Bush to bring back the draft
Oh, wait it’s not President Bush, it’s greasy, tax evading, ethics violator DEMOCRAT Chuck Rangel (from The Hill);
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) likely will introduce his controversial legislation to reinstate the draft again this year, but he will wait until after the economic stimulus package is passed.
Asked if he plans to introduce the legislation again in 2009, Rangel last week said, “Probably … yes. I don’t want to do anything this early to distract from the issue of the economic stimulus.”
Rangel’s military draft bill did create a distraction for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) soon after Democrats won control of Congress after the 2006 election.
In the wake of that historic victory, Pelosi said publicly that she did not support the draft and that the Democratic leadership would not back Rangel’s legislation. She also said Rangel’s legislation was not about reinstating the draft but was instead “a way to make a point” about social inequality.
Reintroducing the military draft bill, which would attract media attention, will be trickier for Rangel in 2009 than it was a couple years ago because the Ways and Means Committee chairman is now under investigation by the House ethics committee.
Democratic leaders have given Rangel a leading role in helping craft the new economic stimulus bill despite an array of ethics allegations that have surfaced over the last several months.
Just for a timeline of the recent history of the draft, the last year of the draft was 1972 (I was 17) and it was ended by REPUBLICAN Richard Nixon. Draft registration was reinstituted in 1979 by DEMOCRAT Jimmy Carter in response to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan because Carter had made life in the volunteer Army so unattractive, there was no way he could have attracted enough manpower to an entirely volunteer force to fight off a foreign threat.
Rangel tried to reanimate the draft to anger more Americans about the war against terror in 2003. Democrats then waived the failed draft bill as a bloody shirt to scare voters to vote against President Bush.
If a draft had been in place in 2002 when members were making the decision on whether to support the war in Iraq, Rangel has said, Congress never would have approved the war resolution, because the pressure from constituents would have been too great.
That’s just naive. It implies that the decision to go to war was a purely political decision rather than a strategic choice. Congress is supposed to make hard choices and then pay the price for the success or fauilure of those decisions at the polls, not because of the pressure of phone calls and letters, for Pete’s sake.
Personally, as a former leader in the military, I would hate to have a draft. it was tough enough making volunteers do their jobs, let alone someone who didn’t want to be there. Look at the derelicts in the IVAW who all volunteered.
Category: Politics
A fairly good friend of mine at work Voted for Bama-Berries on the Single Issue that, as he has Sons near Draft Age, “I just know that S.O.B. Mc Cain is going to bring back the Draft”. Since I heard that second hand, I didn’t have the chance to discuss the Issue with him and inform him, among other things, that good ole’ Law Dodging Chas has been on this Issue from that BS Position for quite some time.
Sadly, I’m afraid that the current day Manifestation of the DemocRat party I used to believe in (relax, I grew out of that “Awkward Age”, as my Mom used to call it, when Carter was President) actually does see going to War as a purely Political Issue. A quick look at their posturing over the last 6 years is all it takes to verify that. Cue the Sound Bites from Murtha and Durbin. Even sadder, the Current Day Republicans seem to be standing in line to follow suit with all things Liberal. Very sad indeed.
Rangle should be, figuratively, shot and pissed on and the rest of them should have their Collective (and that was not an idle choice of words nor necessarily meant to be ‘figuratively’) Nuts nailed to a Tree Stump and be pushed over backwards. And that includes Secretary Hillary.
Ah Hell, I have to lighten up and be happy. As I learned earlier today, Tuesday is the day when the grass will once again be Green and the Climate will return to “normal”.
I think I’ll go out and buy some Speedo’s to wear in Celebration (I read somewhere that’s the “In” thing to do”). With a Big Ole Picture of Bamadoon right on the….Butt..(well, I want it to be seen, after all..)
As a current leader of Soldiers, I completely concur with Jonn, it is hard enough to get volunteers to do their jobs. As a Reservist, it becomes even harder. I have lost count of the Junior Enlisted Soldiers I have seen in the last four years I have been home, who upon completing BCT and AIT return to the unit, attend one Drill, and then are U’ed out for failure to appear at Drill (the Reserve version of AWOL). These kids really have no clue how bad they screw themselves when they do that. I can’t imagine what a draftee situation would bring to the military!
Damn it, the Republicans never thought to run an ad about a vote for the Democrats is a vote for the Draft. Wonder if Charlie will vote for his own bill this time, if it comes up again.
Jonn-
With you on this. I would rather have volunteers than the complainers forced to do what they don’t want. Yep, you get a struggle with the volunteers,too. I do tend to err on the side of the volunteers that since they chose it, it will be more cohesive than with the anti-authority types.
Rangel is an asshole, plain and simple.
This is so ironic. Wasn’t it supposed to be the EVIL GW that coerced enlistments with his demonic telepathic brain waves? And wasn’t it under the EVIL GW Bush administration that all those volunteers were forced against their will, to enlist and fight the nation’s wars?
The Dems are gonna have a tough time explaining that part of their ‘withdrawal’ plans.
[…] Rangel tried to reanimate the draft to anger more Americans about the war against terror in 2003. Democrats then waived the failed draft bill as a bloody shirt to scare voters to vote against President Bush. http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=7057 […]
Pst….GI Jane?
“The Dems are gonna have a tough time explaining that part of their ‘withdrawal’ plans”
Have to ask, did you mean to say “withdrawl” pains?
*chuckle*
Draft? Feh. While one of my pet peeves about American males of military age is that there is not a waiting list to get into the Armed Forces of this great republic, I do not support a draft under any but the most dire circumstances. While I have met many fine men who found their way into the Army as draftees, during my entire (fairly lengthy) career this has been an all-volunteer force, and it is highly capable. We still find youngsters enlisting who seem shocked to get a deployment order, but most join with this in mind. In the meantime, I find myself surrounded by hundreds of thousands of young men and women, otherwise fit to serve, who simply do not view this war as their problem. They also have a tendency to view Soldiers as somehow “victims.” They cannot comprehend that nothing is further from the truth. These are the sheep that LTC Grossman wrote of; those who do not understand the sheepdog. They like to play that they are sheepdogs, going to the gym, watching and playing sports, and speaking of unwarlike things in warrior language. I have to laugh when a sports figure is described as “a warrior.” Gladiator, perhaps, but warrior? No. The only war that they gird themselves for is the daily fight for the dollar, the internecine warfare of company politics on the way up the career ladder, and the genetic war of attracting a mate. They outsource their honor to those who have the temerity to step forward and say, “Here I am, send me.” They are like the men who took to the lifeboats on the Titanic, and will forever live with their decision. As a Major with the 173rd Airborne said in Afghanistan, “There are two types of men; those who go and do, and those who have an excuse.” These men, now young, will have to look at themselves in the mirror as they age, and in the years to come there will be more stories like those that we are hearing from time to time today; stories of… Read more »