As Charles Moskos, a prominent military sociologist [at Northwestern], said just after 9/11, "We're in a new kind of war. It's time for a new kind of draft." The Washington Monthly piece calls it "a 21st century draft." As outlined in the now infamous Selective Service memo of February 2003, or by Moskos in his articles, and now by the Washington Monthly proposal of March 2005, it will be a much more efficient draft, more universal (women as well as men), more complex and more sinister. It will demand that all young people be registered in a massive data base that details their skills and strengths, their weaknesses and dalliances. It will know who are linguists and who are likely good at killing--and it will draft them to relevant tasks. It will draft for 'homeland security' as well as duty overseas--for border guards and immigration cops--and for computer nerds and medics. It won't even be called a draft--more likely, 'national service,' 'homeland service,' or 'universal service.'
Yet when grunts are needed on the battlefield--it is likely that some form of the lottery will still be there to call them up. Donald Rumsfeld, who has indeed always pushed the concept of a 'citizen army,' has also always seen a lottery for compulsory service as a back-up for national emergencies. Already in 1965, at a national conference on the draft, Rumsfeld predicted, "We will move eventually toward a volunteer army, but above (that system) it would be necessary to have a compulsory system as a secondary mechanism for raising manpower." The final method, he said, "for choosing those for combat, when not enough volunteers are at hand, should be the most random." March 5, 2005 . (For these and other early quotes from Rumsfeld, see Sol Tax, THE DRAFT, University of Chicago, 1967.) Sooner or later, as in the year of the first 'survivors' show, the televised draft lottery of 1970, young people will crowd around their sets again--maybe even singing the Three Dog Night hit, "One is the loneliest number"--as they did thirty-five years ago.
During the Presidential campaign, before Rumsfeld's most recent fevered denials that a draft was in the offing--and before the Republican leadership shot down the liberal version put forward by Rep. Charles Rangel and others as a form of anti-war maneuvering, Family Circle magazine--largest circulation women's journal in the country, with 23 million readers--published Jan Goodwin's, "Could Your Child Be Drafted?" (July 2004.) Charles Moskos--who has advised four Presidents on military manpower--was quoted: "We cannot achieve the number of troops we need in Iraq without a draft." The conservative Republican, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, was even more blunt: "Don't listen to what they say. Look at what they do. The Administration says 'no' to the draft, but what we've gotten from the Pentagon says 'yes'." Family Circle sent out a press release, including recommended actions for parents to work against a draft and to keep their children from being drafted.
More and more nations are abolishing conscription. France, Portugal, Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria and many other countries abolished their programs of military or national service in the late 1990s and since 2000--most also abolishing mandatory registration. Over 100 nations--the majority--now have no form of draft or registration, and about 15 have registration but not a draft (like the U.S.) Surely the U.S. would not buck that trend. Or would it? It is the U.S., not France or China or any other power, which claims that it alone must "bring freedom to the world." This would not be the first way in which the U.S. is out of step, and out of touch, with most of the rest of the world.
The 'urban myth' about the draft's return keeps getting stronger. Some rather hard military facts persist as well. The Washington Monthly piece put it starkly: "America can remain the world's superpower. Or it can maintain its current all-volunteer military. It can't do both."
As Moskos predicted, the U.S. was unable to maintain its forces in Iraq without a draft. The Pentagon used what many have called the 'backdoor draft.' Since early 2004, at least 40,000 national guardsmen and reserves (who make up 40% of those serving in Iraq) were compelled to remain on active duty after their tours were up--and more will soon face a similar fate. Most of those affected were told officially that their enlistment was extended until 2031! This is called 'stop loss,' an emergency measure which the President is supposed to be able to use only when Congress has declared war or a national emergency--which is not the case. Yet--like many other evidently unconstitutional measures--stop loss is a reality. In addition to the extensions of duty for the national guard and reserves, more than 5,500 of the 'Ready Reserves' have been called up for Iraq or Afghan duty. These are older men and women whose regular reserve duty has ended--including grandmothers and grandfathers edging toward retirement, as well as men and women raising families and pursuing careers who had no idea they would be called again to duty.
Perhaps the worst sign for those who would keep an all-volunteer force while trying to run an empire is that military recruitment has suffered tremendously as the U.S. media feature stories about young Americans killed in combat. The Army and Marines have failed to meet their recruitment quotas, with the army running about 40% short. The most telling statistic is that 35-40% of those who enlisted in 2003 did not complete their first term--because of health or mental health problems, drug testing failures, desertion, or application for conscientious objector status. (See "Decoding Rumsfeld" by Bill Galvin, Nov. 4, 2004, on the NSBICO.org website; and summary of information on the draft, compiled by Chris Lombardi, Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors website, objector.org).
All three military academies, which saw an increase in applications after 9/11, now draw smaller pools of those seeking admission--ranging from 15 to 25% fewer as of early this year. (Baltimore Sun, Feb. 8, 2005) ROTCs are also shrinking--even as Republican student groups have called for their revival. If the ROTCs and the Academies cannot provide enough officers, the services will be in serious trouble very soon. (See Baltimore Sun, "Applications Decline," pages 1B and 4B, Feb. 8, 2005.)
As many U.S. military experts had previously warned, Jane's Intelligence Digest--an independent and internationally respected review-- stated emphatically in August 2003 that "U.S. forces are severely overstretched." Jane's pointed out that "traditional calculations for every soldier deployed" indicate that two soldiers are needed in reserve and one is needed for "mainland supply and support." Congress today limits the active military to 1.4 million men and women. In fact, the Pentagon has illegally increased that number by as many as 30,000 without the pre-requisite Congressional approval, as Stan Goff pointed out in the on-line journal, From the Wilderness, more than a year ago ("Will the U.S. Reopen the Draft?", February 27, 2004). Carter (a former Army officer and writer on national security issues) and Glastris, in the Washington Monthly, make a compelling case that the number of men the U.S. can keep for more than a year in a hostile country during an occupation is only about 80,000 under current conditions. They argue that Iraq demands--as the Army Chief of Staff at the outset of the war claimed--at least 250,000, and that the U.S., as 'superpower' needs to have a 'surge force' of about 500,000 ready at all times for the hotspots around the world.
The U.S. has military bases in 130 countries, as well as secret installations in Israel, Austria, England and elsewhere. More than 300,000 of the 482,000 soldiers in the U.S. army are deployed abroad--21 out of 33 regular army combat units were overseas (according to Goff). This alone should require, according to the Janes formulary, 900,000 reserve and support soldiers! Yet the U.S. military presence abroad doesn't stop there. The Pentagon will not release exact figures, but marines, air force and various special forces are scattered across the globe. Besides those in Iraq (more than 150,000 in early 2005, and Afghanistan (nearly 10,000), and other regular combat-ready troops in the former Yugoslavia, in Korea, and in Europe, there are a dozen special forces operations and military commitments in Haiti, Cuba (Guantanamo), West Africa (with ECOWAS), Sudan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Columbia (where U.S. special forces virtually control the local military), Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and elsewhere.
Complications in any of these arenas could suddenly require more U.S. forces. In Korea, the U.S. is committed by treaty and Congressional action to up to 700,000 troops if the South is attacked by the North. And what if the U.S. decides it needs to take out North Korea's nuclear capabilities, unleashing a full-scale war there? Then there are the other 'axis of evil' nations the U.S. has indicated are worthy of invasion--Syria and Iran. These may not be invaded tomorrow, but as President Bush has said, "Presidents may never say never." By early March, Bush had given Syria a May deadline to withdraw completely from Lebanon or face--what? Invasion?
The Pentagon has recently appeared to bow to recruitment and retention pressures and to criticism within the military about troop levels. In mid-March 2005 it issued press releases predicting that the force in Iraq may be reduced later this year. Even if this occurs--and if the insurgency does not grow as a result--U.S. foreign policy under Bush will require more troops sooner or later. An empire cannot be built, and certainly not expanded as Bush has promised (under the guise of "spreading freedom") without imperial troops.
The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) is a bipartisan group of top ranking military and political figures including current White House advisors. In 1995, PNAC laid out a strategy and time-line for a new U.S. foreign policy agenda post-cold-war which now seems chillingly prescient. In February this year, PNAC issued an open letter to Congress and the President in which it denounced the "warping" of roles for the National Guard and the reserves. "Reserves are meant to be reserves," its letter stated. PNAC quoted General James Helmly, Chief of the Army Reserves, "The Reserves are a broken force" due to over-use in Afghanistan and Iraq. PNAC went on: "We are close to exhausting U.S. ground forces," even without assuming other battlegrounds. The solution? "Increase the size of the active duty army and marine corps--at least 25,000 per year over the next ten years." The Washington Monthly article insists this greatly under-states the need--which is not for an increase in the active-duty army (which requires a thirty-year commitment to volunteer soldiers and their families), but for a large short-term surge force which could only be guaranteed by conscription....
Meanwhile, refusal to answer the stop loss recalls and other forms of what the military calls 'desertion' are also growing. The Pentagon admits there were 5,500 desertions last year--and some feel this figure is far too low. As many as 1/3 of the 4000 Ready Reserves called back for duty last year applied for exemption or simply did not show up. (New York Times, Nov. 16, 2004, article by Monica Davey.) Although the option to apply for conscientious objector status for active-duty soldiers has not been withdrawn (as it was during the Gulf War), the military is making the process so onerous that some of the hundreds applying have simply given up--and gone AWOL....The U.S. has been so short on combat troops, it has almost never punished the deserters, and has mostly stopped giving them dishonorable discharges--in some cases, returning to duty those apprehended or who return. Field commanders in Iraq who complain about this--deserters are hardly the best soldiers--are told that manpower gaps are so extreme that the crisis demands this new policy. Potential AWOL soldiers in Iraq should be wary of this policy, however. It is not universal and may change....
G.I. and draft counselors for the groups in the U.S....warn that things have changed drastically for those who would 'dodge' military service by going abroad. Bill Galvin of the Center on Conscience & War (CCW) says he feels the Canadian government is not likely to grant refugee status to deserting U.S. soldiers. Some counselors believe that the new U.S. agreements with Canada and other countries, specifically the Smart Border Declaration (SBD) make it unlikely that deserters or conscription resisters will not be extradited. A look at the Canadian embassy website reveals that SDB and other joint border measures are designed to keep deserters (and others, such as suspected 'terrorists') from leaving the U.S. in the first place. Random checks inside the U.S. are already in place a few miles before many border crossings. Advance passenger notifications at airports screen those who would leave the U.S.--measures never taken before in U.S. history.
Both Canada and Sweden--the two countries which took the bulk of the 55,000 U.S. military deserters and draft refusers during the Vietnam War--have now agreed they will not automatically exclude extraditing such people. Even those who travel to Canada before they are called to avoid registration or draft--or merely to escape the militarism now rampant in the U.S.--face much more difficult processes for permission to live and work....
Some draft counselors say flatly, "Forget Canada." Yet many Canadian peace activists insist that Canadians will never tolerate their government's refusal to shelter those who refuse to fight in what they see as immoral wars. Most mainstream articles--like "AWOL in America " by Kathie Dobie in the March Harper's, downplay desertions to Canada and assert that Canada will not grant refugee status as during the Vietnam war. Toronto Attorney Jeffry House, who represents five deserters, says that while simple refusal of military service is not enough for refugee status, other strong arguments exist. "Being forced to fight in what Canada sees as an immoral and illegal war ought to be grounds for refugee status," he says. While he believes the refugee boards are currently taking orders from the foreign affairs office which signed the SBD agreements with the U.S., he is confident that on appeal in Canadian courts, many Americans who refuse to fight will be welcomed, as they were during Vietnam. (Interviewed by the World Socialist Website, Feb. 10, 2005). Prime Minister Paul Martin, who has begun to buck the U.S. more and more, commented in December, in response to a reporter's question about the U.S. deserters' cases before the Refugee Board: "We don't discriminate when it comes to refugees. Canada is a nation of immigrants." This was taken so positively by those who support the U.S. resisters, that Martin's office issued a disclaimer that his remarks should not be taken as referring to specific cases before the IRB. (Ottawa Sun, Dec.30, 2004.)...
It is now clear that there is already a severe military manpower crisis. If the U.S. continues or increases it's involvement in Iraq, which is nearly certain, and if there is U.S. involvement in other areas, the crisis will become extremely urgent, requiring an urgent solution--one that Rumsfeld and others dislike, but which even Rumsfeld has always said may become necessary in an emergency: "Conscription, compulsion of any sort, under our Constitution, requires a demonstrated need." (At the Presidential Commission on the draft at the University of Chicago, December 1966.) Many military experts believe that need has already been fully demonstrated. As Carter and Glastris put it in the Washington Monthly: "...there's the serious ethical problem that conscription means government compelling young adults to risk death, an to kill--an act of the state that seems contrary to the basic notions of liberty...In practice, however, our republic has decided many times...that a draft was necessary to protect those liberties." They and others believe the time has come again to overcome such ethical qualms--"if American wishes to retain its mantle of global leadership...." Or, more bluntly, if Rumsfeld, Bush and the neo-cons wish to complete the building of a total warfare and security state, as they clearly intend to do, some form of conscription must follow.
The type of draft now being considered--both by some liberals and by White House military advisors and the Selective Service System--most closely resembles what Israel has today (minus the ethnic and religious distinctions)--and perhaps the Bush assertion of the "new kind of war" against terror most closely mirrors the real and desperate conflict within Israel between Jews and Palestinians struggling for the same small piece of territory.
Since its beginning in 1948, Israel has been a nation under siege by its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians from whom it carved out its territory. The Israeli national service requires three years of service for all Jewish and Druze men, two for all women--between age 17 and 50. Israel divides the type of service in three parts: military (compulsory for men, except orthodox women and Jewish or Druze theology students or teachers), security (police, fire, border, anti- terror units), and community service. All students may defer enlistment, but must complete a month of training each year. There are exemptions only for the ultra-Orthodox religious scholars, mentally or physically impaired, and criminals. Women who are pregnant or married with children may also be deferred. In practice, only about 40% of all women actually serve. In this religiously based land, Christians and Muslims are not eligible to serve. What makes the Israeli system relevant for the current discussion of a revived draft in the U.S., is its focus on homeland and border security, and its universal, comprehensive nature in service of a national interest assumed to be at extreme risk from terrorism. Of course neither Mexico nor Canada represent a threat to the United States as do Israel's neighbors, but since 9/11, Bush has adamantly asserted the immediate danger of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. This would clearly qualify as Rumsfeld's demonstrated need for conscription.
Yet the main features of the Israeli system seem likely to be elements of any revised conscription in America. Just as Israel is a central factor in U.S. middle-eastern foreign policy, the 'war on terror,' essentially a war on Arab and other Muslim militants, will demand an Israeli-style security apparatus. Another feature of the Israeli system likely to be imitated in the U.S. is a special skills draft for health-care and other specialists, who may be forced to serve even beyond the mandated period. Finally, as in the U.S., the reserves are a major back-up for this system. All Jewish and Druze men remain on call until age 42, women until 24. In practice, men are now required to train for one month only until age 35, and women not at all, but all former enlistees may be called up at any time, especially if they have unique skills not satisfied by existing recruits.
The Rangel plan requires two years' service for all persons between 18 and 34, with delays for schooling only until age 20. Women are included. Persons approved as conscientious objectors could still be chosen for non-combat military service. Although Rangel's Universal National Service Act was defeated overwhelmingly when the Republican leadership sprang a floor vote last October to embarrass those who warned about a coming draft, Rangel's office says he will re-introduce it in 2005.
The Selective Service suggests, as was done during the lottery years 1970-1973, that 20 is a more appropriate and less controversial year to require such service. Both the Rangel bill and the Selective Service proposal have these same types of required service--with an emphasis on the new needs of Homeland Security. The Border Patrol, for instance, is having great difficulty recruiting the thousands of new guards mandated by Homeland Security. In the Selective Service plan, women would be included in the mass registration drive--to collect a vast array of personal and skills data--but would be exempt from combat service, as at present. They could choose non-combat military roles, homeland security, or community service. If not enough young people chose the military option during a war, the current draft lottery would be re-activated for both men and women not specifically drafted for skills like linguistics, engineering, computers, and health care. The Rangel plan, which is not clear about whether women could be drafted for combat roles, and which does not include the massive skills' data base, allows the President to choose the types of alternative service and the method of selection for those chosen to serve in each category.
This certainly seems to guarantee the kind of class stratification that the "imperfect society" Rumsfeld mentioned forty years ago has always demanded. Perhaps Donald Rumsfeld hit the nail on the head in 1966, when he said, "Society will be imperfect tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, whether we have a voluntary or an involuntary system." As Rumsfeld said then, correcting social injustice and "imperfection" does not correlate with how we choose our soldiers.
The Washington Monthly proposal suggests compelling only those who would attend four-year colleges and universities to perform at least 12 months of some kind of national service before being allowed to pursue their education. They repeat the same three types of service that are in the other proposals: community service, homeland security, and military service (with a choice for non-combat or combat duty). Under this highly unlikely scenario, only the elite would be required to serve. "Even if only 10 percent of the one-million young people who annually start at four-year colleges and universities were to choose the military option, the armed forces would receive 100,000 fresh recruits every year." This, they say, would avoid a lottery, and give 'choice' to America's best-educated young people--it would also provide a force that has the language and computer skills so lacking in the current force. They propose (as does the Rangel bill) GI Bill of Rights benefits, including scholarships, for all who serve--with higher pay and higher benefits for those who accept combat roles. They do not say what would be done if 10% did not choose combat roles in time of war, nor do they explain why such a draft, aimed only at elite students, would not in fact trigger massive protests.
In whatever form, the '21st century draft' will be more comprehensive. Almost all women's organizations now support equal opportunities for women in the military, so it is highly unlikely that there would be a feminist movement against a truly comprehensive compulsory national service. Gay and lesbians cannot count on traditional homophobia to keep them out either. Their principal spokespeople have been demanding for years that homosexuality not be a reason for discharge from the military. Congress is considering elimination of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, on the grounds that it has been extremely costly--as much as $191 million since its inception in 1993, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO) report in February 2005. The author of the "Don't Ask" policy is none other than Charles Moskos, who is most visible among White House advisors in promoting the "new kind of draft." (Some who know him say he's angling to become director of an expanded selective service under Bush.) He told the Advocate, a gay/lesbian publication, that "the policy should be abandoned if there is to be a draft," simply because it would be too easy for people to use this as a way out. (Advocate, July 6, 2004.)
If conscription in some form is likely--and likely not to resemble the Vietnam-era draft, but more closely an Israeli-style national service--what are the arguments for it, from an anti-empire, anti-war perspective? The arguments in its favor: (1) If anyone must be forced to serve, a draft would be fairer; (2) A broad national service would allow choice, and serve community interests as well as military; (3) A 'citizen' army--that is one drawn from among all citizens--is less likely to fight wars of empire or wars for corporate interest, and more likely to recognize unjust wars and human rights atrocities. A variant of this argument is that it was the draft that led to massive student protests during Vietnam, and that without a draft, such protests will be muted. These are the arguments that lead some of the most stalwart anti-war activists either to support a draft or national service, or at least not to oppose it.
Rep. Rangel and his band of anti-war liberals (with some conservative support) agree that the war in Iraq and other adventurist policies of the U.S. cannot be sustained by the current so-called volunteer army--which they call the 'poverty draft.' They believe that by instituting a universal national service, including a compulsory military draft if not enough volunteer (or by threatening one), Americans will simply not go along with wars like the present one in Iraq. They argue that the anti-war movement in the 1960s and early '70s would not have been nearly as strong had their not been a draft which threatened the sons of the elite. They insist that a volunteer army today is based on an economic draft of the poor--especially non-white poor (though Rangel insists he is speaking about all the poor, not simply blacks). If a truly universal draft were enacted--without deferments that would exempt almost all elite children--and if the sons (and daughters) of that elite--including the President's daughters, for instance--were forced into military service--the war would end, and U.S. policy would change. Further, they hold that the only form of 'fair' selection of manpower for combat in wartime is one that is random and truly universal....
A review of ethnic demographics of the military during the Vietnam period and then recently shows a more complex picture. Racially, 11% of the 648,560 soldiers (including officers) who fought in the Vietnam War at its height were Black--when they were 13.5% of the general population. The Black percentage of combat marines and army infantry was 14%. Among the 1.8 million who fought in Vietnam at any time during the 20-year conflict, 16% were black, but of all U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam, 12% were Black. It is interesting to compare some religious demographic figures: though less than 25% of the general population was Catholic at the time, more than 33% of combat deaths in Vietnam were Catholic. (These statistics are all from Charles Moskos and John Sibley Butler, BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE, Harper-Collins, 1996.) Before 1966, however, 20% of casualties in Vietnam were Black, while this figure dropped to 10% by 1971. There is no way to know if heightened Black consciousness, Black desertions and G.I. organizing, or the general awareness of race in America, led to military policies that reduced such casualties. Throughout this period, the draft was the primary means of recruiting combat soldiers for Vietnam. It is also important to note that Blacks only made up 1% of draft board members in 1966, and by 1971, only 5%. No wonder that a Gallup Poll in 1972 found that 76% of all Black soldiers opposed the war--draftee or volunteer....
It is undeniable that the presence of Blacks increased in the voluntary force developed after 1972 , growing far beyond their percentage in the society at large. In 1964, 9% of all military manpower was Black, while in 1976, the figure had increased to 15%. By the time of the 1991 Gulf War, 23% of the (voluntary) military were Black (but only 11% of the deaths in that war were Black-- about as many as in Vietnam). By this time, though, Blacks were only about 11% of the general population. It would appear that this was the high point of Black participation in the U.S. military. Since then, percentages have dropped--by 2003, the Black percentage was about 20%, but only 10.6% of combat units. Of those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would appear (the statistics are somewhat confusing) that 11.2% are black--just over their percentage in the population. Hispanic deaths are 11.7%--while their percentage in the general society is higher now than Blacks--about 14%....
A close look at the military reveals a very major racial shift since the Gulf War--and one that has not yet been widely acknowledged. Charles Moskos says military recruiting is now much more aggressive in rural areas than in urban ghettos. The result is clear in the make-up of the military. While general enlistment of Blacks has now fallen from 30% (at its height in the late 1990s) to about 13% today, the re-enlistment level for Blacks has remained far greater than that of whites. This is especially true for those in non-combat units, especially communications and unit administration. Moskos says that of the 45,586 combat infantry in the army in 2003, 10.6% were black; of the 12,000 air force pilots, 2%; and of the Green Berets, 5%. "The U.S. forces fighting the wars today are disproportionately white," said experts quoted in USA Today (1/20/03). Moskos told me (email correspondence, February 2004), "The portion of Blacks in combat units has been shrinking for two decades. Special forces are almost all white now. The high black numbers are in supporting roles. Even Black enlistment over all has been declining for the past two years--perhaps due to anti-Iraq and anti-Bush feelings among Blacks."
Class demographics--that is the percentages from various income groups--are not kept by the Pentagon, at least not for public consumption--but it would seem that whether in a conscripted army during the Vietnam War or in a 'voluntary' army today, the poverty draft does work. Officers have always been drawn heavily from the U.S. South (the military academy graduation lists will show), and from middle and upper-middle class whites. That began to change in the period 1972-1991, when more Blacks went to those Academies and became officers. The older pattern now seems to be reappearing. Enlisted men--especially those in combat--come almost exclusively, whether drafted or volunteer, from lower middle class and the poor, and elite units are almost exclusively white now.
The combat and casualty burden today seems to fall heaviest not on Blacks--or Hispanics--but on poor, rural whites--though it is difficult to prove this. The soldier facing potential combat in Iraq (or in Haiti or anywhere else) today is much more likely to be a poor white soldier from West Virginia or Nebraska than a Black from the urban ghettos of Watts or Harlem. (See also Charles Moskos, quoted by Newsmax.com, July 16, 2003, and subsequent articles by Moskos.)
What does this have to do with bringing back the draft? Rangel and others say they are crafting a truly fair national service act, with a random military draft lottery, that will exempt no-one, and restore racial and class balance to the military overall. Yet both Rangel's bill and the plan being prepared by Selective Service for such a national service seem to perpetuate class differences, if not racial ones. And these plans are so much more total, that they seems to threaten the very concept of a free society. Rangel's plan, as well as the 'secret' proposals of Selective Service, would still channel young people into roles that are class related: 'skills' means middle or upper class youth; others will be grunts when grunts are needed. Again, Rumsfeld's assessment seems to hold up: in an unequal society, any form of military--drafted or volunteer--will fall more heavily on the poor....
An examination of the facts during the Vietnam War do not bear out [Noam] Chomsky's views about the connection between the draft and resistance to end the war. Inside the military--the broken force--according to statistics provided by the Pentagon--60% of those disciplined or suspected of anti-war organizing were from among volunteers. (See Stan Goff, From the Wilderness, Feb. 27, 2004.)
I have personal knowledge of this. As an anti-war and anti-draft activist, I was smuggled onto a couple of military bases in the late 1960s (Fort Bragg and Fort Devins) to support groups within the military who opposed the war. Every leader of such a group whom I met was a volunteer, including some who were life-long professional soldiers. When I asked about this at the time, a sergeant told me, "We know the army well enough to keep from being caught--the fresh draftees would be mincemeat in a few days if they stood out by speaking out."
In any case, what Chomsky, Rangel and others fail to point out is that every army is led by life-long professionals--who spend decades in isolation within a socialist-style military system that takes care of their every need, from groceries and schooling to health-care and recreation. At the same time, it is often the conscripts (or volunteer grunts at the bottom level) whose naiveté leads them to commit abuses against enemy soldiers and civilians. It is the same class of people who somehow get trapped into such behavior--whether at Mai Lai or Abu Ghreb.
As the evidence I have presented shows, some form of draft seems to be on America's horizon. It will be more comprehensive on the one hand, and more complex and subtle on the other. It will allow the illusion of 'choice,' since it will be a skills' draft for a wide range of roles demanded by the 'national interest.'
Some--for instance, the Snopes rumor mill site in October 2004--simply dismiss this kind of draft as no draft at all. It will, they say, just require some with special skills--health care, linguistics, computer technology--to be inducted for both military and homeland security purposes. They call this a 'minimal' draft. In fact it is the maximum use of the conscription concept: compulsory registration of all young people, to include all relevant data about their training, skills, health and legal records, and then choose those with needed skills for specific urgent tasks--whether military, homeland security, or "other national interest." This is the draft expanded, not reduced, and it remains a likely option for a government hugely strapped both in terms of military manpower and it's perceived 'homeland' and anti-terror requirements.
At the close of 2004, Al Jazeerah editorialized that, while it would take "a massive casualty-producing event on U.S. soil for the U.S. to re-introduce the draft," such an event was extremely likely if not now, soon. "Already the military situation is untenable, and homeland security itself is stretched impossibly thin already." Former Attorney General Ashcroft was chided for once saying more or less the same thing--yet did not retract his assessment.
Some form of conscription is coming, so long as the U.S. continues its Imperial drive to control the whole world. This will be true whichever party is in the White House, though Democrats might put a better face on it, with more involvement of our allies. So long as the U.S. sees itself as under siege from hidden terrorists within and without, an Israeli style manpower system is the most likely. It will not be the simple Vietnam era draft of the infantry.
But force, compulsion, conscription, involuntary servitude--for any role--whether as linguist or border guard or officer or foot soldier-- undermines a basic human right for people of all races and classes: free choice, especially over one's work and one's life. Furthermore--like the death penalty--conscription gives any state a power that is liable to be misused, and that is dangerous in the hands of those who see themselves as the embodiment of some ill-defined national interest.
At the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam in 1969, I joined other anti-draft activists to propose a resolution to the assembled delegations from around the world. We proposed that ALL nations abolish conscription. Peace groups from the USSR and the Eastern Bloc staunchly opposed this. They were, of course, controlled by their governments. The anti-draft resolution was defeated (Rumania and Cuba abstained on the final vote). The Soviet argument was that just governments could require service from their young citizens--and that all should serve equally. Chomsky is like the Soviets in believing that a 'just government' could develop a fair system to fight its wars by having the power to force all its young people to serve. The flaw in this thinking is that any government can be trusted to be just, if it is granted total powers like conscription or the death penalty. Karl Marx himself seems to have agreed with this principle. (See Howard Zinn, "Je ne suis pas Marxiste," ZINN ON HISTORY, Seven Stories Press, 1999, pp. 86-87.)
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