[wordup] Secret Service and the Draft

[Adam Shand]

From: http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html

     "ENHANCE THE SYSTEM WHICH GUARANTEES THAT EACH CONSCIENTIOUS  
OBJECTOR IS
     PROPERLY CLASSIFIED, PLACED, AND MONITORED.

Nice, glad that's a priority.  For more good news ...

From:  
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&e=1&u=/uclicktext/ 
20031204/cm_ucru/acolddraft

A COLD DRAFT
Thu Dec 4, 6:22 PM ET
By UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE/TED RALL
Will Bush Bring Back the Draft?

NEW YORK--When I was a kid, standing around the post office waiting for  
my mom to buy stamps, I entertained myself by flipping through the  
"wanted" notices clipped to the bulletin board. I was impressed by the  
fact that most of the people who'd done bad things didn't look all that  
evil in their mug shots. Mostly the felons looked tired. And poor. You  
could tell from their frayed collars.

Mixed in with the accused murderers, kidnappers and mail fraud  
conspirators (this was the post office, after all) were local kids  
wanted for dodging the draft. Their profiles didn't look anything like  
those of men wanted for tri-state killing sprees. The sections  
dedicated to "prior convictions" were blank and the government didn't  
have fingerprints for them. Draft evaders' photos came from their high  
school yearbooks where everyone turned a little to the right, grinning  
with optimism and framed by shaggy early '70s haircuts. Nevertheless,  
the message was clear. As far as the government was concerned, evading  
service in Vietnam was as bad as boosting a bank.

Whenever the feds needed more cannon fodder, they interrupted primetime  
sit-coms to broadcast a draft lottery. Two guys wearing American flag  
lapel pins would turn a metal tumbler and pluck out slips of paper  
bearing birthdays from 18 years earlier. "If you were born on April 4,  
1951, you have 30 days to report to your local Selective Service  
bureau."

Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" wasn't nearly as creepy.

"How long has this war been going on?" I asked my mom while Uncle Walt  
recited body counts along with the closing value of the Dow Jones  
Industrial Average. Born in 1963, I must have been about 8.

"Pretty much since you were born," she replied. Then she corrected  
herself. "Well, really even before that."

"Will it end before I turn 18?"

"I don't know. Probably not. I hope so."

They stopped the draft when I was 10; we lost the war two years later.  
I never had to resolve the terrible dilemma that drove those kids on  
the wanted posters to flee to Canada. Were they pacifists or were they  
wimps? Everyone knew that Vietnam wasn't winnable. Was it wrong to  
refuse to die for nothing, or was it good sense? Was defending the  
corrupt South Vietnamese regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu "fighting  
for your country"? Even if a war was both winnable and moral--World War  
II, say--was forcing a human being to risk death and dismemberment a  
form of slavery?

War is the riskiest and gravest endeavor that can be undertaken by a  
nation-state. Defensive combat, the struggle for self-preservation, is  
the only kind of war a just and prudent nation may wage. Unless an  
overwhelming majority of a country's citizens agree that a war is  
necessary--a real war like Iraq (news -web sites) or Vietnam, not a  
lark like Grenada or Panama-it cannot be won. And a country united by  
the consensus that it must fight doesn't need a draft. Citizens will  
line up to volunteer.

In early November, the Pentagon (news - web sites) website  
DefendAmerica.mil put out a call for applicants willing to serve on  
Selective Service System draft boards. "Serve Your Community and the  
Nation--Become a Selective Service System Local Board Member," the ad  
read. "If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 local  
and appeal boards throughout America would decide which young men who  
submit a claim receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from  
military service, based on federal guidelines." Noting that the SSS  
hopes to fill its 8,000 draft board slots by spring 2005, many  
journalists are wondering aloud whether the Bush Administration plans  
to reinstate forced conscription of 18-to-26-year-olds after the  
election, just on time for invasions of Iran, Syria and/or North Korea  
(news - web sites).

Reports of a big uptick in the draft agency's budget from '03 to '04  
abound, yet the feds claim that ramping up Selective Service is part of  
"the routine cycle of things." "There are no secret discussions," says  
SSS spokesman Pat Schuback. "We aren't doing any planning that we don't  
do on a routine basis." Yet they refuse to issue a categorical denial.  
A February Surprise, perhaps?

Our armed forces are stretched dangerously thin. 60,000 of the 130,000  
troops stationed in Iraq come from the National Guard or reserves.  
90,000 more are serving in Kuwait, Afghanistan (news - web sites),  
South Korea (news - web sites), Kosovo and Macedonia. Demoralized by  
low pay and long tours of duty under harsh conditions--why won't Bush  
invade someplace with nice weather and hot babes?--49 percent of  
soldiers told Stars and Stripesnewspaper that they won't re-enlist.  
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top brass say they prefer  
volunteer professionals to surly conscripts, but in the end they may  
not have a choice.

This much is certain: If Bush resumes his neocolonial landgrab after  
"re"election, he'll have to bring back the draft. And a new generation  
of young men, ordered to disrupt their lives to feed the vanity and  
bank accounts of a cabal of gangsters, will ponder whether to flee or  
fight.

(Ted Rall is the author of the graphic travelogue "To Afghanistan and  
Back," an award-winning recounting of his experiences covering the U.S.  
invasion of Afghanistan. It is now available in a revised and updated  
paperback edition containing new material. Ordering information is  
available at amazon.com.)
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