Monday, September 27

DRAFT DODGING


Jonathan Alter says we're dodging the draft issue and states, "It doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out which presidential candidate this year would have a better chance of making a fresh start in securing the cooperation of our allies when the world erupts again, in Iraq, Iran, North Korea or anywhere else. Diplomacy works. Five years after Bill Clinton's war in Kosovo, 100 percent of the peacekeeping is handled by foreign troops."

The threshold question before the election is this: which candidate is more likely to have so few international friends amid a crisis that he would have to move beyond the all-volunteer force? This question takes the seemingly arcane issue of burden-sharing and brings it home to the American heartland. If we need, God forbid, to occupy another country that truly threatens the United States, we will either do it with the help of our allies or with the conscription of our kids.
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This doesn't mean that the Iraq war will require a draft. As Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has said, better management of personnel can tide us over for a while. Rumsfeld got in trouble last spring for dissing draftees, whom he said take time to train and generally don't stay long. When it was pointed out that more than a third of the 58,235 names on the Vietnam Memorial were draftees, the Pentagon answered that smart bombs and light infantry put us beyond the era of large standing armies.

Or are we? Consider Iran, where the radical mullahs are nearly in possession of nuclear weapons, a genuine threat to world peace. Some of the mullahs have already openly discussed using nukes to destroy Israel. NEWSWEEK recently reported that American intelligence agencies have concluded after "war games" that pre-emptive strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities would not resolve the crisis without further military action. Iran would likely retaliate with terrorism in the United States, especially knowing that our forces are already stretched thin. We would then blast Iran, but the follow-up, as we learned in Iraq, would require ground troops.

As the crisis unfolded, we would approach our allies. If we had repaired our tattered relations with them and they felt the United States was again exercising sound judgment, they would join us to de-nuclearize and stabilize Iran. If they didn't, and we faced an occupation that would make Iraq look easy, we would unquestionably have to impose a draft. It doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out which presidential candidate this year would have a better chance of making a fresh start in securing the cooperation of our allies when the world erupts again, in Iraq, Iran, North Korea or anywhere else. Diplomacy works. Five years after Bill Clinton's war in Kosovo, 100 percent of the peacekeeping is handled by foreign troops.

Both Bush and Kerry insist they won't revive the draft. But someday a presidential candidate will come along who has the guts to propose national service, in which every young American serves his or her country either in the military or in community-service projects at home. Until then, beware categorical promises. "Not. Gonna. Happen." That's what President Bush's father used to say about raising taxes.

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