THOUGHTS ON THE DRAFT

I wrote this earlier as a comment to Kevin Drum's post about a military draft on Political Animal:

In the fall of 1969, as college students, my future (and present) husband and I sweated buckets worrying if his application for Conscientious Objector status would be approved, or if not, if he would get a low number in the draft lottery. I can't believe that 35 years later we are facing the same dilemma -- only this time, it's worse. We're the parents of five young adults aged 21-26. I don't want to see a single one of our precious sons and daughters fighting for George W. Bush's insane wars. I would be proud to see them fighting to protect the U.S.A. against a real and imminent threat, but an ill-conceived adventure by a man who couldn't be bothered to even make an effort to advance Carter and Clinton's progress in the Middle East is not a quest for which I'd sacrifice their lives. Canada, you nearly got us once -- I'm already looking for homesteads.

A commenter responded:

Motherlode -

I thought Clinton's progress was negated after the second intifada started in 9/00.

Strictly speaking, you're right, that was a huge setback. My point was that Democratic POTUS's have understood that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a virus that infects the entire region and an evenhanded approach to the problem and leadership by the U.S. towards a solution has been our best hedge against a regional conflagration and an increase of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism that could threaten our own nation. Bush, in his laziness and laissez-faire attitude, allowed the situation to deteriorate. And now look where we are.


image added by silmarill 10/2/04