The Draft

Person­al­ly, I agree with Hein­lein that any coun­try that needs a draft to fill its mil­i­tary does­n’t have the right to exist any­more. BUT—I don’t blame any­one for not want­i­ng to get into the bull­shit wars that Bush­Co is sup­port­ing, either. The fol­low­ing is from a home­school­ing list, and I thought it might be of inter­est to some of you.

$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.info/article5146.htm and http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html

Con­gress brought twin bills, S. 89 and H.R. 163 for­ward this year. http://www.hslda.org/Legislation/National/2003/S89/default.asp 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 elim­i­nate high­er edu­ca­tion as a shel­ter. Under­class­men would only be able to post­pone ser­vice until the end of their cur­rent semes­ter. Seniors would have until the end of the aca­d­e­m­ic year.