Saturday, October 09, 2004

Still feeling a draft

The draft question came up at the debate last night, and Bush said how a volunteer army was working great. "Forget all this talk about a draft. We're not going to have a draft so long as I'm the president."
But people do not believe him - Yahoo! News - Poll: Youth Tie Bush, Draft Reinstatement
Why?
Well, two reasons really: the first is pretty obvious -- the Pentagon IS actually making plans to reinstate the draft, likely focusing on people with so-called critical and special skills.
And Bush has lied about everything else to do with the Iraq War, so why would he be telling the truth about this? As Representative Tim Ryan put it during the House debate "We're not trying to scare kids. This president's foreign policy is what's scaring the kids of this country. And if people have said today, "Why are people believing this, why are people believing this big Internet hoax?" - well, it's the same people that told us Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. Same people that told us Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Same people that told us we were gonna be able to use the oil for reconstruction money. Same people that told us that we'd be greeted as liberators, not occupiers. Same people, same president, that told us the Taliban is gone. Same president that told us that Poland is our ally two days before they pull out. Same president that tells us Iraq is going just great. Same president that tells us the economy is going just great. Same people that told us the tax cut was gonna create millions of jobs. Same people that told us that the Medicare program only costs $400 billion, when it really cost $540 billion. So please forgive us for not believing what you're saying. Please forgive the students of this country for not believing what you're saying. Not one thing, not one thing about this war that has been told to the American people, or that has been told to these college students, has been true. Not one thing."
I think its worth noting this, as well:
In spite of how firmly Bush said during the debate that he wouldn't reinstate a draft, he did leave himself an out. He stated during the debate " . . . the all-volunteer Army is best suited to fight the new wars of the 21st century, which is to be specialized . . ." and he said "The all-volunteer Army works. It works particularly when we pay our troops well . . . [also mentioning housing and less rotations. Concluding with] . . .(We} will be more likely to be able to keep people in the all-volunteer Army."
The unstated continuation -- but, if we aren't able to keep people, and if we can't get people with the right specializations to enlist, then, gosh darn it, I guess I just might have to . . .

No comments: