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Being a Canadian I am curious how most of you feel about this bill that congress is trying to pass ? I have only heard bits and peices about it. Do you support a draft ? Most of us are probably all the right age to be drafted so what does that mean to you ?
edit: Canada will probably not be involved until we raise more money since we spent it all on the 50 yr old desiel subs we bought from the brits a couple years back. Desiel electric subs circa WWII now thats what we need, but hell they fit in real well with the rest of Canada's military hardware. Its really scary to drive by a military base and outfront there is a rusty old 6 wheel tranport truck which looks like it could have been form WWII and some type of mobile howitzer of same era. I for one hope Canada starts to listen to US's recomendation and allocate more funds into our military budget...
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Why bother? They can keep their heads in the sands like most of our so-called allies and depend on the US to bail them out of whatever international predicament they get into. This way they can hop on the band-wagon and acuse the US of being the great evil empire while still enjoying the safety and security they know they have. They get the best of both worlds.
Draft: against it.
Compulsory military service (a la a system like Israel): perhaps. This seems a much fairer system with less loop holes do be dodged. Say a mandatory 2 year service term after high school.
How about better pay and benefits for soldiers? I think this would go a long way in improbing recruitment.
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I agree with Bribo, I think they should use a 2 year obligation as opposed to the draft this way no one escapes. The big complaint with Vietnam was college students getting deferments and poor kids going off to get shot at.
I was in Isreal on a couple of occasions when I was in the Marines. It always turned me on when I saw a beautiful Isreali girl walking down the street in Haifa wearing her purse and Uzi beside it.... ;)
You did not mess with those chicks..... :)
Seriously though I truly admire them for the way they do things.
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My answer depends on the situation. I believe there are conditions that absolutely warrant a draft.
Achieving a "better socio-economic soldier mix" is NOT one of those conditions, so no I am not currently for a draft.
Nor do I think it's a topic worth serious discussion. It's only being raised for political reasons at the moment. That's something that outsiders to the US have a hard time understanding I think. Politicians from both parties do and say a lot of things (and avoid doing and saying a lot of others) with the express purpose of avoiding the nasty soundbite and staying in power. It's not always about what they believe is right or necessary. Those sorts of things happen behind closed doors and are rarely publicized.
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Read this. over at the USS Clueless.
Excerpt:
"For instance, The Truth Is... that "liberals" who suddenly have started talking about reintroducing the draft are not in the slightest concerned with military readiness, and do not believe that filling out the army with draftees is an essential step in winning the war. What's actually going on is that they know that one of the biggest reasons that the people of America ultimately turned against the Viet Nam war was because it was being fought primarily by draftees. And one of the biggest reasons why America's college campuses were particular focal points for anti-war activism was because it was men that age who were being drafted."
