Slings and Arrows
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
--Hamlet, III, i, Shakespeare
________
Ranger question of the day:
Why is instituting the military draft politically unacceptable?
Especially if we are facing, as we are told, a grave national threat?
________Ranger question of the day:
Why is instituting the military draft politically unacceptable?
Especially if we are facing, as we are told, a grave national threat?
Dale McFeatters [Scripps Howard] has been an able commenter on the Iraq fiasco since the outset. As she recently said, "as long as Bush can count on the support of one-third of the U.S. Senate, enough to sustain his vetoes, there's little Congress can do about it" (Depends on what you mean by "success").
There's the rub. But can't Congress cut off funding for the war simply by not passing a funding bill? To hell with a presidential veto. Let him veto -- then the funding bill is null and void. No further bill would cut off funding.
There is always a solution, but the Democrats will not find it and do not have the political will to make such a move. And as such, the military will continue to fight and die for a folly.
Labels: reinstitute draft, war funding cutoff
posted by rangeragainstwar at 10:28 AM
6 Comments:
My honest opinion on the draft issue?
The GOP members of the Senate don't want to be that hated, and they don't want to rouse the sleeping populace from their pleasantly threatened into compliance state. But they are running the Army into the ground, they know they need a draft to keep this military adventurist dream going; but they'd like the bleeding heart Democrats to make it happen so THEY can reap the whirlwind of fury from the rudely awakened voters. Chickenhawk AND chickenshit---who says they can't multi-task?
if they keep going with things, if they listen to the bugles calling "on to iran" and maybe syria for good measure, there might have to be a draft in order to simply refit the military from its degredation.
i am a fan of the draft, and draftees. the concept of an assembled group of citizens who take up arms for a specific task or response to threat is one of the hallmarks of democratic military thought.
there was only one standing army in classical greece, that of sparta. despite their reputation for invincibility the spartan army was mainly a local force with the all consuming task of riding herd on the slave population. in head to head confrontations the spartans were about equal to most of the other forces of the day. as long as they played by the rules. innovation, or deviations from the norms of conflict completely baffled them. when epaminandos came down with his thebans the spartans refused to leave their fortifications. so, the thebans (in a tactic of total war later employed by sherman) despoiled their plantations and freed their slaves, still, the spartans refused to do battle. the thebans rebuilt and fortified two cities with the former spartan slaves. that was where the spartans said "enough" and took the field. epaminandos kicked their asses hard. sparta was finished from then on as a power of any importance. alexander didn't bother campaigning against them, not because he didn't want to fight, but because the spartans were inconsequential.
the thebans, aside from the "sacred band" had no standing army. athens was a similar case, they would meet, decide the issue and if the decision was to make war they would then elect their generals and everybody would go home and get their webgear and show up for the fight. the athenians felt that a professional military class was a threat to their way of life. as much as they revered and honored their heroes after a battle, they also expected them to have lives beyond that. and lives worth living. the playwrights euripedes, sophocles, aeschulys, and aristophanes were all decorated veterans of battles. socrates was voted a singular civic honor for his stern rear guard action during the rout of the battle of delium.
i have pointed out to as many people as would listen, and many that would prefer not to listen, that in normandy, on D-day, the vast majority of the troops were draftees, and had less than two years in uniform.
in my personal experience, drafees are delicate troops to work with. unlike volunteers (or, in the case of SF, triple volunteers) they must be led with common sense and consideration. they need to know things like why this particular task is important, or what it all means in the grander sense of things. they are disrespectul, insolent, shirking, and slovenly in military bearing.
when the shit hits the fan they are absolute flayed and BBQ'd demons from the mouth of hell itself.
draftees absolutely would not do for something like we have going on now. they simply wouldn't stand for it.
MB,
Once again, have you made your point with force and clarity, and your historical analogies are apt.
"draftees absolutely would not do for something like we have going on now. they simply wouldn't stand for it."
This explains the numbed lockstep of some decoration-striving careerists.
Bush would just keep spending money on his overseas wars, funding or no funding. What are the Democrats going to do if he breaks the law by illegally spending money that has not been appropriated by Congress? Impeach him? Yeah right. There's that 2/3rds vote thingy again. They don't have the votes to impeach.
This war isn't going to start dragging down until Hillary Clinton and her posse drag Dear Leader out of the Oval Office on January 20, 2009, as he screams "No! Mine! All mine!" and rolls around like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of a grocery store aisle. (And why I think it'll be Hillary -- because she's a scheming conniving b**ch, and thus one of the few people that the Republicans can't steal an election from). Short of impeachment there's nothing the Democrats can do to stop Bush, and they just do not have the votes for impeachment.
badtux,
Yes, that's the rub--no impeachment votes. And neither house is willing to force the moment to a crisis, although the country teeters on the brink of one already.
www.elmercreek.com/MP3/BBTD.mp3
(Hopefully that works)
Bring back the draft!
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