[R-G] If you feel a draft, watch out

[Hunter Gray]

"They argue that it is the duty of young people (men and women) to give some
years of their life to the government. I don't know where this duty comes
from, except maybe from the military traditions of ancient Sparta. The
government does not own the lives of Americans of any age, unless they are
convicted criminals. Compulsory national service would deprive the young of
their freedom without due process of the law."

 [Andrew Greeley, Roman Catholic priest and writer]

============================================================================
===

Note by Hunterbear:

This is an excellent statement by Father Greeley.

Only the most thoughtless would hand the "draft idea" to the Bushies --
especially in the context of the administration's increasingly bizarre plans
to stake out plantations all over the globe.

A sensible proposal would be to reactivate the old, purely voluntary
Civilian Conservation Corps [CCCs] which so well served youth and the nation
during FDR's epoch.

If you feel a draft, watch out
Chicago Sun-Times ^ | February 7, 2003 | ANDREW GREELEY


The option of a military draft and compulsory national service has oozed out
of the dark shadows in which it has hidden for half a century. The
suggestion by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) that a draft is necessary so that
war would not be fought mainly by minorities didn't win much support because
it turns out that the overrepresentation of African Americans and Hispanics
in the military is not all that large. Those who have supported compulsory
national service have used his argument and the likelihood of war in Iraq as
an excuse to push their agenda once again.

They argue that it is the duty of young people (men and women) to give some
years of their life to the government. I don't know where this duty comes
from, except maybe from the military traditions of ancient Sparta. The
government does not own the lives of Americans of any age, unless they are
convicted criminals. Compulsory national service would deprive the young of
their freedom without due process of the law.

Many young Americans, perhaps more than ever, are willing to dedicate
several years of service to some worthy cause. Why should this honorable
impulse to volunteer be turned into an obligation? National service is a
totalitarian idea that some ideologues support because it makes the country
a neat, orderly place in which the government straightens out the rebellious
young of the country. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman has argued for a long
time that a draft is an unfair taxation of the young in favor of the older.
The latter get the work and the bodies of young people at a much lower price
than it would otherwise cost.

The availability of a plentiful supply of such young bodies is an open
invitation to the leadership of the country to go to war. If there had not
been a draft, our ill-advised involvement in Korea and Vietnam never would
have occurred.

I fear that if our existing professional (volunteer) army is badly chewed up
in the Iraqi desert, the present administration would call for a draft in
the name of a patriotic victory in the war on terrorism.

Because many ''right-thinking'' Americans always have supported compulsory
national service, the administration might possibly get its way.

I don't think it will come to this, though it is worth noting that the
chicken hawks have not fought in wars and really do not know firsthand what
war is like. If push comes to shove, they might not mind sending the drafted
sons and daughters of others to die in the desert.

National service had its origins in 19th century Europe, where massive
reserve armies were thought necessary for national defense. When war
threatened, the reserves were mobilized. Thus in the Franco-Prussian war of
1870, Prussia proved much more efficient in mobilizing its reserves and
easily defeated the French. The idea was to get your soldiers away from
their family and their work quickly, then hit the enemy with a quick and
solid blow and win a victory in a single battle. The Germans routed the
French at Sedan and won the war.

Then in 1914 France, Germany, Russia and Austria all mobilized quickly
(because of the relative efficiency of their respective railroads). Once you
have mobilized armies, there's not much you can do with them except start a
war. In historical hindsight, there is little doubt that the mobilizations
of the summer of 1914 made a foolish and unnecessary war inevitable.

Many European countries still require national military service, though it
is not clear that the reserve military that it is supposed to produce means
anything in modern war. It would be much better if there were some kind of
international agreement to outlaw drafts. The cause of peace would benefit
if the elderly people who run governments did not have at their disposal the
bodies of young men and women they can use for cannon fodder.

The world would be a much better place if all countries had a small
volunteer military, though it is tragic to see such people bid farewell to
their families and go off to face the risk of disease and maiming and death
in the desert because a president thinks that John Wayne is an appropriate
model for world leadership.

There are too many in this country who proclaim the need for sacrifice when
neither they nor their children are likely to be the sacrificial victims.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----