[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: Supporting troops could mean a draft On any given day, my e-mail inbox is likely to contain something from Sen. Saxby Chambliss' office, so I wasn't particularly surprised to find Tuesday that the senator wanted to let the home folks know what he, as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had said that day as the committee held a hearing with Gen. David Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker. Nor was I particularly surprised at what the senator, a stalwart supporter of the war in Iraq - a country he has, to his credit, visited six times during the war - had to say about the conflict. According to the e-mail, Chambliss closed his brief opening remarks by noting, "The situation indeed remains complex, but I believe the surge has been effective, and we need to continue to support our efforts to win in Iraq and win the war on terrorism." That's fair enough, but, in light of a couple of recent news reports, it's also reasonable to wonder exactly how interested Chambliss - or, for that matter, anyone else in Congress - is in doing what it actually might take to "support our efforts to win in Iraq and win the war on terrorism." First, the Los Angeles Times, in a Friday story, noted that members of the U.S. military's "Joint Chiefs of Staff have repeatedly expressed concern that frequent deployments have strained U.S. ground forces and depleted resources needed elsewhere, particularly in Afghanistan. ... The Pentagon leadership is under new pressure to find additional troops to send to Afghanistan to fulfill a commitment (President) Bush made at a NATO summit last month, a senior Defense official said." Earlier in the week, USA Today reported that the "percentage of recruits requiring a waiver to join the Army because of a criminal record or other past misconduct has more than doubled since 2004 to one for every eight new soldiers. ... The Army has granted 4,676 conduct waivers among the 36,047 recruited from October through late February. ... A recruit needs a waiver if he or she has one felony or serious misdemeanor or more than three minor misdemeanors." The story notes that most of the waivers involve misdemeanors. In short, what these two reports show is that a significant segment of the U.S. military is at the limits of its operational capacity, and that, at least as far as the Army is concerned, the quality of the people being brought in to maintain or bolster that capacity has dropped significantly during the past three years. That's not particularly comforting news in terms of this country's ability to sustain, much less prevail in, the war in Iraq and the war on terror. The inescapable conclusion is that supporting the war effort, as Chambliss and any number of his colleagues profess to do, must now mean sending more people, and better people, into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, presumably, the wider war on terror. And getting more people and better people into the war means that, sooner rather than later, supporting the war effort - and, by extension, supporting the overextended troops who have been shouldering that burden thus far - will mean supporting a draft. I wonder whether, if the time comes - as it should - Chambliss and others of similar views will be willing to extend their support for the war to calling actively for a draft.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
#3. To: christine (#0)
I cannot imagine there being a draft. As long as small-town rural kids are getting killed, no one cares. Try to draft middle-class kids, and even the Freepers who support the war will see the light once there's talk of their kids going. Want to put an end to wars and empire fast? Try a draft.
Turtle... The "masses" are being conditioned to this endless war and with some orchestrated event such as a minor "9/11 the people will ASK for it. Remember the overwhelming votes for McKooK who openly said he would stay in the ME for 100 years??? Paul got 3 per cent????
There are no replies to Comment # 5. End Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest |
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||