‘Consider the Living’

May 29, 2006

As with most Memorial Days, there are a number of compelling, well-written pieces published today on the value of [tag]sacrifice[/tag], the valor of American [tag]soldiers[/tag], and the meaning behind honoring those who serve and don’t come back. Today, however, the New York Times’ [tag]Bob Herbert[/tag] does a fine job of suggesting that “we take a little time today to consider the living.”

Look around and ask yourself if you believe that stability or democracy in [tag]Iraq[/tag] — or whatever goal you choose to assert as the reason for this war — is worth the life of your son or your daughter, or your husband or your wife, or the co-worker who rides to the office with you in the morning, or your friendly neighbor next door.

Before you gather up the hot dogs and head out to the barbecue this afternoon, look in a mirror and ask yourself honestly if Iraq is something you would be willing to [tag]die for[/tag]. […]

How many more healthy young people will we shovel into the fires of Iraq before finally deciding it’s time to stop? How many dead are enough? … As we remember the dead, we should consider the living, and stop sending people by the thousands to pointless, unnecessary deaths.

Late last week, [tag]Bush[/tag] expressed some regret for his cowboy talk from recent years, suggesting he was vaguely remorseful for not speaking in a “more sophisticated manner.” This [tag]Memorial Day[/tag], here’s to hoping the [tag]president[/tag]’s [tag]regret[/tag]s and [tag]remorse[/tag] go a little further.

Excellent point. To make matters worse, the only remotely idealistic reason for being in Iraq–democracy for the people there–was an excuse they came up with when their other reasons were debunked. None of these warmongers gave a damn about the people there at any point leading up to the invasion.

The media usually comes up with one soldier to interview who says he really passionately wants to be in a war. But most just are serving their country and they are ill-served by their leaders.

Happy Memorial Day!

  • Good advice from Bob Herbert to look in the mirror and decide if you’d be willing to personally sacrifice for this atrocious war. But actually, in the absence of a draft, such an exercise may not yield an honest appraisal–particularly for fighting keyboardists of the conservative persuasion. And that’s only true for those who would voluntarily take up the task of soul searching as we send others to kill and die in our name. Ted Koppel, among others, is advocating increased use of military contractors to fight for us (think Hessian soldiers). To me, that would be the end of all honesty and honor for America in foreign adventures. If we can’t personally fight a war, we shouldn’t have one. And citizens should be compelled to make that decision, not go on with life as if it just affects others. The draft needs to be reinstated.

  • What a tragic loss for the people of the U.S. So many killed and injured and many more to come. So many dollar’s stolen and lost. Why? Because our current leaders preach about how they are spreading democracy and freedom around the world while they steal it from us. But they are so good at spreading their spin that people say ( I think its OK if they listen to my phone calls and email ) HELL NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are stealing OUR freedoms every day! People of America UNITE. Defeat these bastards one at a time in November.

  • The draft needs to be reinstated. — Frak (#2)

    I agree. And made truly universal. And provide for a number of options to military service (could be social service, environmental service, service in the peace corps, teacher’s assistant in the public schools, etc. … NO faith-based service either). And it should require draftees to at least do there service in another state than the one the went to high school in – there are many strengths in the country … they should be spread around.

  • Amen, Ed. There’s the peace time program. I would just add to that that if there is a war on–defined as any militarized conflict anywhere in the world–ALL draftees, regardless of which service option they originally chose, are eligible to be involuntarily drafted to fight. This is truly the only way that Americans will take moral responsibility for the death and destruction we can inflict.

  • Oh, and that involuntary draft for wartime would consist of a birthday lottery with no exceptions for those with “other priorities”. No selected Rethug children and fighting keyboardists could get dispensation to spend the war defending the Gulf of Mexico. Unless, of course, the Gulf of Mexico is already under attack.

  • No draft. No way. It’s the single most serious affront to freedom there is. To say that the state owns a young person’s life for two or more years is to say that person is a slave to the state. The reason the Vietnam “war” grew so cancerously was because the politicians had an unlimited supply of draftees.

    How many more wars would Bush have going if he had more readily available soldiers?

    Besides, these “wars” we’ve been having are not about threats to the existence of this country. These are not not about self-defense which is the only justification for war in a democracy.

    We don’t protect liberty by sacrificing liberty.

  • Dale,

    Ed & Frak have it right. I’m old to have to faced the draft during Vietnam–and I missed being drafted by a handful of numbers. When the draft became more universal with the lottery system, the politicians felt more and more pressure over time from the middle and upper classes to get out of that senseless war. Congressmen love the “Washington Life” and they like being reelected.

    Dale, I’m sorry your personal liberty is threaten by the prospect of conscription. But, you can’t have leaders–like George W. Bush–who believe that there are no consequences to war. War has high costs, and it has to be the last option. A draft would have a sobering effect on the public and the politicians.

  • I should have said: “I’m old enough to have to faced the draft during Vietnam”

  • Dale, I’m from the Vietnam era myself and this I know–bring back the draft and Bush won’t be swaggering around threatening the world with war. Since Vietnam, it doesn’t take as long now for people to wise up, just to care enough to do what’s right. The draft will make us do what we should as citizens–be informed and demand our voices be heard about something as important as life, death and war. Bush prosecutes these wars PRECISELY because he knows the public has no personal investment in a volunteer army and won’t rebel. We act like supporting the troops is putting on a bumper sticker instead of insuring that our soldiers don’t kill and be killed for nothing. People in Congress and the Prez won’t force an unpopular war when they know their asses will be voted out of office. And the only way to ensure that threat is when all our asses on the line.

    As to slavery–we have rights and obligations as citizens. Some form of national service, like paying taxes and compulsory education, is not too much to ask in my opinion. It could be an enriching experience and help us keep our democracy strong.

  • Yes, I think I understand where y’all are coming from. But it always amazes me that my fellow liberals are willing to sacrifice the life and liberty of people of a certain age to a theory about how spreading the deaths will hurry politicians along or restrain them in some way. Getting more people killed is a piss poor way to manage anything especially something as theoretical as “sobering” politicians. The draft didn’t keep us from becoming more and more involved in Vietnam. And the changes in the draft didn’t prompt our leaving Vietnam. Nixon had much more compelling personal reasons for finally withdrawing.

    As for the high-minded idea that there would be a perfectly fair and equitable draft system, I have to say, practically, that politicians don’t ever leave out loop holes. Ever.

    Sorry Frak but you cannot know that Bush wouldn’t be warring if there was a draft. It’s a tenuous connection at best. As far as rights and obligations of citizens, being forced to fight and possibly die is a bit more impactfull than education or taxes.

    If it weren’t for the volunteer army our losses in the Middle East wouldn’t be 2500, they would be 25,000. (And how volunteering were the National Guard in the first place. They were shocked and awed that Bush would abuse the system and force them to fight so extensively.)

    These are just my opinions of course. All this praise of the draft comes from an honorable place, but I just think it’s incorrect in principle and in practicality.

  • Most modern nations have some equivalent of the national, mandatory, military service (with non-military options) being talked about here. Most modern nations are reluctant to commit their sons and daughters to war. The reason our nation put up with the Vietnam quagmire/defeat for so long was precisely because the Bushes and the Cheneys didn’t have to go.

    I see the draft (national service, whatever) as simply being a way to get 18 year-olds away for two years from the prejudices under which they were raised, to see a little more of the world, or at least their nation, before raising up the next generation of equally benighted boobs. But that’s an added benefit. My first reason for favoring it is that would cause future presidents to think long and hard before committing to war. Secondly, it would spread the duties around, unlike the present system which exploits those who benefit least from whatever is left of our economy.

  • Dale, I’ll tell you something – something my grandfather told me: serving the country is the price you pay for the benefit of being a citizen.

    And Ed and Frak and the others are right: nobody worried about the war in Vietnam when I was there, because draftees weren’t being sent there, it was just us stupid volunteers. It wasn’t until the Dales of my generation started looking at the state taking those two years of their lives that they started giving a ratfuck about the war, educating themselves about what they might be asked to die for, and deciding it wasn’t right.

    Unfortunately most of us are like mules. We have to have Reality come up and whack us upside the head with a baseball bat to realize there’s something going on beyond the end of our nose. I guess that’s the human condition.

    But you and the rest of the Keyboard Kommandos are free to show what patriots you are – so long as you don’t have to go actually do something about it. ’cause that’s what you get to do, paid for by all the people we remember today.

    You moron.

  • I see, looking through the comments sections elsewhere, Dale, that you’re not a moron, merely young enough to be unaware of the facts. The Vietnam war did not happen because the President had access to mass numbers of draftees. The Vietnam war ended, as I said above, when thousands of the Dales of this country who were facing the draft decided not to heed their country’s call to go die for nothing. It took them getting whacked over the head by reality to discover the fact.

    As we can see in all the wars since Vietnam, it’s very easy for Presidents to go to war with an all-volunteer Army, since it’s only “those other folks” who go fight and die. It takes YOUR LIFE being personally threatened to make you decide to take action. As Samuel Johnson once said, “Nothing so composes the mind as the knowledge one is to be hanged in a fortnight.”

  • If there was a draft in place, politically, Iraq could not have happened because the draft creates accountability to its leaders. That’s why Johnson was crucified in the 1960’s. I saw an interview with Dean Rusk shortly before his death where he said he made two miscalculations about the vietnam war. One: he underestimated the tenacity of the Vietnamese people, and Two: he underestimated the patience of the American people.

    Dale, there wouldn’t be 25,000 casualities like in vietnam because Iraq was not under a civil war. You have to give Bushie credit for one thing, though: He created another Vietnam out of thin air. We have no idea how to get out of there.

  • Don’t forget the Iraqi now living who would otherwise now be buried in mass graves, courtest of Saddam.

  • Ed, I respect your opinons and reasoning but I disagree. The draft ending the war through public opinion is certainly one story told about that era and it was an element, though, in my opinion it wasn’t the precise one. Even now anti-war and anti-draft people are reviled by many and probably by most Americans. Do you really think an un-embattled Nixon would have left when he did?

    I agree that most 18 year olds would benefit from experiences outside their upbringing, but I disagree that forced labor or military service would send the right messages. My time in the military didn’t engender respect for that institution. It showed me dull violent bureacracy at its worst. We want citizens that love freedom, not people learning to be bossed around by the current administration. I just don’t think we have the right to tell citizens to give up their freedom for two years unless the existence of the country is at stake.

    As for military service making politicans to be less likely to wage war, I’m not sure it works like that. Clinton was fairly restrained in making war and he didn’t serve. George Bush is all about war and he served a full four years of his six year obligation. (Way to go George.) So I think it might be a myth. Powell knew the horrors of war and backed Bush’s adventures. And all the unnecessary wars we’ve had were executed by men who knew what war was about.

    I can see the desire for equibility in universal service. The volunteer army does have its socio-economic exploitation, but it still reserves the right of choice, however small it might be considering the circumstances.

    I just think the draft is a bad idea. And that’s based on principle.

    So how would you feel about every age, ability-level, gender etc. being subject to national service for two years starting now? No exceptions. 🙂

  • Dale, you must be a libertarian. You are also a contrarian and wrong. Until experience teaches us otherwise, the ballot box will act as moderating influence on extreme and costly government actions–such as a great deception for a senseless war.

    Regarding the inequality of military service, on NBC’s Today show this morning a new book about the class bifurcation regarding military service was discussed. The new book was entitled: AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes from Military Service — and How It Hurts Our Country. There now is a whole book that covers our (Frak, Ed, Tom & me) argument and more.

  • kid no more, I’m sure there is right and wrong in the world of opinions. It’s just that we all have opinions about what that might be.

    I agree the ballot box is a great balancer over time. Unfortunately it is as slow as a glacier (well as slow as glaciers used to be, not as fast as they are melting now) With an unlimited number of troops available via the draft then a prez can do more damage more quickly than with a volunteer army.

    You don’t limit power by giving it more power. Plus we’ve seen how a savy bunch of politicians can use circumstances to make people forget peoples’ rights.

    Does the book ever question whether the government has the right to deprive young people of their liberty for two years in service to the government? A universal draft tell kids that they have to serve whatever bunch of politicians is in power when they turn 18 for a certain amounts of time.

    I agree that there are massive inequities in the volunteer army. but is the draft the answer? Or is it best to question the basics of volunteer army. Would better pay make it more equitable? Would better alternatives be an answer? Would a volunteer army be better and less intrusive on personal rights if it were a well-paid well-educated organization? Would it be better to reduce the use of our military so that it would have less pressure to recruit the unfortunate? Why is it better to draft everyone, which as I understand would be counter-productive to the modern army anyway? A draft is ageist for one thing. It’s just a bad idea in my opinion.

    Drafting everyone so the elite kids can learn a lesson just seems overly indirect.

  • I had a rough time this weekend. My father, a WWII veteran in his 80s, now wears a back brace and walks with a cane. He spent two days this weekend selling poppys in front of the bank in the small town where he lives just like he’s done for the past couple of decades. This year was the first he didn’t lay wreaths on the graves of his fellow soldiers as well, and he felt badly about that. Compared to many of his buddies, he’s been fortunate and he knows it, but after all these years he can’t forget his comrades, regardless of which war they fought.

    I see this man standing there at the bank and I see our President, and there’s no doubt that only one of them knows what real sacrifice is, and what it means to honor those who have made it.

  • Dale, too many Americans–like myself–know of no family or friends serving in the military. Contrary to your thinking, without the possibility of personal loss, citizens will take little interest in questioning “a rush to war.” Your extreme position on personal liberty is immoral; your logic on the effect of a draft on politicians and the political process is wrong. All I can say is: “Damn your notion of personal liberty.”

    PS — Are you of draft age (under 30)? That might explain a lot. Do you have sons? That too.

  • Slip, I would think that a lover of liberty might wish that even fewer people’s family or friends were having to be in the military. Instead of your thinking about threatening more people with loss, you might think about having fewer people threatened with loss.

    The military is vital for protection. It really hasn’t been used for protection to the extent it should be. It’s been used for political purposes way too often. The military is extremely important, but it’s not for everyone. It’s been argued that the draft degrades military effectiveness and is a financial nightmare.

    If our military was streamlined and serving only valid purposes how big would it be? Would we have troops all over the world? Would we be spending four times as much on the military as all other countries combined?

    How moral is your morality if it makes you think you have the right to deprive millions of kids of their liberty for two years? How dare you be so presumptuous.

    Nobody knows what effect a draft would have on politicians. That’s a crap shoot. But subjecting everyone to the military or national service against their will is blatantly immoral. Besides I’m not sure we have enough orange vests for all those kids to pick up litter on the freeway.

    Are you of draft age? Are your sons? Are you ready for them or you to enlist or get drafted? Are you encouraging them to enlist or do you prefer to decide that everybody else’s relatives should have to go too?

    Or if you are older are you in that stage where you start thinking those shiftless youngsters better get some responsiblity and do what you think they ought to do?

    I’ve already served in the military, so my ideas aren’t self-serving. Why can’t you see this as a matter of principle instead of selfishness?

  • (For the record, I’m a Viernam vet [1966-67] who volunteered. So that influences my opinions.)

    I almost always agree with Ed, and I do in this case, but with an exception. I do not agree that any form of conscription include anything other than *military* service. My reason is that no matter how hard we may try, we will not prevent families with connections from finagling their kids into safe, cushy jobs. Even with purely military service, that is unavoidable, but it narrows the odds of favoritism.

    Having a 21 year-old son gives me pause in all this, but I’m afraid unwise military action is more likely when the nation at large isn’t threatened with personal consequences. Another reason for a draft nobody seems to consider is that a draft reduces the likelihood of a Praetorian Guard. I’m not paranoid, but frankly, I’m not all that comfortable with an all-volunteer professional army.

    In addition, Ed’s point about young kids being exposed to a wider world is not a minor point. It was profound for me, and is needed, I think, more than ever these days.

    One more unrelated point: For about three years there’s been debate about whether Iraq is another Vietnam. Considering 14,000 US troops were killed in 1968 alone, it’s not. But the way it began and has progressed is so much like Vietnam it’s chilling to one who experienced that earlier war.

  • I agree with Alibubba about the nature of a draft. Had there been the kind of draft Ed speaks of back in the day, you can be sure young George W. Bush would have been polishing bedpans somewhere, or “teaching” on a reservation, or something equally non-threatening to his continued physical well-being. And while I think being a teacher is extremely important, most teachers aren’t in line to be shot at. Having been in line to be shot at would make one a better teacher, from my experience of the teachers I had growing up. Not to mention, the kind of draft Ed talks of is too reminiscent of the semi-fascist society described in Robert Heinlein’s novel “Starship Troopers.”

  • ‘Hanging at dawn tends to focus the mind.’ – Stephen Hawkings’ mother in Movie: A Brief History of Time.

    Bottom line, folks: With an all-volunteer army at the ready, President George W. Bush–and his neo-con cabal (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Fieth, et al)–saw a great, big GREEN LIGHT to invade Iraq with hours of the 9/11 attacks. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden enjoys his prolonged camping trip in the mountains of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

  • I can pretty much assure you that Bush did not think for one second about whether the army he had available was volunteer or conscript. This idea that a draft constrains in any meaningful way is just dumb. Instead of calling them draftees, a more accurate term would be fodder.

  • Dale, you are right about Bush’s lack of concern and “cannon fodder.” But were there a draft in 2003, the troops would have been home in 2004 — or George Bush would be an ex-President. When it’s your kid’s involuntary ass on the line, you pay more attention to the news and quit blaming everything on the French. (I don’t mean *you* personally.)

  • It’s a comforting story to think that a concerned citizenry would have ousted Bush if there had been a draft.in 2003. But it’s maybe so maybe not. Here’s a sobering bit of info: Even when people were having their kids drafted and paying attention to the news, those people not only elected Nixon in 1968, but they re-elected him in 72 after he had kept the war going for another four years.

    Two others things to consider. In order to have this theoretically constraining peacetime draft in place millions of young adults would have had their college and careers disrupted for a couple of years. A massive expensive program would have had to been put in place to handle these draftees. Not to mention the question of whether national service is legal or moral.

    Another aspect. Demonstrations used to be much more impactful than they are today, so that tool would have less effect. Public protest is pretty much ignored these days.

    Opinions. Everybody’s got one!

  • Until the senseless Vietnam War (and Watergate), the “silent majority” trusted their government; American wars–with few exceptions–were supported. (Newspaper publisher Hearst hyped the Spanish-American War.) There’s been no draft since Vietnam, and that gave George W. Bush all the opportunity to commit his folly (read “injustice”).

  • There’s some truth in the story line of an increasingly cycnical citizenry because of the Vietnam War. But the idea that there’s an outraged citizenry just waiting to burst into action is a myth. Bush’s warmongering had some huge favorable rating and every major politician signed on to it.

    Lack of a draft didn’t enabale Bush. And luckily lack of a draft has not prevented people gradually wising up. The Draft is not some deus ex machina guiding events, it is a factor but a very poorly defined one.

    Draft bad.

    Fucking over millions of young adults lives for some half-baked theory that the draft is good? That’s bad too.

    Any benefits a peace time draft might confer are hugely outweighed by the downside negatives of it.

    Next theory.

  • This is unreconcilable. This discussion thread is a dead horse.

    Bush will be lucky to avoid being tried as a war criminal.

    Bonne nuit.

  • Good night (English, our national language :-.) Slip. I’ll be looking for that AWOL book. It sounds interesting.

    • Comments are closed.