President Obama and now retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Pete Souza/The White House file
McChrystal: Time To Bring Back The Draft -- Josh Rogin, The Cable/Foreign Policy
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander of international forces in Afghanistan, said this week that the United States should bring back the draft if it ever goes to war again.
"I think we ought to have a draft. I think if a nation goes to war, it shouldn't be solely be represented by a professional force, because it gets to be unrepresentative of the population," McChrystal said at a late-night event June 29 at the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival. "I think if a nation goes to war, every town, every city needs to be at risk. You make that decision and everybody has skin in the game."
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My Comment: He makes a convincing case .... but I suspect that in today's climate .... if put to the vote .... the mass majority of Americans would say no and would vote for their politicians accordingly.
3 comments:
We in the USofA these days support our wars of choice - provided they incur no tax or draft burden, of course - with much patriotic public display 'n rah-rah.
Very very few of us have any blood in these fights. But lots of God Bless America. In short, as long as our present homeland mercenary system does it all with no taxation, we frankly don't give a damn.
Linked at my place
Bring back the draft? Um, no, thanks. Well, only if it's (a) universal with (b) no deferments and (c) we start with relatives of Congresscritters.
I'm an American Soldier - speaking only for myself and not for anyone else, nor the Army, I say HELL NO.
That's IDIOTIC. We're cutting back - forcing GOOD Soldiers OUT. We're not having ANY difficulty recruiting outstanding Soldiers, we do not NEED to drag people who have no interest into the service. Further, when I deploy next, I want the folks to my left and right to be people, like me, who've busted their buns to be there and are continuing to bust their buns to STAY there.
Modern Soldiers are not cannon fodder that you can train in 6 weeks of PT, hand a rifle and send to 'the front'. An American Soldier of any MOS is a highly trained, highly motivated expert in several fields.
I want VOLUNTEERS, not conscripts. I can think of no faster way to destroy the effectiveness of the US military then A: exterminate our budget and then B: bring back the draft.
It reminds me of the old question I've seen on the web (Since rougly 2010): "If you WANTED to destroy the country, what would you do differently than what's being done right now?"
Hooah!
Orion
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