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Draft?; Military draft
Topic Started: Nov 19 2006, 07:59 PM (176 Views)
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Rep. Rangel Will Seek to Reinstate Draft
By JOHN HEILPRIN (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
November 19, 2006 5:53 PM EST
WASHINGTON - Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 under a bill the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says he will introduce next year.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars.

"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," Rangel said.

Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, has said the all-volunteer military disproportionately puts the burden of war on minorities and lower-income families.

Rangel said he will propose a measure early next year. While he said he is serious about the proposal, there is little evident support among the public or lawmakers for it.

In 2003, Rangel proposed a measure covering people age 18 to 26. It was defeated 402-2 the following year. This year, he offered a plan to mandate military service for men and women between age 18 and 42; it went nowhere in the Republican-led Congress.

Democrats will control the House and Senate come January because of their victories in the Nov. 7 election.

At a time when some lawmakers are urging the military to send more troops to Iraq, "I don't see how anyone can support the war and not support the draft," said Rangel, who also proposed a draft in January 2003, before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "I think to do so is hypocritical."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Standby Reserve, said he agreed that the U.S. does not have enough people in the military.

"I think we can do this with an all-voluntary service, all-voluntary Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. And if we can't, then we'll look for some other option," said Graham, who is assigned as a reserve judge to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals.

Rangel, the next chairman of the House tax-writing committee, said he worried the military was being strained by its overseas commitments.

"If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft," Rangel said.

He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, "young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals," with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.

Graham said he believes the all-voluntary military "represents the country pretty well in terms of ethnic makeup, economic background."

Repeated polls have shown that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of the draft and officials say they do not expect to restart conscription.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress in June 2005 that "there isn't a chance in the world that the draft will be brought back."

Yet the prospect of the long global fight against terrorism and the continuing U.S. commitment to stabilizing Iraq have kept the idea in the public's mind.

The military drafted conscripts during the Civil War, both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. An agency independent of the Defense Department, the Selective Service System, keeps an updated registry of men age 18-25 - now about 16 million - from which to supply untrained draftees that would supplement the professional all-volunteer armed forces.

Rangel and Graham appeared on "Face the Nation" on CBS.

---

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Selective Service System: http://www.sss.gov

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Students See Little Chance of Draft
By MARTHA IRVINE (AP National Writer)
From Associated Press
November 20, 2006 9:42 PM EST
CHICAGO - Many college students see the latest flirtation with a military draft more as political game-playing than a serious threat.

They welcome a discussion on military issues and the war in Iraq but, regardless of their political leanings, view a draft as outdated and unrealistic.

Their comments came Monday as U.S. Rep Charles Rangel - a New York Democrat who's also the incoming chair of the House Ways and Means Committee - says he will introduce legislation next year that would reinstate the draft and require young Americans to register after turning 18. Rangel sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars.

Nora Vail, a junior at DePaul University in Chicago, sees some merit in having a discussion about military service.

It's not "the Bush twins going off to war," she says. "It's going to be the poor kids growing up in the South or the inner city who go off to war."

But she doesn't think reinstating the draft is the answer - and calls it a "terrible" idea.

"The majority of people who'd be drafted would oppose the war," Vail says, referring to Iraq.

"It would just be Vietnam all over again. It would be people forced to serve in a war that they didn't want to be at," says Vail, a Democrat majoring in political science.

Students with other political affiliations share her opposition to the draft, though sometimes for different reasons.

"What would I do if I was drafted? I think I probably wouldn't be the best of soldier. I'm not sure other soldiers would want to depend on me," says Steven Haag, a 21-year-old senior at Emory University in Atlanta, who's majoring in classics and history. The editor of the Emory Political Review, he identifies himself as a Republican.

In reality, he says most students see little chance of a draft measure actually passing.

"The only people who are talking about it are the political pundits and a couple kids around campus," he says.

Jamie McKown, a professor of government and policy at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, agrees that many young people don't see the draft as a real possibility - but if it were, he says, it would be an "explosive issue."

"I think they associate the draft as almost a historical thing - as something that occurred when we were involved in a bad war," he says, referring to Vietnam. At the very least, he thinks Rangel's proposal will spark debate - not just among students, but also parents.

"Maybe we should talk about how likely we are to go to war if it's your children and not somebody else's children," McKown says. "But I can't see that anyone thinking about (running in) the 2008 campaign would want to touch it with a 10-foot pole."

Already, House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi has said that restoring the draft will not be part of that agenda when Democrats take over the House in January.

That said, the war in Iraq remains a hot-button issues for young voters, along with the economy and the cost of higher education.

Ben Unger, field director for a major nonpartisan get-out-the-vote effort, found that time and again as he registered young voters in California, Arizona, Iowa and Oregon for this month's midterm election. In the end, he says those issues motivated young people to show up at the polls in impressive numbers, as they did in the 2004 election.

The issue of concern when it came to Iraq was not, however, necessarily a draft.

"They mostly see it as something that affects their lives but is half a world away," says Unger, field director for the New Voters Project.

More often, young people told him they were concerned about the loss of life - both Americans and Iraqis - and the lack of progress in the war. "They don't have any better idea how we're going to get out of it - I think they feel relatively hopeless," Unger says.

Kyle Massenburg, a senior at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, agrees that a disproportionate number of low-income and minority students enter the military. He saw many of his high school peers do so because they wanted to pay for school or needed a job.

"It's a tough dilemma," says Massenburg, who's 21 and a corporate communications major.

But he and others say they'd be more motivated to support a draft if they saw a better reason for fighting.

"We are not at war with a tangible enemy," he says. "Even though I consider myself a conservative, I do not believe that people should be forced to serve in the military for an unstable cause."

---

On the Net:

New Voters Project: http://www.newvotersproject.org/

Students See Little Chance of Draft
By MARTHA IRVINE (AP National Writer)
From Associated Press
November 20, 2006 9:42 PM EST
CHICAGO - Many college students see the latest flirtation with a military draft more as political game-playing than a serious threat.

They welcome a discussion on military issues and the war in Iraq but, regardless of their political leanings, view a draft as outdated and unrealistic.

Their comments came Monday as U.S. Rep Charles Rangel - a New York Democrat who's also the incoming chair of the House Ways and Means Committee - says he will introduce legislation next year that would reinstate the draft and require young Americans to register after turning 18. Rangel sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars.

Nora Vail, a junior at DePaul University in Chicago, sees some merit in having a discussion about military service.

It's not "the Bush twins going off to war," she says. "It's going to be the poor kids growing up in the South or the inner city who go off to war."

But she doesn't think reinstating the draft is the answer - and calls it a "terrible" idea.

"The majority of people who'd be drafted would oppose the war," Vail says, referring to Iraq.

"It would just be Vietnam all over again. It would be people forced to serve in a war that they didn't want to be at," says Vail, a Democrat majoring in political science.

Students with other political affiliations share her opposition to the draft, though sometimes for different reasons.

"What would I do if I was drafted? I think I probably wouldn't be the best of soldier. I'm not sure other soldiers would want to depend on me," says Steven Haag, a 21-year-old senior at Emory University in Atlanta, who's majoring in classics and history. The editor of the Emory Political Review, he identifies himself as a Republican.

In reality, he says most students see little chance of a draft measure actually passing.

"The only people who are talking about it are the political pundits and a couple kids around campus," he says.

Jamie McKown, a professor of government and policy at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, agrees that many young people don't see the draft as a real possibility - but if it were, he says, it would be an "explosive issue."

"I think they associate the draft as almost a historical thing - as something that occurred when we were involved in a bad war," he says, referring to Vietnam. At the very least, he thinks Rangel's proposal will spark debate - not just among students, but also parents.

"Maybe we should talk about how likely we are to go to war if it's your children and not somebody else's children," McKown says. "But I can't see that anyone thinking about (running in) the 2008 campaign would want to touch it with a 10-foot pole."

Already, House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi has said that restoring the draft will not be part of that agenda when Democrats take over the House in January.

That said, the war in Iraq remains a hot-button issues for young voters, along with the economy and the cost of higher education.

Ben Unger, field director for a major nonpartisan get-out-the-vote effort, found that time and again as he registered young voters in California, Arizona, Iowa and Oregon for this month's midterm election. In the end, he says those issues motivated young people to show up at the polls in impressive numbers, as they did in the 2004 election.

The issue of concern when it came to Iraq was not, however, necessarily a draft.

"They mostly see it as something that affects their lives but is half a world away," says Unger, field director for the New Voters Project.

More often, young people told him they were concerned about the loss of life - both Americans and Iraqis - and the lack of progress in the war. "They don't have any better idea how we're going to get out of it - I think they feel relatively hopeless," Unger says.

Kyle Massenburg, a senior at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, agrees that a disproportionate number of low-income and minority students enter the military. He saw many of his high school peers do so because they wanted to pay for school or needed a job.

"It's a tough dilemma," says Massenburg, who's 21 and a corporate communications major.

But he and others say they'd be more motivated to support a draft if they saw a better reason for fighting.

"We are not at war with a tangible enemy," he says. "Even though I consider myself a conservative, I do not believe that people should be forced to serve in the military for an unstable cause."

---

On the Net:

New Voters Project: http://www.newvotersproject.org/

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Iliveon-Levandownbytheriver
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Very disturbing. A draft....truly scary!!!!!!
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