich, have a stake in our country's future. It is time
for the draft because it is time for peace.

Ed Garvey, a Madison lawyer and former Democratic nominee for governor, is
editor of the www.FightingBob.com Web magazine.

Copyright 2003 The Capital Times