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Alpha Soixante
- FB Fan -

Canada
129 Posts

Posted - 10/20/2004 :  14:15:54  Show Profile  Visit Alpha Soixante's Homepage  Reply with Quote
Of Course There Won't Be A Draft!: The FAQ
http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_17_fafblog_archive.html#109829259214293575
Courtesy of the sublimely funny Fafblog.

Less funny, but worth reading: two articles from the wacky, wacky New York Times (registration required)

"U.S. Has Contingency Plans for a Draft of Medical Workers"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/politics/19draft.html?ex=1099195485&ei=1&en=489458992e8cb298
Excerpt: "In a confidential report this summer, a contractor hired by the agency described how such a draft might work, how to secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with health care professionals, whose lives could be disrupted
....Under the plan, Mr. Flahavan said, about 3.4 million male and female health care workers ages 18 to 44 would be expected to register with the Selective Service. From this pool, he said, the agency could select tens of thousands of health care professionals practicing in 62 health care specialties."

"Feeling the Draft"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/opinion/19krugman.html?oref=login&oref=login&oref=login&oref=login&oref=login&hp
Excerpt: "Those who are worrying about a revived draft are in the same position as those who worried about a return to budget deficits four years ago, when President Bush began pushing through his program of tax cuts. Back then he insisted that he wouldn't drive the budget into deficit - but those who looked at the facts strongly suspected otherwise. Now he insists that he won't revive the draft. But the facts suggest that he will."
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n/a
deleted

4894 Posts

Posted - 10/20/2004 :  14:18:32  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
just as I was starting to miss this thread....


Frank Black ate my hamster
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BLT
> Teenager of the Year <

South Sandwich Islands
4204 Posts

Posted - 12/13/2004 :  09:20:25  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Not specifically about the draft, but related...


http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe37.html

Women Warriors and the American Empire
by Steven LaTulippe

While surfing the web the other day, I came across a story from the Washington Times titled "Army Charged with Ban Violation." The story describes several controversial new reorganizations going on in the US Army, especially as they relate to women soldiers:

A pro-military group is charging that the Army is violating the Defense Department's ban on women in land combat by collocating mixed-sex support units with war-fighting soldiers.

At issue is how the Army is transforming its 10 active divisions into multiple, self-contained "units of action."

In essence, the Pentagon brass has decided to change the structure of Army units so as to combine support groups with front-line combat brigades. This will, they claim, create a more flexible force which will be more effective in the field. The law currently forbids female soldiers from serving in ground combat units, which is the "fly in the ointment" for this particular reform.

But nevertheless, the Pentagon is pushing forward.

Before commenting, I should first confess a certain bias concerning this general topic. While I consider war to be a tragedy that should be avoided by all reasonable means, I find the idea of women engaging in combat to be particularly unconscionable. Call me old fashioned, but I still cling to an admittedly traditional attitude towards women. They are beautiful…they are wonderful…and the idea of having them participate in the butchery of combat is too grotesque to contemplate.

But it appears that those in charge of our government have other priorities. What especially caught my attention in this article was the following quote from an Army briefing paper:

"Army manpower cannot support elimination of female soldiers from all units designated to be unit of action elements," the Army document states. The document further states that by not including women, it "creates an immediate personnel readiness impact: issue of insufficient male soldiers in inventory to fill forward support companies ... Creates potential long-term challenge to Army; pool of male recruits too small to sustain force."

Permit me to translate this paragraph from military jargon: Given our current Imperial foreign policy, we cannot fulfill our missions without utilizing female soldiers in front line units. There simply aren’t enough men in the military or in the potential recruitment pipeline.

This represents, in my humble opinion, a new low in our spiral to Imperial oblivion. The last vestiges of Western chivalry are evaporating in the face of the cold calculations of Leviathan’s war machine (and this just refers to the female combat angle…I won’t even comment on how this memo refers to our soldiers as "inventory").

I have been wondering for quite some time just how much the American people are willing to tolerate for the sake of our increasingly belligerent foreign policy, and I see no end in sight.

The American people have watched their leaders invade a sovereign nation based on fabricated intelligence and crude deception…and they have "punished" the perpetrators of this policy with an election victory and four more years of power. The American people have shrugged off the increasing violence in Iraq and the mounting death toll from the conflict there. The populace has regarded the blooming fiscal catastrophe of our budget deficits – largely driven by the wars’ costs – with total indifference. Our citizens have passively accepted an accelerating attack on our Constitutional rights fueled by government-induced war hysteria.

It is as if God Himself is testing our nation to determine just how decadent we have become. As we glide past each milestone, He sets a new, lower marker.

We are sacrificing our sons, our liberty, and our fiscal solvency on the altar of interventionism and "benevolent world hegemony." None of these policies have even one iota to do with our Republic and the well-being of our citizens.

Now the Empire is coming for our daughters, our wives, and our mothers.

Is there anything currently being contested in Iraq that is worth this new blood sacrifice? Is there anything worthwhile at stake in potential future conflicts in Iran or Syria?

When I observe the policies currently emanating from Washington, I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that our government has lost its mind. It is literally out of control. Not a day goes by when I don’t hear of some new proposal which is straight out of an Orwell novel. I regularly read about prisoners rotting in secret gulags overseas, of American citizens imprisoned without access to courts or lawyers, of new passports designed with "implanted chips," of individuals nominated for "Homeland Security Czar" who have histories of power abuses that read like those of KGB officers, and of the proliferation of numerous government "data bases" for use in everything from boarding airplanes to opening bank accounts. They even want to screen all schoolchildren – without parental consent – for mental illness and possible psychotropic drug treatment.

How have the American people become so utterly submissive? Are they even willing to feed their daughters into this continuing maw of Imperial warfare with nary a complaint? Does this pit have no bottom?

There is a 50-50 chance that the feds will have to resort to some sort of military draft in the next couple of years if they wish to continue with their plans. Add this fact to the movement of women into combat units, and you have an interesting combination. What will America do? Have we become so servile that we will allow our daughters to be dragooned into some new crusade to liberate Baluchistan or bring democracy to Waziristan?

Over the next few months and years, we will watch the answers to these questions unfold. I pray that the American people awake before it is too late.

December 13, 2004

Steven LaTulippe is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.
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frank black conspiracy
~ Abstract Brain ~

1126 Posts

Posted - 12/13/2004 :  17:49:36  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by BLT

. While I consider war to be a tragedy that should be avoided by all reasonable means, I find the idea of women engaging in combat to be particularly unconscionable. Call me old fashioned, but I still cling to an admittedly traditional attitude towards women. They are beautiful…they are wonderful…and the idea of having them participate in the butchery of combat is too grotesque to contemplate.



Bit of a generalisation there, surely women who sign up to the forces do so with a free will and understanding of their own minds. i've seen some women, U.S and others, and not all are beautiful.

War knows no sex. It's the passion of a human that urges them to defend their country. I agree war shouid always be a last resort, but if and when the time comes, if he/she can hold a gun, let 'em shoot.
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~

Spain
2674 Posts

Posted - 12/14/2004 :  06:16:27  Show Profile  Click to see Newo's MSN Messenger address  Reply with Quote
Maybe they should stay at home and make shell-casings or take over the baseball leagues, BLT. And the particular sex of someone capable of an act like this matters how much exactly?



--

Maze rats dreamed of mazes, according to the latest studies. Maze rat scientists dreamed of rats. I was dreaming of cheese.
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n/a
deleted

4894 Posts

Posted - 12/14/2004 :  08:27:38  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
It makes me feel ill, if anyone is stupid enough to want to join the armed forces, to want to go out there and play soldier, shoot and get shot at, let them, fuck it the further away they are from me the better.

And FBC in the context of the Iraq war exactly who were we supposed to be defending there? There is still a justification muddle (cue the republicans) in my mind and the whole thing has been turned out to be a bloody mess.

Defending a country, fine, in the terms of defending you and your loved ones from harm then good. Anyone would do that. Defending your countrys honour or revenge or some other made up bullshit? naaaah. Don't think so.

Yeah, I missed this thread. *cough*


Frank Black ate my hamster
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BLT
> Teenager of the Year <

South Sandwich Islands
4204 Posts

Posted - 12/14/2004 :  08:31:33  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I'm not saying women shouldn't have the choice to live or die how they choose. It's like the story last week about amputees being allowed to come back. If they want the chance to have another limb blown off, more power to them...I hope they succeed.

I posted this article to show the measures the US armed forces are resorting to in order to fill the empty seats in Iraq. You mistake it for an argument about women's rights.

Edited by - BLT on 12/14/2004 08:41:26
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