I can not sleep right now so I have just been browsing the opinion pages of newspapers I frequent. Well usually I just most and move on but this one from the Seattle Times struck me as interesting.
No group today is more opposed to the draft than those who prosper by its absence, and who know that if anyone's child — the Bush twins, the children of Congress, of the CEOs of our weapons industry, of our oil industry, and our precious own — could be conscripted by lottery to sacrificial altars like Iraq, American would feel differently about colonial warfare and gasoline that promises to flow increasingly red with blood.
Yes, a draft with no exemptions, so the likes of Dick Cheney could not take endless deferments, and future generations would not be asked to fight for those who refuse to fight; a draft where our privileged would be snatched from our high schools as readily as our less-privileged now inordinately fall prey to the tactics of military recruiters focused expressly on replacing depleted combat troops.
A draft would save taxpayers the millions now needed in marketing and financial incentives to attract these recruits. And with a ready supply of conscripted labor (currently 16 million men between ages 16 and 25), we could eliminate much of the billions our elected officials now grant their no-bid contractor-friends to squander without oversight.
Certainly, the many benefits of such a broad, equitable draft are overlooked, not the least of which, it might result in America returning to the sacred ideal of waging only defensive wars of last resort.
I think that this is pretty self explanatory and so the questioin I want to pose to everyone out there is, would this really work, or would people still be apathetic about the war unless their family is called?