Washington Post
November 21, 2006
Pg. 4

Pelosi and Others Predict Cool Reception in Congress for Any Conscription Bill
By Charles Babington and Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writers
The new Democratic-controlled Congress will not seriously consider reinstating the draft, even if concerns about the military's strength and resiliency grow, party leaders said yesterday.
Key Democrats, including the incoming House speaker, House majority leader and chairmen of the House and Senate armed services committees, said they do not support a resumption of the draft. They predicted that the idea will gather little momentum in the 110th Congress, which convenes in January. Pentagon officials also restated their opposition to a draft.
Their comments came a day after Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), who will chair the Ways and Means Committee, said he would again introduce a bill calling for a return to the draft, which has been suspended since 1973.
Rangel's previous bids to reinstate the draft stirred little interest in Congress but considerable agitation among some bloggers and talk radio hosts, who suggested the public was about to be blindsided. Yesterday, congressional leaders tried to allay such fears, saying the 2007-08 legislative agenda will not include a resumption of the draft.
"Mr. Rangel will be very busy with his work on the Ways and Means Committee, whose jurisdiction is quite a different jurisdiction," Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters. Ways and Means handles tax matters, not military legislation.
Dismissal of the draft idea does not mean key lawmakers and analysts are not worried that the military is being stretched to its limits in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, with possible threats looming in Iran and North Korea. If higher troop levels are needed, several said, the answer is in recruiting more volunteers, not drafting people.
"The all-volunteer force has been successful," said Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), who will chair the House Armed Services Committee. "But the Army is stretched thinner than paper."
Skelton said Americans soured on the draft during the Vietnam War era because many felt that the system of exemptions -- claimed mainly by wealthier and better-educated people -- "was downright unfair in many instances. . . . I think it would not be acceptable to the American people today."
To address the manpower concerns, Skelton said, "we must slowly disengage ourselves from Iraq" and focus on fully equipping all units before they go into combat. "The recruiting is coming along better," he said. "The retention, with the exception of captains and junior majors, is going well. . . . The bigger problem is readiness," which he said is mainly a matter of equipment.
Pentagon officials have long said they do not support reinstatement of the draft, which would send people unwillingly into the armed forces alongside the hundreds of thousands of professional troops who volunteer. Top officials have shown great pride that the military has been an all-volunteer force for more than three decades, even as the armed services face growing strain as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2004, when the same topic was raised in House hearings, top Pentagon officials said the Bush administration did not support the draft and had no plans to pursue it. Officials said yesterday they still do not believe that conscription is a viable option for today's military.
Army officials point to the turnaround in recruiting efforts over the past year -- during which the Army met an elevated goal of 80,000 new soldiers and continued to surpass reenlistment targets -- as evidence that the military can support itself as a volunteer force. Training draftees, who likely would leave the service as soon as possible, would cost millions of dollars with little return on the investment, they said.
Rangel, a Korean War veteran, said a draft would bring more upper-middle-class Americans into the military and would force policymakers to evaluate warmaking more carefully. But a recent Heritage Foundation study found that the all-volunteer military has a fairly good distribution of people from all family income and education levels.
"No evidence supports arguments for reinstating the draft or altering recruiting policies to achieve more equitable representation," wrote Tim Kane, director of the foundation's Center for International Trade and Economics.
Rangel has suggested incorporating military conscription into a larger program of mandatory national civilian service, in which Americans would perform nonmilitary functions.
But such a proposal probably "would go nowhere even faster than a military draft," said Robert Goldich, a retired expert on military manpower for the Congressional Research Service.
American traditions and courts frown on "involuntary servitude," he said. Moreover, he said, "what Vietnam did was sort of confirm a basic American attitude that the draft was something that was going to be used only for major conflict."
The U.S. military included about 2.2 million people in the mid-1980s, Goldich said, compared with about 1.4 million now. If the nation's policymakers decide the military must grow, they can probably achieve their goals by improving benefits and targeting people ages 22 to 25, rather than the customary 18- and 19-year-olds, he said.
"Clearly we've recruited a much larger all-volunteer force in the past" and can probably do so again, Goldich said.

When the GOP was in power the libs kept on saying that the GOP was nothing but a blood thirsty war machine. Yet one of their own kept on trying to pass a draft bill. Now since they're in power thet make it look like they're the damn heroes.

Our own military doesn't support a draft. When will these damn liberals learn that they know nothing about national defense and the way the world really works.

Yeah, the GOP likes the miltary so much that they refuse to take them out of endless wars just so the military has something to do.

Goddamn liberals are always trying to make our soldiers lazy and inefficient by propagating 'peace' and 'diplomacy'.

Peace and diplomacy... you mean like the following liberals and actions...

President Woodrow Wilson
MEXICO
19l3
Naval: Americans evacuated during revolution.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
1914
Naval: Fight with rebels over Santo Domingo.

COLORADO
1914
Troops: Breaking of miners' strike by Army.

MEXICO
1914-18
Naval, troops: Series of interventions against nationalists.

HAITI
1914-34
Troops, bombing: 19-year occupation after revolts.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
1916-24
Troops: 8-year Marine occupation.

CUBA
1917-33
Troops: Military occupation, economic protectorate.

WORLD WAR I
19l7-18
Naval, troops: Ships sunk, fought Germany

RUSSIA
1918-22
Naval, troops: Five landings to fight Bolsheviks.

PANAMA
1918-20
Troops: "Police duty" during unrest after elections.

YUGOSLAVIA
1919
Troops: Marines intervene for Italy against Serbs in Dalmatia.

HONDURAS
1919
Troops: Marines land during election campaign.

GUATEMALA
1920
Troops: 2-week intervention against unionists.

WEST VIRGINIA
1920-21
Troops, bombing: Army intervenes against mineworkers.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt
WORLD WAR II
1941-45
Naval, troops, bombing, nuclear: Fought Axis for 3 years; 1st nuclear war.

DETROIT
1943
Troops: Army puts down Black rebellion.

IRAN
1946
Nuclear threat: Soviet Troops: told to leave north (Iranian Azerbaijan).

YUGOSLAVIA
1946
Naval: Response to shooting-down of U.S. plane.

URUGUAY
1947
Nuclear threat: Bombers deployed as show of strength.

GREECE
1947-49
Command operation: U.S. directs extreme-right in civil war.

CHINA
1948-49
Troops: Marines evacuate Americans before Communist victory.

GERMANY
1948
Nuclear threat: Atomic-capable bombers guard Berlin Airlift.

PHILIPPINES
1948-54
Command operation: CIA directs war against Huk Rebellion.

PUERTO RICO
1950
Command operation: Independence rebellion crushed in Ponce.

KOREA
1950-53
Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats: U.S.& South Korea fight China & North Korea to stalemate; A-bomb threat in 1950, & vs. China in 1953. Still have bases.

IRAN
1953
Command operation: CIA overthrows democracy, installs Shah.


President John F. Kennedy
VIETNAM
1960-75
Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats: Fought South Vietnam revolt & North Vietnam; 1-2 million killed in longest U.S. war; atomic bomb threats in 1968 and 1969.

CUBA
1961
Command operation: CIA-directed exile invasion fails.

GERMANY
1961
Nuclear threat: Alert during Berlin Wall crisis.

CUBA
1962
Nuclear threat: Naval blockade during missile crisis; near-war with USSR.

LAOS
1962
Command operation: Military buildup during guerrilla war.


President Lyndon B. Johnson
PANAMA
1964
Troops: Panamanians shot for urging canal's return.

INDONESIA
1965
Command operation: Million killed in CIA-assisted army coup.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
1965-66
Troops, bombing: Marines land during election campaign.

GUATEMALA
1966-67
Command operation: Green Berets intervene against rebels.

DETROIT
1967
Troops: Army battles Blacks, 43 killed.

UNITED STATES
1968
Troops: After civil rights activist King is shot; over 21,000 soldiers in cities.

President Jimmy Carter
ANGOLA
1976-92
Command operation: CIA assists South African-backed rebels.

IRAN
1980
Troops, nuclear threat, aborted bombing: Raid to rescue Embassy hostages; 8 Troops: die in copter-plane crash. Soviets warned not to get involved in revolution.


President Bill Clinton
SOMALIA
1992-94
Troops, naval, bombing: U.S.-led United Nations occupation during civil war; raids against one Mogadishu faction.

YUGOSLAVIA
1992-94
Naval: NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.

BOSNIA
1993-95
Jets, bombing: No-fly zone patrolled in civil war; downed jets, bombed Serbs.

HAITI
1994-96
Troops, naval blockade against military government. Troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup.

CROATIA
1995
Bombing Krajina: Serb airfields attacked before Croatian offensive.

ZAIRE (CONGO)
1996-97
Troops: Marines at Rwandan Hutu refuge camps, in area where Congo revolution begins.

LIBERIA
1997
Troops: Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.

ALBANIA
1997
Troops: Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.

SUDAN
1998
Missiles Attack on pharmaceutical plant alleged to be "terrorist" nerve gas plant.

AFGHANISTAN
1998
Missiles Attack on former CIA training camps used by Islamic fundamentalist groups alleged to have attacked embassies.

IRAQ
1998-?
Bombing, missiles: Four days of intensive air strikes after weapons inspectors allege Iraqi obstructions.

YUGOSLAVIA
1999-?
Bombing, missiles: Heavy NATO air strikes after Serbia declines to withdraw from Kosovo.

http://www.yuksel.org/e/guest/interventions.htm
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/pr...ts/index2.html

The pot calling the kettle black seems appropriate in light of the FACTS.