← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 17551 | Posts: 12 | Started: 2005-03-28
2005-03-28 06:30 | User Profile
March 28, 2005 Draft Needed to Bail Out Neocons by Paul Craig Roberts
One of the favorite fantasies of right-wing talk radio and Fox "News" is that only Bush-hating liberals oppose the Iraq war and additional U.S. military incursions into the Middle East or wherever.
Yet, it is the March issue of the Washington Monthly, a magazine with a liberal Democratic audience, that makes a case for the draft as the only way "America can remain the world's superpower."
The authors, Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris, take it for granted that America's duty is to make the rest of the world conform to America. They regard this virtuous calling to be so great that a draft is a small price to pay.
The authors have no doubts that Americans exist in order to serve other countries. American lives, limbs, and treasure are required to rectify whatever happens elsewhere that fails to meet with our leaders' approval.
Since other countries are not willing "to share the burden" by sacrificing their own citizens and resources, America must build a large enough army to do the job on its own.
The authors try to devise a draft proposal that "would create a cascading series of benefits for society" by instilling "a new ethic of service" among college-bound youth. Before America's youth could be admitted to college, they would first have to serve either in the military or in tutoring disadvantaged children or by helping old folks, or in homeland security by guarding ports.
The authors admit that few would choose combat abroad, but say that some would out of patriotism. They write: "Even if only 10 percent of the one-million young people who annually start at four-year colleges and universities were to choose the military option, the armed forces would receive 100,000 fresh recruits every year."
The authors mean "nationalism," when they say "patriotism." True patriots would oppose the Jacobin agenda of Global Cop and demand that America stick to its founding principles. But the authors cannot imagine America without "its mantle of global leadership" and regard enslaving youth in the service of the state as a small price to pay.
The authors are probably correct that the neoconservatives' war plans cannot be undertaken with the present U.S. force structure. The neocons thought that in Iraq all the U.S. had to do was defeat a poorly equipped army. They overlooked that insurgency is a different kind of fighting.
To deal with insurgencies requires vast numbers of troops and practices that tend to produce more insurgents. When the draft army fails to impose America's will on the world, we will hear the case for "usable nukes."
The U.S. desperately needs to escape from Iraq before America is sucked into a wider conflict that will necessitate a draft. Once the Bush administration has created so much instability in the Middle East that a rising Islamic revolution is afoot, the stakes will be too high for the U.S. to be able to withdraw.
What might save America from further neoconservative miscalculations is the collapse of the U.S. dollar. A country dependent on foreign financing, as is the U.S., cannot fight wars that its foreign bankers do not approve. I suspect America's foreign bankers would let the U.S. fight itself into a deep hole before pulling the plug. It is the best way the world has of getting rid of us.
[url]http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=5354[/url]
2005-03-28 06:43 | User Profile
The authors mean "nationalism," when they say "patriotism." True patriots would oppose the Jacobin agenda of Global Cop and demand that America stick to its founding principles. But the authors cannot imagine America without "its mantle of global leadership" and regard enslaving youth in the service of the state as a small price to pay...
Not even true Nationalism, PCR--rather, an unholy nexus of Plutocracy and Zionism.
For 95% of Americans more is lost than gained in this squalid and murderous caper...
[url]http://www.AntiWar.com[/url]
2005-03-29 03:28 | User Profile
this is a surprise?
please, any and all opposition to the elite has been stomped out of this country a long, long time ago.
its just now, the curtains are coming down.
2005-03-29 04:13 | User Profile
I do hope that Sharon gives Bush permission to get the US troops out of Iraq.
But then.......Sharon would problably send the US troops next to Iran.
From the frying pan into the fire.
2005-03-29 13:48 | User Profile
Maybe it will happen but I don't see it. The Roosevelt worshipers can fantasize all they want but it would be a political disaster. Congress won't touch it.
2005-03-29 14:06 | User Profile
The Neocon elites, always ready to equate the US and Israel, are bound sooner or later to recommend compulsory national service for American youths based on the Israeli system. After all, the US & Israel are [u]one and the same[/u] and we're [u]fighting the same enemy[/u], right?
2005-03-29 15:21 | User Profile
The draft is coming. It's coinciding with the dismantling of the American middle-class and working class by shipping their jobs to China. The Outlaw Cartel currently running the 'Kwa is purposely wrecking the economy and when it finally collapses soon, the Americans will have little will left to protest the re-installation of the military draft and subsequent massive ground wars in Mid-East Arab lands. Zion must be established one way or another.
2005-03-29 15:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]Maybe it will happen but I don't see it. The Roosevelt worshipers can fantasize all they want but it would be a political disaster. Congress won't touch it.[/QUOTE] If it is packaged as a 'national service program' and not a draft per se, then it might pass. If not, there is always the possibility of a conveniently timed terrorist attack to demonstrate that any opposition to the draft is treason. Besides, it may be a 'political disaster,' but if both parties support it, then what is Joe Q. Voter to do? Throw his vote away on a (GASP!) third party? Ask our resident Republican zombie, Gabrielle, how likely that is to happen.
2005-03-29 17:23 | User Profile
What better way than to have everyone join the army in order not to have unemployment?
Remember that now you can be called in at age 39 from what used to be 34 and in the future it will problably be 65 (I'd better take my class "A" out of mothball).
2005-03-29 17:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ponce]What better way than to have everyone join the army in order not to have unemployment?[/QUOTE] That is quite an astute observation, Ponce. A 'national service program' could reduce unemployment to zero, on paper at least.
2005-03-30 00:00 | User Profile
Yep! All the young meat Whiggers would have employment.:caiphas: [QUOTE=Quantrill]That is quite an astute observation, Ponce. A 'national service program' could reduce unemployment to zero, on paper at least.[/QUOTE]
2005-03-30 05:04 | User Profile
I was thinkng (oh oh, trouble ahead) and I believe that the next step that Uncle Sam will take will be to take sailor boys and fly boys and make them TDY into the Army or Marines and that way to raise the number of GI's in Iraq.
The reason for this is that we have to many Sailors and Flyboys sitting around doing nothing.
Also we have around 40,000 mercs in Iraq and will problably get more from overseas as to not scare the American people.
If this two fails then there will be no choice but to get the heck out of Iraq and forget Syria and Iran (up the rear with the Jews) or to bring the draft back.