Bring Back the Draft

I like Larry O’Donnell, even if Top Management thinks he’s dreamy. If you’ve ever seen Larry, you’ll understand that her taste in men is a bit…idiosyncratic, shall we say? Especially since she’s equally enamored of charming lunatic Pat Buchanan.

Then again, anyone who’s so much as glanced at Left of the Dial would prolly have picked up on her taste in the male species, or lack thereof, already.

Rangel Is Right
Lawrence O’Donnell
November 21, 2006

Charlie Rangel is angry about the Iraq war, the one that Henry Kissinger has told us we can't win. Thanks, Henry, but most Americans figured that out before you did. Rangel saw combat in Korea. Kissinger has only seen combat on TV. That might have something to do with why Kissinger thinks our troops should stay in Iraq even though we can't win.

Kissinger says that if we leave now, all hell will break loose and Iraq will never achieve stability. Never mind that all hell has already broken loose. Never mind that Kissinger said the same thing would happen if we left Vietnam--all hell would break loose and Vietnam would never achieve stability. Vietnam has become so stable that Presidents Clinton and Bush, both combat cowards during the Vietnam war, have made well publicized, utterly safe visits to the country Kissinger used to think didn't have a chance without us.

In my one conversation with Kissinger, which occurred on TV, I asked him if he knew anyone who got killed in Vietnam. He was completely thrown. He doesn't go on TV to be asked such small-minded questions, he goes on TV to pontificate and TV interviewers are happy to let him do it. Kissinger sputtered and ran away from the question, leaving the distinct impression that he did not know anyone who was killed in the war he managed. His memoir of the period does not mention a single casualty. If you have ever stood at the Vietnam Memorial and run your hand over the name of a relative on the wall, as my mother and I did last month, you can get as angry as Charlie Rangel does about people like Kissinger deciding how long our soldiers should be exposed to enemy fire in a war we know we can't win.

Rangel announced on Sunday that he wants to reinstate the draft. He said the same thing a few years ago but quickly let on that he wasn't serious. He's playing it straight this time and has already introduced a bill. Local New York TV news has given Rangel saturation coverage. You can see his anger and frustration building each time he answers another reporter's question about the draft. The point he keeps repeating is: "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."

Rangel could never get such attention to that message without introducing his bill. Nancy Pelosi should let it come to a vote. She should let the House debate the draft. Let the Republicans give speeches listing all the good reasons why we should have a volunteer Army. But let's hear Rangel's speech about how the burden of war is not fairly shared in this country. Let's get America thinking about exactly who is being left in the line of fire in the war Americans have turned against and know we can't win. Let's get America thinking about John Kerry's line about Vietnam--who is going to be the last soldier to die for a mistake? A real debate on the draft will do that. Don't worry, the bill has no chance of passing.

Well over 95% of Americans, including Congress and White House staff, have no personal connection to this war--no relative or friend serving in Iraq. Over 99% of us have made no sacrifice for this war--we have not paid one more penny of taxes nor shed a drop of family blood. One of my military relatives thinks of it this way: "The American military is at war, but America is not at war."

Advocating war is easier when you and your family are not endangered by it. I've reached a Rangel-like breaking point with my TV pundit colleagues who championed the Iraq war and now say we can't leave even if we went there for the wrong reasons. For every one of them, I have a simple question: Why aren't you in Iraq? Or why did you avoid combat in your generation's war?

The one unifying characteristic that all of us men in make-up on political chat shows share is fear of combat. Every one of us has done everything we can to avoid combat or even being fitted for a military uniform. Just like George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney, we are all combat cowards. It takes a very special kind of combat coward to advocate combat for others. It's the kind of thing that can get you as angry as Charlie Rangel.

Draft the Bush twins. We’d be out of Iraq within minutes.

Remember, shop or the terrorists win.

Comments

[Andrea]

I live in a "working class" community. We have recruitment centers for all four branches of the military in our (otherwise sparsely inhabited) downtown. The webpage for our highschool has a prominent ad (complete with waving flag and tinny Sousa accompaniment) for the ROTC and JROTC on its "front" page...Recruiters have offices within the highschool and are free to wander the cafeterias (in full regalia) and chat up the kids. We are a community that is being "groomed" for military enlistment as far as I am concerned...

When I questioned this practice at a Board of Ed. meeting and asserted that it was "anti education" to funnel children as young as 8th or 9th grade into a career track that paid at the poverty level and, at this moment in history, could quite likely harm or kill them, I was told that No Child Left Behind guarantees military access to our schools. (Technically true: if a school allows colleges to visit, they must also then allow military to visit under Bush's plan--however, there is no need to put out a red carpet like my school district has done and continues to do.) As it turns out, the district gets paid money for this access. A decent chunk of change. THAT is why the practice continues, not because of NCLB.

At the risk of sounding paranoid, I feel like there is social engineering going on from the Federal level to perpetuate distracting wars that are fuelled by children's bodies from the lower economic classes. And while these wars persist, obscene levels of wealth are being concentrated in the pockets of a small number of megacorporations.

I hate the idea of a draft. But I definitely see Rangel's point.

[KC]

My husband who is safely home from Iraq has stated the same thing about the draft. He feels we need one. He thought he would never in his life felt that way, but he does now.