I think the Chicken-Hawk-in-Chief has already denied that there's any possibility of a draft in response to Lute's comments.
I don't think there will be a draft either, but the words out of Bush's mouth certainly have no truth value.
I tend to think that instead of listening to what Bush says and believing the opposite is true, we should just ignore what Bush says because he doesn't know or care whether it's true.
2: I really doubt this guy is honestly out there freelancing. Not as part of this administration. My guess is that this is a trial balloon to see how vehement the reaction might be.
DEAR WAR CZAR
MY REACTION IS VERY VEHEMENT
PLEASE MARK IT DOWN AS SUCH
I know this is heresy, but if the only politically possible alternative really is Clinton/Edwards/Obama-style residual force, there's a case to be made for instituting a draft and dumping a few trillion dollars and a million or so troops into a ten year occupation. Not that I'm willing to make it, but in theory, if you're going to occupy a foreign nation, why fuck about? Either pull a West Bank or get the fuck out.
McManus has been making something like the argument in 7 for a long time now.
McManus always expects the worst, and spends most oh his time pleasantly surprised.
I asked Moe Lane at the old Tacitus.org what America would do after another, bigger al Qaeda attack. He said we would occupy the Arab capitals and turn their governments into branches of Homeland Security. 5000 troops per country...we don't have anywhere near that capability.
We would nuke somebody. We will nuke somebody.
The thing is about 7 is it's both arguably right no matter which way it turns, and also almost guaranteed to turn us toward "get the fuck out." No one wants to commit a trillion dollars and a million soldiers, and if you put the price in those terms, it's obviously not worth it (whatever the fuck the "it" we're after in Iraq may be).
I think that for purely political reasons, the Dems should be pressing this on the war supporters. "Hey, you want to surge? Shouldn't that mean you want a draft?" Didn't Dellums try that a while back? It's a smart tactical move, at any rate: asking, gee, why aren't you guys in favor of a draft? oh, and by the way, war supporters: those of you who can volunteer? why haven't you? etc.
The Repukes learned THAT lesson of Vietnam. They will never reinstitute the draft. Their plan right now is to hope that the current force holds out until 2009, when they hand the mess off to a Democratic president.
This is OT, but it made me want to pull my hair out. Has it made the rounds previously?
Wow, Tarrou, hadn't seen that, posting it now.
Holy jebus. That is an amazing thing.
"Fade-fix-bleed-shatter is the cycle of guerilla strategy. The major military has the inverse doctrine: ICA (Isolate, Concentrate, Annihilate).
The in the case of the guerilla force, one of the most important processes then, is to grind down the the combat readiness of individual soldiers in the military. Since defeating a guerilla force requires vigilance and attention, fatigue is a powerful weapon. As importantly, the guerilla war cycle constantly tests the judgment of the people involved. Judgment is the mental capacity which is most clearly degraded by fatigue: the ability to rapidly make choices based on the weighing of large numbers of initially uncorrelated perceptions and pieces of information. As judgment of the major military force degrades, its collateral damage increases, its ability to separate the guerilla force from civilian population decreses, its ability to take advantage of temporary concentrations of guerillas decreases." ...Stirling Newberry, Agonist, today
Story in the Chicago Tribune this morning about an Army officer who courted a middle-class Iraqi woman he met on patrol, behaving respectfully at every stage, brought her home, got married, converted, had a daughter, and has just been killed on his third tour. Reminds me of the guys I knew in my youth who took Vietnamese culture seriously.
Mmm. I was reading that, prepared to be deeply touched, and was somewhat offput by the fact that the deeply respectful romance involved a proposal to the Iraqi woman before the guy had told his wife back in the States that he wanted a divorce. Still, a terribly sad story all around.
I noticed that, and while I was offput also, I figured a certain delusion and desire to make-it-so was part of the story.
The bright side of a draft - not saying it would be a net positive, just finding the silver lining; or, alternately, adding one more reason to the long list of reasons why a draft won't happen - is that it would mean the definitive end of DADT. You have to wonder, in this open-minded age, how many twentysomethings would be unwilling to pretend to be gay?
22: Don't see how that's true, actually. Just outlaw the "tell" part, and court martial anyone who tries.
Aha! Now I know why so many Republicans have been busted recently for aggravated fellatio. They're just laying (so to speak) the groundwork for a draft board defense.
Aha! Now I know why so many Republicans have been busted recently for aggravated fellatio. They're just laying (so to speak) the groundwork for a draft board defense.
Now it all makes sense. Republicans love a good flip flopper.
Draft dodging for those not privileged to be named Bush:
"I would have served in the military, but the media had made me gay. Now [that I am no longer eligible for the draft], I have converted back to being a red-blooded, heterosexual male."
19: That reminds me of what one of my very stupid friends asked after assuming (incorrectly) that my brother was serving in Iraq, rather than Virginia.
"Wait, so he gets drunk alot? Does he drink with the locals, or what?"