From The Ramparts

How Long Before They Reinstate The Draft?

How Long Before They Reinstate the Draft?

By RON MARTZ
Cox News Service
Thursday, June 09, 2005 ATLANTA — When the Pentagon releases its May recruiting figures Friday, the numbers are expected to show a continuing decline in those signing up for the Army and Marine Corps. If that downward trend continues, the specter of a military draft to fill the ranks with able bodies is likely to loom large in Washington once again. But William Chatfield, the new head of the nation's Selective Service System, said he did not anticipate that happening any time soon. "Congress, not the president, would have to approve it and I have seen nothing to indicate there is any support for it there," Chatfield said Wednesday during a visit to Atlanta.
The Army and the Marines, which are carrying the brunt of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and suffering the bulk of the casualties, have been struggling in recent months to meet recruiting goals. A congressional resolution introduced last fall by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), a Korean War veteran, called for the draft — which was abolished in 1973 — to be reinstituted. While that resolution was largely seen as a ploy to embarrass President Bush in an election year, Chatfield believes the 402-2 vote against it reflects the true congressional opposition to the issue. Military officials also oppose a draft, saying the all-volunteer force is easier to train and maintain than a force of reluctant draftees. Chatfield, a Marine Corps Reserve chief warrant officer, said it was nevertheless incumbent on the Selective Service to be prepared in the event Congress changes its mind.

The recruiting numbers for May for the US Army and Marines are down, they have failed to meet their quotas by significant margins for the fourth month in a row. In recent months the Army has lowered both their standards and their projected quotas and still their numbers continue to fall. An article in the New York Times dated June 8, 2005 stated, “Even after reducing its recruiting target for May, the Army missed it by about 25 percent, Army officials said on Tuesday. The shortfall would have been even bigger had the Army stuck to its original goal for the month. On Friday, the Army is expected to announce that it met only 75 percent of its recruiting goal for May, the fourth consecutive monthly shortfall in the number of new recruits sent to basic training. Just over 5,000 new recruits entered boot camp in May. But the news could have appeared worse. Early last month, the Army, with no public notice, lowered its long-stated May goal to 6,700 recruits from 8,050. Compared with the original target, the Army achieved only 62.6 percent of its goal for the month. Army officials defended the shift on Tuesday, saying it was not uncommon to change monthly goals at midyear. They said that the latest change reflected the reality that the Army was not going to meet its May goal, and that it made more sense to shift some of that quota to the summer months, traditionally a better season for recruiters to attract new high school graduates. " This does not bode well for the all volunteer military as recent public opinion polls show more and more AmeriKKKans are saying the invasion and occupation of Iraq are not worth the costs in blood or coin. Also more and more people are openly saying Bush lied to the Congresss and the AmeriKKKan people. Last month amidst a tightly contested election in England the London Times newspaper published a leaked memo called the Downing Street Memo which to many appears to be the smoking gun that will indict Bush as a liar and warmonger. The Downing Street Memo will probably cause an even higher drop in the recruiting numbers for June as more and more young people eschew signing up to be canon fodder for a lie or be crippled or maimed in the name of oil and empire.
What will the elites do to keep fresh bodies in the line of fire? The uniformed military leadership really doesn’t want to reinstate the draft because they know they would be dealing with reluctant and recalcitrant draftees who don’t want to be there, whose peers and parents would raise holy hell about their child’s conscription for a war fewer and fewer AmeriKKKans view as legitimate. However on the other hand the if the ruling elites are cold blooded and hardhearted enough to kill over 100,000 innocent Iraqis and send 1,7000 US soldiers to their deaths for a lie, what do they care about a few thousand more who are drafted? So it appears unless the Pentagon brass mutinies against the NeoConmen’s agenda, the military will continue to be stretched thinner and thinner and the morale slips lower and lower ensuring defeat. This puts the Joint Chiefs between the proverbial rock and a hard place. If they push for the reinstatement of the draft they know it will be a catalysis for massive anti-administration, anti-war demonstrations and resistence. If they stand pat, the military (both full time and reserve) will become what the head of the slumping National Guard called “a broken force.”. On the other hand this untenable situation just may be the face saving out that allows the ruling elites and their media mind control lapdogs to declare victory and pull out of Iraq. At any rate they are in a mess and neither their most rabid supporters nor the AmeriKKKan people are in any mood to help them out.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 9:00 AM