Inherit The Wind, September 30 at 7:02 pm Link to this comment

Ardee,

On this last point you made I agree completely.

I know that you and I agree on a whole lot more than that. If it werent for your unbelievable loyalty to a party that spurns you and your values we could agree on even more….

Silly, silly Gates! And silly people who allow this war nonsense to continue:

“The consequences of long deployments in combat zones have been real. Suicide figures have increased, while the divorce rate among enlisted soldiers has nearly doubled. (So ... why not end the wars? The answer to killing kids is NOT killing more kids.)

“No matter how patriotic, how devoted they are, at some point they will want to have the semblance of a normal life — getting married, starting a family, going to college or graduate school, seeing their children grow up — all of which they have justly earned,” Gates said. Note:  “the SEMBLANCE OF A NORMAL LIFE!” Note:  “earned”—as if kids have to earn the right to live!

Quoting the article:  Without offering specifics, Gates said a system must be created that is generous enough to recruit and retain people without causing the Defense Department to sink under the weight of personnel costs. (Question: Is it not the middle class and poor who are sinking? The Defense Dept. seems to be doing more than okay! (Would that it sank under the weight of of its own guilty consciences!)

Ardee,

On this last point you made I agree completely.

I think it obvious that the draft involves far too many families thus we have an all volunteer army in order to keep protests of a stupid war to a minimum. They did learn from the Vietnam protest era.

What should really disturb us is the growing belief among career soldiers that they are Christian Warriors doing God’s work….

@ Jim Yell—Obama did not promise to get us out of Afghanistan.  In fact, one of his campaign points was that we should put more resources into the military effort in Afghanistan.  Therefore, if you voted for Obama because you thought he promised to get us out of Afghanistan, you voted in error.  Having said that, however, I certainly agree that Obama should get us out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the sooner the better. 

Regarding Gates’ comments, as long as this country relies on a military comprised of enlistees that are disassociated from the majority, politicians and the military command will be free to use those enlistees for missions that are not in the best interests of the country.

What Gates and other warheads don’t realize is the real battlefield is now the global marketplace - no one can afford to throw discretionary dollars into far-away countries with very little gain to the taxpayers. The winners in this world are the technologically sophisticated and competitively advantaged prudent countries.

Part of the reason we were able to FORCE the Government to finally end the Viet Nam War was people were motivated by the draft.  Now, every chest-thumping flag-waving chicken hawk can and will demand wars that neither he/she nor his/her offspring will ever risk death or injury in.

There’s something really revolting about sending somebody else’s kids off to die when you keep your own at home.  Think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  Easy to be war-hawks when both dodged service in the Viet Nam War, and kept their kids out of service too.

I have NOTHING against Viet Nam era draft dodgers—unless, like Cheney, they SUPPORTED the war effort, so long as somebody ELSE had to fight it!

No draft? No college anti-war protests.

No draft? Ninety-five percent of the population doesn’t care who serves in the military (or dies in America’s foreign wars) as long as their kid doesn’t have to go.

No draft? The military is manned (and womanned) by a select, socially-isolated stratum of American society, a group that could, under a plutocratic oligarchy, be manipulated into opening fire on a protesting group of Americans (who would be seen as “elitist, intellectual, and anti-American.”

No draft? Our children between the ages of 18 and 22 do not know the meaning of public service or sacrifice, therefore keeping them in perpetual Narcissistic adolescence.

No draft? And the military relies upon an ever-shrinking pool of candidates who are willing to serve until our armed services more and more closely resemble those mercenary legions that protected Rome between 400 and 476 AD, during the period commonly referred to as the fall of the Roman Empire.

Bring back the draft. If nothing else, it might wake up our youth who’ve been cowed into a self-satisfied cohort of slavering consumers and celebrity worshipers.

@LJL-do you really think the most warlike society in the history of the planet would ever engage in anything that even vaguely resembles self-recrimination
as regards their never-ending blood lust?

I don’t understand why all Americans are not proud that the sun does not set on American wars.  Of course, this is irony.  Gates was, however, correct.  Americans are detached from their innumerable war crimes.  You would think that it would be simple for them to just stop waging world wide wards.  But it is unthinkable that Americans would ever waging wars without some incentive.  I suggest two incentives, a universal draft and a pay-go war tax that would be assessed over and above all the ordinary taxes.  Once all their children were thrust onto the front lines and ten or twenty percent of their income was taken out of their wallets, Americans may become less enchanted about their wars.