[Peace-discuss] Parties and wars

Sun Jul 22 08:31:43 UTC 2018

Rather think it was the other way around - we have withdrawn, why do we
need the draft anymore - we are moving towards a better paid all volunteer
force, but you keep viewing through your distorted lens.

The US military was actively downsizing beginning in late 1973 - certainly
by mid-1974.

Roger

On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 11:58 PM, Estabrook, Carl G <galliher at illinois.edu>
wrote:

> I'm sure that came as a surprise to a government engaged in a large,
> unpopular colonial war: "Oh, shucks! Look at that! The draft just ended!
> Guess we'll have to withdraw..."
>
> Now, if we need do the same thing in the Mideast. And close the hundreds
> if US military bases ringing Russia and China. Bring all US troops (and
> weapon) hime, as Ron Paul insisted some years ago...
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Peace-discuss [peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] on
> behalf of Roger Helbig via Peace-discuss [peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> ]
> *Sent:* Saturday, July 21, 2018 10:49 PM
> *To:* C G Estabrook; Peace-discuss
> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] Parties and wars
>
> It ended in June 73 because that was the end of the 1971 extension to the
> law - there was no sudden end as you claimed - it took two years to come to
> an end - read the following:
>
> Senatorial opponents of the war wanted to reduce this to a one-year
> extension, or eliminate the draft altogether, or tie the draft renewal to a
> timetable for troop withdrawal from Vietnam;[67] Senator Mike Gravel of
> Alaska took the most forceful approach, trying to filibuster the draft
> renewal legislation, shut down conscription, and directly force an end to
> the war.[68] Senators supporting Nixon's war efforts supported the bill,
> even though some had qualms about ending the draft.[66] After a prolonged
> battle in the Senate, in September 1971 cloture was achieved over the
> filibuster and the draft renewal bill was approved.[69] Meanwhile,
> military pay was increased as an incentive to attract volunteers, and
> television advertising for the U.S. Army began.[61] With the end of
> active U.S. ground participation in Vietnam, December 1972 saw the last men
> conscripted, who were born in 1952[70] and who reported for duty in June
> 1973. On February 2, 1972, a drawing was held to determine draft priority
> numbers for men born in 1953, but in early 1973 it was announced by
> Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird that no further draft orders would be
> issued.[71][72] In March 1973, 1974, and 1975, the Selective Service
> assigned draft priority numbers for all men born in 1954, 1955, and 1956,
> in case the draft was extended, but it never was.[73
>
> and this
>
> USARV controlled the activities of all U.S. Army service and logistical
> units in South Vietnam <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Vietnam> until
> 15 May 1972, when its structure was merged with the Military Assistance
> Command, Vietnam
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Assistance_Command,_Vietnam> (MACV)
> to become USARV/MACV Support Command, which was disbanded on 28 March
> 1973 after completion of withdrawal of all combat and support units. ]
>
> On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 7:48 AM, C G Estabrook <cgestabrook at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Why do you think the draft ended, Roger?
>>
>> Of course the government and media wished to cover up the refusal to
>> fight of the draftees sent to Vietnam - up to the point of attacking their
>> officers (‘fragging’ - from the live fragmentation grenade rolled under the
>> beds of gung-ho cadre) - but too many of them came back to tell the story.
>>
>> One of the few media accounts of why the US withdrew combat troops in
>> 1973: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir!_No_Sir!
>>
>> —CGE
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jul 21, 2018, at 3:05 AM, Roger Helbig <rwhelbig at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> your reason for the end of the draft is completely wrong, but then, you
>> always look at history through greatly distorted lens!
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 20, 2018 at 2:41 PM, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <
>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Or, more reason not to give Democrats control of Congress
>>>
>>> https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/democrats-press-gop-q
>>> uick-legislative-response-russia
>>>
>>> Political parties in other countries are often dues-paying, class-based
>>> associations pressing for certain well-defined goals - so you can have,
>>> e.g., a bankers party, a farmers’ party, a working class party, etc.
>>>
>>> In contrast, in the US  parties are brands, trying to convince the
>>> largest number of voters that Coca-Cola is better than Pepsi-Cola, Cheerios
>>> better than Wheaties... (Do they still make Wheaties?) Thus the greatest US
>>> crime of the post-WWII world, the US invasion of SE Asia (the ‘Vietnam
>>> War’) was not ended by parties’ taking different sides, even though -
>>>
>>> “By 1969 about 70% of the public had come to regard the [Vietnam] war as
>>> ‘fundamentally wrong and immoral,’ not ‘a mistake,’ largely as a result of
>>> the impact of student protest on general consciousness. And that mass
>>> opposition compelled the business community and then the government to stop
>>> the escalation of the war.” [Chomsky]
>>>
>>> We may ask, Will the Bush-Obama-Trump depredations on the Mideast be
>>> brought to end as the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon assaults on SE Asia were? The
>>> answer is hardly clear: history, as has been said, doesn’t repeat itself,
>>> but it does rhyme. Remember that Richard Nixon had a ‘secret plan for
>>> ending the [Vietnam] war’: he was the anti-war candidate in 1968 (as Trump
>>> was in 2016); in each case their opponents (Hubert Humphrey and Hilary
>>> Clinton) were leading members of the administrations making war.
>>>
>>> The Vietnam war ended (to the extent that it did) for three reasons - in
>>> order of importance:
>>> (1) the brave resistance of the Vietnamese people against US attack;
>>> (2) the revolt of the American army in Vietnam (cf. ‘fragging’) - which
>>> compelled the sudden ending of the draft in 1973; &
>>> (3) the ‘mass opposition’ of the US public (in fact, the least important
>>> of the three factors on US policy).
>>>
>>> When it came to the Mideast (even more important to US government
>>> planners than SE Asia), US imperial policy was determined to avoid the
>>> ‘mistakes’ of Vietnam:
>>> (1) local resistance in the Mideast was widespread, but divided and
>>> inchoate (note that 9/11 was a counterattack to US actions);
>>> (2) the US military had been assuaged: the draft had been ended (because
>>> of US resistance) and only the economic draft was left, so the US fights
>>> its Mideast wars largely with foreign proxies, whom it finances (from NATO
>>> in Afghanistan to jihadists in Syria); then with drone assassinations. (Cf.
>>> “Noam Chomsky: Obama's Drone Program 'The Most Extreme Terrorist Campaign
>>> of Modern Times’”);
>>> (3) the mass opposition to the US public to foreign wars - perhaps never
>>> greater than in 2003, with Bush’s invasion of Iraq - could be managed with
>>> lies and propaganda. Obama ran as the peace candidate in 2008. The anti-war
>>> movement that should have countered his lies was seduced by him instead, so
>>> in office he could immediately expand the war in Afghanistan that he’d
>>> attacked in the campaign.
>>>
>>> The examples of Vietnam and the Mideast seem to make it clear that an
>>> anti-war movement today that actually deters US wars will not be based on
>>> the Republican and Democrat organizations. They are together part of the
>>> ‘war party’ that serves the world-wide economic interests of dominant
>>> social groups in the US (‘the one percent’) - not the interests of the
>>> population at large, who have to misled with ever more fantastic lies - now
>>> including ‘Russian aggression’ and ‘collusion.’
>>>
>>> ###
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
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