My return...

[0sm0se]

to internet access was kindly greeted with this little number.


I hope no one posted this yet, though even if they did, I think its worthy of a recap.

Mostly rhetorical but if you can provide an answer of adequate detail while still attaining brevity, please tell me when the world went mad?

 

[Baliset]

1978

 

[xfer]

I support a mandatory draft.

Non-military, of course.

 

[chupe666]

i think i'm in better shape now than i was at draftable age

 

[FalseTodd]

This keeps coming up...so I'm not sure if there has been any change...but I believe that bill was originally proposed by anti-war democrats as a manner of saying "HEY WAKE UP THIS IS WHAT WE'LL HAVE TO DO IF WE KEEP ALL THIS UP". The bill was never really seriously considered. Has this changed? Are people actually talking about launching this out of the subcommittee it's been gathering dust in?

 

[lizard]

the point being that if Bush gets four more years, we'll need a draft. our military reserves are completely committed, and an all volunteer army suffers in recruiting numbers when there's like, war and bombs and shit.

 

[mindspell]

How big is the reserve in the US? Is that helping at all right now? Did they call the reserve people yet (I mean not the volunteers)?

 

[minxnim]

they called the reserves right away.
as it is now, reservemen and women are being held for twice their statutory time limit, and military personnel are being sent indefinitely.

 

[mindspell]

Thanks for the info. The more I see this war going the more it resembles Viet Nam, except for the fact that the US never actually claimed it won anything in Viet Nam.

 

[xfer]

I still think it's extremely premature to liken this war to Vietnam on more than the most general level. It's simply very different, and I worry when I hear anti-war types call it Vietnam, because the fence-sitters who we're trying to get on our side might be able to clearly see the falseness of that statement and decide the whole side is wrong.

The draft legislation is being pushed by incredibly misguided progressives, as well, who say things like "Our military is full of poor people who had no other options! The sons of rich people don't die in combat!! With a draft, maybe the oligarchs who run our country will think twice about going to war if their sons may be involved!!!"

Yeah, so chalk that up to one of the most terrible ideas the progressive movement has ever had.

One of the problems with actually implementing this draft is that it's highly probably it will be legally forced to draft women. Precedent simply wouldn't allow that kind of gender discrimination nowadays. And the hawkish types who are general backers of drafts also tend to be opposed to women in the military. Although after witnessing the capabilities of Lynndie England, maybe they'll have changed their minds.

 

[minxnim]

alex i think a lot of older people say it's like vietman because their GUT reaction to it is the same. i don't really care whether it's like it or not and i don't think a small statement like that changes anyone's mind.

 

[mindspell]

I wasn't saying it was like Vietnam, just that there are similarities to the way it is handled and the way it is going. There are a lot of differences between those two wars, but there is also a striking similarity in the way it is and was handled by the media, the way they side themselves with the policy and the way it is perceived as being critical while it really is not.

 

[xfer]

I think it's an issue because people are trying to act like we need to learn from the lessons of Vietnam in this war or something. And Vietnam was enormously about the Cold War, and the struggle between two superpowers. The core issue of Vietnam wasn't guerrilla-versus-regular troops, and when people ask the question, "Should we stay or not?", Vietnam shouldn't play into it at all.

It is somewhat applicable purely in terms of tactics, but I know very few people whosit around talking tactics, and all of them are exceedingly pro-war. Otherwise, I don't think it is.

 

[mindspell]

I think it's an issue because people are trying to act like we need to learn from the lessons of Vietnam in this war or something. And Vietnam was enormously about the Cold War, and the struggle between two superpowers. The core issue of Vietnam wasn't guerrilla-versus-regular troops, and when people ask the question, "Should we stay or not?", Vietnam shouldn't play into it at all.

It is somewhat applicable purely in terms of tactics, but I know very few people whosit around talking tactics, and all of them are exceedingly pro-war. Otherwise, I don't think it is.

Well, the way I see it is that the military really wants to get out as soon as possible. The problem is that diplomatically, and with the election coming, the government can't get out because the UN is very slow in the help department exactly because it stepped over them to get there, Democrats would have a field day showing dying Iraqis if you left already. What is similar is that in Vietnam a general concensus is that the media lost the war for the military by showing war coverage like never before, and that fueled the anti-war movement a lot more than it used to. But that is bullshit, the military were seeing that it would never get through it as soon as 68. The NLR were unbeatable because they were a populist, peasant movement and the people the US were helping were the elite, and in any country there is a lot more peasants than elites. I agree that what fueled Vietnam was the cold war, but there was more to that, the military used the media to justify atrocities and tactical operations that were unecessary. The military also used the media to convince people of the necessity to get out, it looks like a failure but it would have been a much bigger failure if they kept at it. There was no resolution to that war.

Take those and translate them today, and you'll see the similarities I am talking about. The military wants to get out fast, and is using the media to have a popular movement telling them to get out.

 

[xfer]

Well, who doesn't want to get out as soon as possible? Anti-Bush people all the way up to Bush, who's desperate enough to bail he's pretty likely to leave Iraq in shambles?

A lot of the comparisons you make are about the media, not about the war...

 

[mindspell]

I know, similarities are there between the events happening now and then still.. And excuse me because Manufacturing Consent is very fresh to my memory right now and it deals with that subject, and a long chapter on Vietnam