Watch out all you 18 -- 24 year olds

[Anonymous]

US Preparing for Military Draft in Spring 2005
by Adam Stutz ? Wednesday January 28, 2004 at 09:50 AM


The current agenda of the US federal government is to reinstate the draft in order to staff up for a protracted war on "terrorism." Pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills S 89 and HR 163) would time the program so the draft could begin at early as Spring 2005 -- conveniently just after the 2004 presidential election!

Reinstatement of the draft

Dear Friends and Family,

I urge you to read the article below on the current agenda of the federal government to reinstate the draft in order to staff up for a protracted war on "terrorism."

Pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills S 89 and HR 163) would time the program so the draft could begin at early as Spring 2005 -- conveniently just after the 2004 presidential election! But the administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed NOW, so our action is needed immediately. Details and links follow.

If voters who currently support U.S. aggression abroad were confronted with the possibility that their own children or grandchildren might not have a say about whether to fight, many of these same voters might have a change of mind. (Not that it should make a difference, but this plan would among other things eliminate higher education as a shelter and would not exclude women -- and Canada is no longer an option.)

Please send this on to all the parents and teachers you know, and all the aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents.... And let your children know -- it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change! Please also write to your representatives to ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills -- and write to newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story.

The Draft*

$28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. SSS must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. Please see website: http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the SSS Annual Performance Plan - Fiscal Year 2004.

The Pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is 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.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... le5146.htm

Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and H.R. 163 forward this year, entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the Committee on Armed Services.

Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era remember. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the US signed a "Smart Border Declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Manley, and US Homeland Security Director, Gov. Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their cur-rent semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year.

*This article by Adam Stutz is from the "What's Hot Off the Press" column of the newsletter of Project Censored, a media research group at Sonoma State University that tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list (more than 20 years running) of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported, or self-censored by the country's major national news media. The mission of Project Censored is "to educate people about the role of independent journalism in a democratic society and to tell The News That Didn't Make the News and why."

"What's Hot Off the Press" includes student synopses of articles currently being investigated for inclusion in the next Project Censored report. For more info and/or to receive Project Censored's newsletter, go to http://www.projectcensored.org, or email [censored]@sonoma.edu

[Anonymous]

The people pushing this "pending legislation" are Democrats who oppose the WoT, and they're doing it to create panic that they think will benefit them politically.

The Senators and Congressmen who would normally be considered hawks rather than doves are not only not supporting this "pending legislation"--they're opposing it.

The *truth* is that all services have exceeded their recruiting and reenlistment goals and that, as a result of normal headcount limits set by Congress, the military is actually having to turn people away who would otherwise be quite acceptable as recruits.

The way the size of the military is determined is Congress tells them how many people they can have---their headcount.  All services are at those limits, and the pool of people re-upping and trying to join exceeds the number of people leaving or wishing to leave.

The truth is that the military is heavily structured to be all volunteer and that draftees make very poor soldiers.

The truth is that if the governemnt thinks the military needs to be larger, the very first thing they'll do is raise those headcount limits and call for volunteers.

Remember Gulf War I and all the ads all over the radio and TV all the time looking for recruits?  Notice how you hear occasional recruiting ads but no more than you normally hear in peacetime?

There are plenty of real things in this world to be scared about without jumping at shadows.

Fearing that the reenstatement of the draft is imminent is jumping at shadows.

Don't be frightened by a cheesy political stunt designed to frighten you for political gain.  It's a waste of your time and energy.

[Anonymous]

Speaking as the mother of a 23 year old, I hope you're right.  Since I don't believe anything I read, and only half of what I see, jumping to fear is illogical.  I will continue to hope for the best for all the young men and women in our country serving or not.

[idioteque]

The *truth* is that all services have exceeded their recruiting and reenlistment goals and that, as a result of normal headcount limits set by Congress, the military is actually having to turn people away who would otherwise be quite acceptable as recruits.

Are you shitting me? Here are some articles detailing the problems with understaffing that the military is experiencing.

Stretched too thin:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Apr17.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1119041/posts
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjourn ... 2004A.html

Few recruits:
http://www.careerjournaleurope.com/hrce ... jaffe.html

Not enough reservists (with graph that shows precipitous drop in recruitment):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Apr17.html

[Timoclea]

They're misleading.  The services *are* having to turn people away because ***they're at their headcount limits set by Congress.***

Yes, we *do* need more troops, but until Congress raises headcount limits, we can't get them.

Yes, after headcount increases, then we'd have to fill those slots.

But the truth is, if you're worried about a draft, you don't need to worry just yet.

Before we get to a draft:

1) Congress would have to dramatically increase the headcount limits

2) The President would get on TV and the radio and call for volunteers

3) Government would go down the lists of inactive reservists (which would include my husband) to see who they could use and call them up--inactive reserve is different from reserves and national guard--inactive reserves aren't assigned to particular units and don't train on weekends or get paid for being inactive reserve or anything like that.

4) There would be ads all over TV and radio trying to get young people to join the Army, etc.

Then and only then, if they weren't meeting recruiting goals under whatever the new headcount numbers were, they'd think about a draft.

But they'd still be *very* hesitant to implement one for a lot of reasons, the biggest one of which is that draftees make lousy soldiers.


Incidentally, one of the things keeping headcount up is the patriotism of the existing troops who, on the whole, are re-upping a lot more readily than the newspapers would have you believe.

Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic, and have no place in a Republic. The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.
--Abridged quote-Benjamin Rush, M.D., a signer of the Declaration of Independence

[Anonymous]

All in all, increasing the head counts would open the door a bit wider. But you're ignoring the suspension of the Stop Laws, which has kept personnel retention artificially high. You can't deny that some troups are staying in Iraq longer with less R&R and that is not attributable to patriotism.

I don't forsee an inevitable draft, either. You're probably right, it's only a political stunt. Some might remember that Tom Daschle opened the first act of it around a year ago. However, with the protraction of Iraq's occupation as well as proposed intervention elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia, a draft isn't entirely nonsense. That's what makes it good propaganda.

Also, there are a lot of Armed Forces recruitment ads out there. I've had multiple "non-obligatory information" packets in my mail box from every branch of service imaginable (four different ones in the case of the Army) since I registered with Selective Service. Not to mention the TV, magazine, and public transportation ads. Who's to say if this is a side effect of war-time America or if it's all indicative of something more?

[idioteque]

That was me, folks ^^^

[Timoclea]

On 2004-04-22 07:38:00, Anonymous wrote:

"All in all, increasing the head counts would open the door a bit wider. But you're ignoring the suspension of the Stop Laws, which has kept personnel retention artificially high. You can't deny that some troups are staying in Iraq longer with less R&R and that is not attributable to patriotism.



I don't forsee an inevitable draft, either. You're probably right, it's only a political stunt. Some might remember that Tom Daschle opened the first act of it around a year ago. However, with the protraction of Iraq's occupation as well as proposed intervention elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia, a draft isn't entirely nonsense. That's what makes it good propaganda.



Also, there are a lot of Armed Forces recruitment ads out there. I've had multiple "non-obligatory information" packets in my mail box from every branch of service imaginable (four different ones in the case of the Army) since I registered with Selective Service. Not to mention the TV, magazine, and public transportation ads. Who's to say if this is a side effect of war-time America or if it's all indicative of something more?"

It's "stop loss"--and mostly they're stop-lossing troops that are deployed where discharging them would break up the unit, and just stop-lossing them until the unit rotates home.  It preserves unit integrity in the war zone.

A lot of the reenlistment numbers are hinky because you have to keep tax issues for soldiers in mind---a lot of soldiers who are fully intending to reenlist but know they're likely to be deployed wait until they actually are deployed to re-up.

The tax reason is simple.  They get a reenlistment bonus no matter when and where they re-up, but if they re-up stateside the reenlistmet bonus is taxable.  If they wait to re-up until they're actually deployed in a war zone, the reenlistment bonus is income in a war zone and it's all tax free.

Soldiers aren't stupid.

They time their income to reduce their tax liability, where they can, just like anybody else.

Any reenlistment graph that doesn't take that into account is likely to lead the reader to inaccurate conclusions.

What is a committee?  A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.    
-- Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960

[idioteque]

On 2004-04-22 08:36:00, Timoclea wrote:
It's "stop loss"

Argh! Yeah, of course it is. I was writing a paper on Libel Laws all night, it was 4am, and English is definitely not my first language. But yeah, you got me. Maybe the mass media is just letting a vocal few hog the mike when it comes to the military's staffing issues.

CNN is notorious for bullshit, anyway. But where else can you go for news here?

[Timoclea]

Here's a link confirming what I said earlier about services exceeding their reenlistment goals.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040423/D824LUNO3.html

I'm on a board with a lot of active service members, so sometimes they see service-related news pieces before it makes CNN, or that CNN deigns not to show.

Julie

America when will you be angelic
When will you take off your clothes....
America after all it is you and I who are perfect
Not the next world.
--Allen Ginsberg