Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Monterey County Herald
May 6, 2008 Panetta speakers discuss borders, draft
By Kevin Howe, Herald Staff Writer
The next president of the United States will have to make hard decisions on how to resolve the global war on terror and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But one thing he or she probably won't resort to is a military draft.
"It's not going to happen, period," said retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, "until the nation's survival is in peril."
But he and other panelists in the second Leon Panetta 2008 Lecture Series, who spoke Monday night at Monterey Conference Center on the role of the military and intelligence in national security, said at an earlier press conference that something short of a full military draft might be an option.
McCaffrey, the most highly decorated four-star general in the Army — holder of two awards of the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts earned during four combat deployments in his career — said, however, that securing the nation's borders is absolutely necessary to insuring internal security, and conscription into the U.S. Border Patrol or the National Guard might solve the problem.
"If we can't control our borders, we can't protect domestic security," he said, noting that there are 2.5 million men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces but only 42,000 in the Transportation Security Administration and 11,000 in the Border Patrol, up from about 3,000 a few years ago.
"The right answer" to staffing the Border Patrol, McCaffrey said, "is 42,000. We've got to fence the borders. Homeland security is a disaster. If I were in charge of al-Qaida, we'd be in trouble."
He also said some sort of tamper-proof national identification system is needed.
No major terrorist attacks have occurred in the United States on the scale of those of Sept. 11, 2001, that leveled New York City's World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, which retired Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attributed to "a combination of hard work and good luck.
"It's difficult to prove a negative," he said, but one reason may lie in the fact that American troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. "If we were not there, we'd be fighting them somewhere else."
Since Sept. 11, terrorist attacks worldwide have been on the increase, said John Arquilla, professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and the author of a number of books and articles on cyberwarfare and the military. "We can't associate our own success with all success."
Beyond American concerns for domestic security, he said, Americans should keep in mind that the war on terror "is not a war wholly against America, but throughout the world."
A return of the draft "would engage the American public more immediately" in decisions requiring its sons and daughters to fight overseas, Arquilla said.
Arquilla stood in for Richard Clarke, former White House national coordinator for security and counterterrorism, who was unable to attend because of illness.
Not everyone could or should serve but a national lottery for such a draft would be equitable, sharing the burden of national defense across the socioeconomic spectrum, Arquilla said. "There are societal, cultural, political reasons to consider a draft, and women should be subject to it."
"No one I know on active duty," Pace said, "wants to have a return to the draft."
Having served as a rifle platoon leader in Vietnam, Pace is familiar with both volunteer and conscript troops. "With conscription, you spend a lot of time convincing people to come to work — and work."
Neither Pace nor McCaffrey felt the current presidential campaign debates about withdrawing from Iraq have hurt troop morale.
"Most of us in uniform swore an oath to the Constitution," McCaffrey said, "not to bad leadership. Trust me, we're largely leaving in the next three years."
"The dialog stops in combat," Pace said. "Soldiers worry about the guy on their left and on their right. As long as the troops know the American people respect their service to the country, morale is solid."
All three panelists saw progress in Iraq in terms of reduced violence and apparent willingness of different factions to work together against al-Qaida.
All agreed that one of the greatest threats the U.S. military and the nation currently face is an attack on its computer systems.
"I know what we can do to other people," Pace said. "Which means that eventually they can do it to us."
"There's no such thing as a secure computer system," McCaffrey said. Attacks could negate current U.S. military supremacy in the field and cripple the nation's transportation, water, electrical, financial and trading systems.
The Panetta Lecture will be rebroadcast on cable television channel KMST Channel 26.
May 6, 2008 Panetta speakers discuss borders, draft
By Kevin Howe, Herald Staff Writer
The next president of the United States will have to make hard decisions on how to resolve the global war on terror and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But one thing he or she probably won't resort to is a military draft.
"It's not going to happen, period," said retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, "until the nation's survival is in peril."
But he and other panelists in the second Leon Panetta 2008 Lecture Series, who spoke Monday night at Monterey Conference Center on the role of the military and intelligence in national security, said at an earlier press conference that something short of a full military draft might be an option.
McCaffrey, the most highly decorated four-star general in the Army — holder of two awards of the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts earned during four combat deployments in his career — said, however, that securing the nation's borders is absolutely necessary to insuring internal security, and conscription into the U.S. Border Patrol or the National Guard might solve the problem.
"If we can't control our borders, we can't protect domestic security," he said, noting that there are 2.5 million men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces but only 42,000 in the Transportation Security Administration and 11,000 in the Border Patrol, up from about 3,000 a few years ago.
"The right answer" to staffing the Border Patrol, McCaffrey said, "is 42,000. We've got to fence the borders. Homeland security is a disaster. If I were in charge of al-Qaida, we'd be in trouble."
He also said some sort of tamper-proof national identification system is needed.
No major terrorist attacks have occurred in the United States on the scale of those of Sept. 11, 2001, that leveled New York City's World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, which retired Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attributed to "a combination of hard work and good luck.
"It's difficult to prove a negative," he said, but one reason may lie in the fact that American troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. "If we were not there, we'd be fighting them somewhere else."
Since Sept. 11, terrorist attacks worldwide have been on the increase, said John Arquilla, professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and the author of a number of books and articles on cyberwarfare and the military. "We can't associate our own success with all success."
Beyond American concerns for domestic security, he said, Americans should keep in mind that the war on terror "is not a war wholly against America, but throughout the world."
A return of the draft "would engage the American public more immediately" in decisions requiring its sons and daughters to fight overseas, Arquilla said.
Arquilla stood in for Richard Clarke, former White House national coordinator for security and counterterrorism, who was unable to attend because of illness.
Not everyone could or should serve but a national lottery for such a draft would be equitable, sharing the burden of national defense across the socioeconomic spectrum, Arquilla said. "There are societal, cultural, political reasons to consider a draft, and women should be subject to it."
"No one I know on active duty," Pace said, "wants to have a return to the draft."
Having served as a rifle platoon leader in Vietnam, Pace is familiar with both volunteer and conscript troops. "With conscription, you spend a lot of time convincing people to come to work — and work."
Neither Pace nor McCaffrey felt the current presidential campaign debates about withdrawing from Iraq have hurt troop morale.
"Most of us in uniform swore an oath to the Constitution," McCaffrey said, "not to bad leadership. Trust me, we're largely leaving in the next three years."
"The dialog stops in combat," Pace said. "Soldiers worry about the guy on their left and on their right. As long as the troops know the American people respect their service to the country, morale is solid."
All three panelists saw progress in Iraq in terms of reduced violence and apparent willingness of different factions to work together against al-Qaida.
All agreed that one of the greatest threats the U.S. military and the nation currently face is an attack on its computer systems.
"I know what we can do to other people," Pace said. "Which means that eventually they can do it to us."
"There's no such thing as a secure computer system," McCaffrey said. Attacks could negate current U.S. military supremacy in the field and cripple the nation's transportation, water, electrical, financial and trading systems.
The Panetta Lecture will be rebroadcast on cable television channel KMST Channel 26.