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View Poll Results: Do you think the draft should be reinstated?
Yes, but only men should be eligible.
3
8.57%
Yes, but both men and women should be eligible. (equal rights)
Rangel Calls for Reinstating Military Draft Sunday , November 19, 2006
WASHINGTON — A senior House Democrat said Sunday he will introduce legislation to reinstate the military draft, asserting that current troop levels are insufficient to sustain possible challenges against Iran, North Korea and Iraq.
"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.
Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, said he will propose the measure early next year.
At a time when some lawmakers are urging the military to send more troops to Iraq, "I don't see how anyone can support the war and not support the draft," he said. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Standby Reserve, said he agreed that the U.S. does not have enough people in the military.
"I think we can do this with an all-voluntary service, all-voluntary Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. And if we can't, then we'll look for some other option," said Graham, who is assigned as a reserve judge to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals.
Rangel, incoming chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he worried the military was being strained by its overseas commitments.
"If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft," Rangel said.
He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, "young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals," with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.
Graham said he believes the all-voluntary military "represents the country pretty well in terms of ethnic makeup, economic background."
Repeated polls have shown that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of the draft and officials say they do not expect to restart conscription.
Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress in June 2005 that "there isn't a chance in the world that the draft will be brought back."
Yet the prospect of the long global fight against terrorism and the continuing U.S. commitment to stabilizing Iraq have kept the idea in the public's mind.
The military drafted conscripts during the Civil War, both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. An agency independent of the Defense Department, the Selective Service System trains, keeps an updated registry of men age 18-25 -- now about 16 million -- from which to supply untrained draftees that would supplement the professional all-volunteer armed forces.
Rangel and Graham appeared on "Face the Nation" on CBS.
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I am torn between one and two. I don't think women should be drafted, but part of me wants to stick it to the feminists groups. I bet the reinstatement of an all-male draft wouldn't garner a peep from N.O.W. and others feminists.
In the end I voted for #1. I believe two years or so for American males would be very beneficial to society.
I think ol' Charlie is going to get a sharp elbow in the side from Pelosi on this one though.
The poll doesn't have enough options. I would vote "No" on a draft, but we need more servicemen and servicewomen in a bad way. So, the only solution in a capitalist society is to make it more financially appealing to join the military. I would raise the pay rates, make all military personnel 100% tax exempt and other things....
In 1918, the Supreme Court ruled that the World War I draft did not violate the United States Constitution. Arver v. United States, 245 U.S. 366 (1918) ([7]). The Court detailed its conclusion that the limited powers of the federal government included conscription. Its only statement on the Thirteenth Amendment issue that had also been raised was:
Finally, as we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights and honor of the nation as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude in violation of the prohibitions of the Thirteenth Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement.
Later, during the Vietnam War, a lower appellate court also concluded that the draft was constitutional. United States v. Holmes, 387 F.2d 781 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 391 U.S. 936 (1968) ([8]). (Justice William O. Douglas, in voting to hear the appeal in Holmes, agreed that the government had the authority to employ conscription in wartime, but argued that the constitutionality of a draft in the absence of a declaration of war was an open question, which the Supreme Court should address.) The Supreme Court has also upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion of women from the registration requirement. Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981) ([9]).
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“votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense.” ~H. L. Mencken
There is no way in hell do I allow my son to be drafted to fight in a war as massaged, puffed up, and misleading like Iraq as determined by a few people in charge of the gov't with a wet dream plan of choice.
Good for Rangel. Stick it to the war-mongering neo-con chicken hawks. At some point if you want to pick wars all the hell over the place, you're going to have to suit up your own kids.
Of course, I do believe in universal conscriuption, and peacetime or wartime. I also think if everybody's kids had to serve, then everybody would be a whole lot more attentive to where we go wading in swinging our weight around.
Sort of the old,
"if you don't think it counts as torture, then you'll be willing to undergo four hours of it, right, Mr. Rumsfeld?"
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oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
I understand Charlie's concept, but it still sucks. BS on the Senator's sons getting drafted. Never happens. Never will. Ask the current admin. How many of them were "drafted" ? How many were deferred. It will once again just pluck the underpriveleged, under educated, unfortunate "kids" and defer the rest. Stop feeding the system and hopefully this perpetual war machine finds reverse gear.
If these war mongers can take on the world with an undermanned volunteer military, just think of their unlimited resources when the ventures go in the crapper and they just decide to throw more fodder into the fray. Oh, right, that was Viet Nam. Nothing was learned from that one.
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In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." --Voltaire
I voted "no", but for me, this issue is more complicated. On some levels, I have been in favor of a draft or mandatory service (of only 1 or 2 years) for young men after high school if they were not going off to college. My thoughts have been that this could instill discipline and integrity in some of the men in this category.
A draft, especially of men and women, while being truly equal, just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. A fashion bug, model type female, who has no desire to participate in the military will not really benefit our military, as an example. Mostly, I don't believe a draft will be succsessful in a situation where the country does not support the conflict our military is involved in.
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