Fighting Wars Without A Draft Or Taxes
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
October 26, 2007
Fighting Wars Without A Draft Or Taxes
By Dan K. Thomasson
WASHINGTON -- Here are a few facts Americans should consider when contemplating the situation in Iraq and whether they support sustaining this invasion and occupation for the length of time the Bush administration has said it may take to put things on a sound, peaceful footing, if that is ever even possible.
This is the longest war without a draft in the country's history. It is the longest conflict to be conducted without a tax increase, despite costs that far exceed those of the Korean and Vietnam wars combined. The soldiers and Marines carrying out the fight are being subjected to the shortest of home rotations before returning to combat.
Let's look first at the fact the war has gone on longer without a draft than both world wars and Korea and Vietnam. As a consequence reservists and National Guards have had to supplement the professionals who make up the regular armed forces to a greater degree than anyone would like. These "citizen soldiers" often have been under-equipped and poorly trained for the kind of urban warfare that has been the hallmark of this fight. As a result, their casualty rate has been high. The toll taken on their families and their civilian careers has been enormous.
Still, few Americans would support reinstating the draft. Had there been one, however, it is certain that the outcry against this war would have been much louder and possibly violent as time went on without an end in sight. Volunteerism just doesn't carry the same weight for objection or sympathy as a whole bunch of civilians being pressed into service. The volunteers took their chances when they signed up for the Guard and Reserves, after all.
Fighting a war while at the same time passing out tax cuts is also unprecedented. Lyndon Johnson thought for a time that he could continue to have a "guns and butter" budget but eventually realized that it was necessary to ask the nation's taxpayers for a one-time 10 percent surcharge for Vietnam.
President Bush is seeking another $46 billion for military purposes, a total of $196 billion this year. The Democrats who won back control of both houses last year on a pledge to bring a swift end to the conflict know they are going to have to give it to him or face being accused of abandoning America's forces. But Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sees a chance of moving up the timetable for complete withdrawal from Iraq. He wants the supplemental appropriations bill to include only half the funding, requiring the president to come back later for the rest.
The 51 Democratic votes in the Senate aren't enough to do much more than apply mild pressure to a White House apparently determined to spend without concern to support its Iraq agenda. Bush is bolstered by the knowledge that it takes 60 votes to cut off debate, allowing Republicans to defeat most efforts to impose a timetable for withdrawal and providing no chance for overriding a veto, which requires two-thirds in both houses. In the meantime, new natural disasters like the horrendous California fires and the lingering aftermath of the hurricanes of two years ago stretch the budget. Legislation for a war tax has been introduced but is receiving little attention at this point.
Probably the most dangerous threat to the U.S. military is the damage to morale. A policy of 15 months of combat-zone duty and only 12 months at home before rotating back to Iraq or Afghanistan has caused veteran officers and enlisted ranks to rethink their careers. In a tour of important stateside military bases, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, reportedly found anger and tough demands from the mid-level officers, mainly captains and majors, who are crucial to any Army. They have begun to seriously question not only the fairness of this policy but also to reassess their commitment to the service.
The drain on men and material caused by Iraq and Afghanistan has been enormous. Taking on other global responsibilities requiring U.S. forces is practically impossible at this time without a draft or a huge increase in volunteer forces not to mention billions more for equipment.
Putting this all together, one comes away with the thought that if we are to have any chance to extricate ourselves from this no-victory situation, it will take a lot more pain. Are we willing to endure it and if we aren't then what?
Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.
October 26, 2007
Fighting Wars Without A Draft Or Taxes
By Dan K. Thomasson
WASHINGTON -- Here are a few facts Americans should consider when contemplating the situation in Iraq and whether they support sustaining this invasion and occupation for the length of time the Bush administration has said it may take to put things on a sound, peaceful footing, if that is ever even possible.
This is the longest war without a draft in the country's history. It is the longest conflict to be conducted without a tax increase, despite costs that far exceed those of the Korean and Vietnam wars combined. The soldiers and Marines carrying out the fight are being subjected to the shortest of home rotations before returning to combat.
Let's look first at the fact the war has gone on longer without a draft than both world wars and Korea and Vietnam. As a consequence reservists and National Guards have had to supplement the professionals who make up the regular armed forces to a greater degree than anyone would like. These "citizen soldiers" often have been under-equipped and poorly trained for the kind of urban warfare that has been the hallmark of this fight. As a result, their casualty rate has been high. The toll taken on their families and their civilian careers has been enormous.
Still, few Americans would support reinstating the draft. Had there been one, however, it is certain that the outcry against this war would have been much louder and possibly violent as time went on without an end in sight. Volunteerism just doesn't carry the same weight for objection or sympathy as a whole bunch of civilians being pressed into service. The volunteers took their chances when they signed up for the Guard and Reserves, after all.
Fighting a war while at the same time passing out tax cuts is also unprecedented. Lyndon Johnson thought for a time that he could continue to have a "guns and butter" budget but eventually realized that it was necessary to ask the nation's taxpayers for a one-time 10 percent surcharge for Vietnam.
President Bush is seeking another $46 billion for military purposes, a total of $196 billion this year. The Democrats who won back control of both houses last year on a pledge to bring a swift end to the conflict know they are going to have to give it to him or face being accused of abandoning America's forces. But Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sees a chance of moving up the timetable for complete withdrawal from Iraq. He wants the supplemental appropriations bill to include only half the funding, requiring the president to come back later for the rest.
The 51 Democratic votes in the Senate aren't enough to do much more than apply mild pressure to a White House apparently determined to spend without concern to support its Iraq agenda. Bush is bolstered by the knowledge that it takes 60 votes to cut off debate, allowing Republicans to defeat most efforts to impose a timetable for withdrawal and providing no chance for overriding a veto, which requires two-thirds in both houses. In the meantime, new natural disasters like the horrendous California fires and the lingering aftermath of the hurricanes of two years ago stretch the budget. Legislation for a war tax has been introduced but is receiving little attention at this point.
Probably the most dangerous threat to the U.S. military is the damage to morale. A policy of 15 months of combat-zone duty and only 12 months at home before rotating back to Iraq or Afghanistan has caused veteran officers and enlisted ranks to rethink their careers. In a tour of important stateside military bases, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, reportedly found anger and tough demands from the mid-level officers, mainly captains and majors, who are crucial to any Army. They have begun to seriously question not only the fairness of this policy but also to reassess their commitment to the service.
The drain on men and material caused by Iraq and Afghanistan has been enormous. Taking on other global responsibilities requiring U.S. forces is practically impossible at this time without a draft or a huge increase in volunteer forces not to mention billions more for equipment.
Putting this all together, one comes away with the thought that if we are to have any chance to extricate ourselves from this no-victory situation, it will take a lot more pain. Are we willing to endure it and if we aren't then what?
Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.
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And he is beating the war drum again[:(] Isn't 2 wars enough? 0 -
Right you are Feenix. I forcast a draft as being a certainty about two years ago. No one here said peep on the subject.
Having to do only one tour in a hell hole I'm shocked today's poor devils have to have to do multiple tours with just a short break.
It just aint right.0 -
I dont think we'll be able to do it much longer without a draft and War Bonds.
Dissent among professional military can't be ignored.0 -
I was never a supporter of the draft and I became less so after our own WWII vet Joe told us that when he enlisted it was for a period of the duration PLUS six months. He also said that there were men in his division who had gone overseas and not been home for three years, nor did they have expectation of doing so until the war was over. I know that Joe is made of sterner stuff than most of us, but I'll bet he'd have thought he'd gone to heaven if after 15-18 months in a combat zone he got to go home to the States and stay for a full year before returning to duty overseas. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by v35
Right you are Feenix. I forcast a draft as being a certainty about two years ago. No one here said peep on the subject.
Having to do only one tour in a hell hole I'm shocked today's poor devils have to have to do multiple tours with just a short break.
It just aint right.
A draft is political suicide, especially when the conflict in question is not a declared war. You will never see a draft again unless our country is actually attacked by another sovereign country.
You can take that statement to the bank.0 -
Draft by 2015 regardless of which party is in. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by v35
Dissent among professional military can't be ignored.
Those are supposed to be hand picked people.0 -
It is political suicide and that's why we have mercenary armies.
I saw and heard what just one tour did to families at home. The situation with military families today must be an unpublished disaster having an older Army drawn from NG and reserves.
I remember one 35yr old WOG we called Pappy Allen, a WW2 retread.
That's probably the mean age of a sargeant today.
Unreasonable demands made on our military personnel today, in a desperate effort by the Govt to put off a draft, has caused the dissent.0 -
Diverting just a bit from the main topic -- since President Bush considers the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq vital to our interests, and obviously there is a need for more people wearing the uniform.... Why aren't his daughters serving?
I would only support a draft if it were comprehensive -- none of the deferments we saw in the Vietnam era, after the powers-that-be discovered that failure to keep "the best and the brightest" out of harm's way was detrimental to long-term business and political interests. The only valid reasons I can see for fighting wars is for our national survival and/or the survival of the world as a whole, or, in certain few-and-far-between circumstances, for the sake of our honor. In either case "the best and brightest" should run the same risk of dying in battle that the traditional "cannon fodder" do. After all, who stands to benefit more from our nation's survival, than those who will be entering the worlds of big-scale business and politics? Let them pay their way in blood -- otherwise don't ask or order the rest of us (or, more accurately, our kids) to do so.0 -
Mongrel, you asked why the pres daughers were not in the army??? Well maybe because it is an all vol army?? My daughter went airforce because she wanted to do someting for our countrty. What have you done. ? 0 -
tccox,
Mongrel ain't president and he ain't advocating others sacrifice for something he started, now is he?0 -
quote:Originally posted by tccox
Mongrel, you asked why the pres daughers were not in the army??? Well maybe because it is an all vol army?? My daughter went airforce because she wanted to do someting for our countrty. What have you done. ?
+1. My oldest son is also in the USAF - 4th generation of continued military service - and now my youngest son (10th grade) is also contemplating. [^]0 -
My ONLY child, a Daughter, volunteered, and is in the USAF.
Volunteer Military means you get the best. Draft the dummies, and you spend more personnel training/supervising/correcting/arresting the idiots. The added bodies do not result in a commensurate increase in fighting ability, and makes movement more ponderous, less agile/responsive.
The article quoted has a glaring fallacy (outright lie?) within it: neither the percentage nor the sheer numbers of our losses are high.0 -
quote:Originally posted by mongrel1776
Diverting just a bit from the main topic -- since President Bush considers the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq vital to our interests, and obviously there is a need for more people wearing the uniform.... Why aren't his daughters serving?
Why should they? Who the hell are you to demand that they serve? They are their own persons, adults, and only they have the right to determine if they should serve or not.
Your question is childish at best, ignorant at worst.0 -
quote:Originally posted by spanielsells
quote:Originally posted by mongrel1776
Diverting just a bit from the main topic -- since President Bush considers the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq vital to our interests, and obviously there is a need for more people wearing the uniform.... Why aren't his daughters serving?
Why should they? Who the hell are you to demand that they serve? They are their own persons, adults, and only they have the right to determine if they should serve or not.
Your question is childish at best, ignorant at worst.
I didn't demand. I asked a question. I understand completely that we have an all-volunteer military. The point made in the original post was the difficulty of continuing this war without a draft or taxes to provide manpower and funds. The point to my question was, if our President's daughters decline to serve, what obligation is any other young person in this country under?
Notice I didn't say a word, pro or con, about those who serve. I have younger relatives in the service, one of whom has served two tours in Afghanistan. When I question why the President's daughters aren't in uniform, it isn't by way of implying a lack of support for those who are. Rather, it's that I consider their duty an honorable sacrifice made to our nation, and question why the children of the man who has made that sacrifice a matter of life and death are not stepping up to the plate.
It's neither childish nor ignorant to expect a leader, and the family of that leader, to set an example for the rest of the nation. It's idealistic. I realize it's also unrealistic, in this day and age, but I wouldn't say it constitutes immaturity or ignorance to ask a question based on the hope that it might be otherwise.
I'm not going to get sucked into a whizzing contest on this one. At last check I had the right to ask questions, as you and others have the right to question and/or disagree with my position. At last check, also, the situation in Iraq, and the related issues in our own country, were slightly too complicated to be solved either by my asking questions or someone else's firing off a post, taking offense to my doing so.
For the information of those whose response to criticism of the current handling of our international affairs is, What have YOU done? -- in the course of being recruited into the Marines, after having VOLUNTARILY signed the papers, I was determined to be of 3F draft status and honorably discharged. I am presently 44 years old and too busted up, physically, to be much more than a liability if I were to somehow enter military service at this point in my life. You could say I've done nothing to merit the right to speak, but in so doing you would deprive any person not actually in the service, at this moment, of their right to do so, also.
I'm neither entirely in favor of nor entirely opposed to the war in Iraq, so no one with strong feelings on either side is going to find me in lock-step with them. If that makes me the object of contempt on both sides, well, I'm a unifier. I got you all to agree on at least one thing. Savor the moment. [:D]0 -
We should stop worrying and go shopping. The People have spoken. 0 -
Even after the bombing of Pearl Harbor only 1 out of 3 enlisted, so 2
out of three were drafted. However even having been a enlistee, I saw no difference in those drafted or who enlisted either in ground combat
efficiency or in "brains". Actually didnt know who in my platoon enlisted or was drafted and didnt care as long as they did their jobs
which most all did, and did it well. My vote is for a draft. With all the hi tech equiptment we still men to take and hold ground and as far as a standing Army we sure are low on the totem pole in comparison to many other non-friendly countries. We stupidly waited too long in WW 2
to draft. And we paid dearly for it in casualties by sending poorly
trained soldiers into combat with only a few months of training. Yes, I was one of them but luckily had 20 weeks of training prior to my first combat. Is this what one would want for his son? Or would you rather see him properly and fully trained?0 -
The moment the government slaps a $2 a gallon tax on gas or abolishes Bush's tax cuts or institutes the draft with no exemptions for school or family, the US will pull out of Iraq. The war has gone on as long as it has because the vast majority of people who vote and play a role in politics--middle and upper class educated folks--have not had their lives disrupted in the least by it. Really, honestly, you go to Lowes or to the mall or the movie theater, and there is absolutely no evidence that a war is going on. People are remodeling bathrooms, planning college trips, shopping for fall wardrobes. Outside of America's military bases there is just no evidence that American soldiers are fighting and dying overseas.
But the soccer mom with the W sticker on the back of her new SUV who votes for George Bush because he's a strong leader--when her taxes suddenly go way up and her two boys get told to leave school and suit up for Fallujah, she will turn on Bush in a heartbeat. My father-in-law is a defense contractor. When I talk to him, he's all excited about the big paychecks rolling in and new contracts and so forth. I ask him what he thinks about the war, and he tells me that business has never been better and that he'll clear $2,000,000 next year. Really, over 3,000 American servicemen and women dead and he talks about how he'll finally be able to buy a nice boat.
This country is stratifying into those with incredible wealth and no sense of responsibility, and those with next to nothing who give all.0
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