Reinstating the Draft

[yesthattom]

http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/24.html
“The Selective Service System, the Bush Administration, and the Pentagon have been quietly moving to fill draft board vacancies nationwide in order to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. In preparation several million dollars have been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget. The SSS Administration must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. The Pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide. An unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld’s prediction of a “long, hard slog” in Iraq and Afghanistan (and a permanent state of war on “terrorism”) proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.”

Comments

[alyxyn.livejournal.com]

This is (so far, at least) only e-mail lore. Not that I'd put it past Bush, Congress and the Pentagon to reinstate the draft. Similar information is here, with sources.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

And let me tell you why snopes is wrong. Snopes says that the 2 bills in congress aren't moving forward... and that's correct. However, they miss the point that everything they can do that doesn't require an act of congress (staffing the draft boards, etc.) is ACTUALLY HAPPENING. When you quote NEOCONS as your proof, you aren't doing your case any service.

They also don't debunk the fact that military officials have started talking about recruiting IT workers as a special skill like doctors and nurses have been previously. (Remember M*A*S*H?). There's no age limit for the special draft, so don't think that being 35 or older will save you.

[alyxyn.livejournal.com]

From what I'm reading, it looks as if most of this stuff (the refilling of staff positions, etc.) would be happening anyway, whether we were in Afghanistan and Iraq or not. One of the people on SDMB was recently put onto a draft board, and he says in the last post in the thread that there are a lot of vacancies because they're volunteer positions and the last several administrations didn't make filling empty positions a priority and most people didn't even know the boards still existed.

Even if they were ramping up to reinstate the draft, they'd still need to get Congressional approval, and that doesn't look as if it'll happen anytime soon.

I'm not saying that ShrubCo isn't planning to reinstate the draft if they can. I'm just saying that the evidence presented in the linked article is subject to interpretation.

[pir.livejournal.com]

The thing that makes me leary about this one is that it isn't quoting NEOCONS, the bills were started by Democrats... look at the names,

[cos]

Yes, these draft bills are sponsored by Demcrats, who have explained that their goal is to make a rhetorical point: If you're gonna send people off to war, don't just send the poor. Make it a fair draft that pulls randomly from the population, and maybe then the government won't be so eager to go to war. They don't actually expect or intend for these bills to pass. I know Charles Rangel, for one, has been very direct about all of the above, and I think several other Democratic congresscritters have too.

[rwgill.livejournal.com]

There's no age limit for the special draft, so don't think that being 35 or older will save you.

But being gay will. In theory.

Back door/Front door

[kathdem.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't a front door draft be better than this insane back door draft they've got going on now? They're holding soldiers for 2, 3 tours of duty.

Re: Back door/Front door

[stitchinthyme.livejournal.com]

I dunno; most people who sign up for the military do so voluntarily, and I think the contract specifically says they own your ass as long as they want to. If you don't read the fine print, or sign it anyway, then you pretty much have to suck up and deal.

That's not to say I think the stop-loss thing is good, but well, you sign your life over to the gov't and that's exactly what they'll often take.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

I feel like you've posted this very thing before...am I confusing friends' list occupants again?

[nulldevice.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this has been going around for a while.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

yup. i post news about this now and then.