There are NO plans for a draft

They've (the Administration) has said this before, but somehow it keeps getting ignored.

No Plans for Military Draft, Official Says

There are no plans to reinstate a military draft and the Bush administration does not support conscription, the Pentagon's top official for personnel and readiness told Congress yesterday.

Trying to counter recent Internet rumors that the military and the Selective Service System are girding for a potential draft to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Undersecretary of Defense David S.C. Chu said there is no reason to bring back the draft. He fielded questions at a House Armed Services Committee hearing that focused on the strains on military personnel as officials plan to rotate more troops into the conflicts in coming months.

Is he saying internet rumors are false??
Can't be! But...but...it's the internet, so it has to be true! I mean, if the fwds and chain e-mails people recieve are false, then how will we survive??




Here it is on Snopes:
Draft fear

Do you always believe what the administration tells you? Do you think that at this time right before an election that the administration is going to say "Yes we are considering instituting the draft?" Not hardly.
BUT the services are spread thin and they are even calling up the Ready reserve. That tells me that at some point they are going to have to give serious consideration to bolstering up the number of troops. What else but the draft? How many people are going to enter the National Guard with what they have done to them during the Iraqi war? Pleeeeease....see the writing on the wall.

i remember hearing about this a few months ago. if im correct, what i heard was a democrat brought up the idea of the draft again. he wanted people who had no children or realitives in iraq to consider the possibilty of one of thier loved ones going off to war, and what it would do to them. but there hasnt been any sort of serious effort to reinstate it. i remember hearing him on cnn or msnbc, one of them stations. and if i remember correctly he said it kind of sarcasticly.

it is a good point though. the point is this: its easy to say "we need to go to war" or whatever, but it is a completly different case when it is YOUR son or daughter who is getting the order to march, and if everyone had to consider the possibility of that, alot more people woudl be upset by the thought of war.

Originally posted by Jalengrma
That tells me that at some point they are going to have to give serious consideration to bolstering up the number of troops.

US Starts Drawing Plans to Cut Its Troops in Iraq

Do you always believe what the administration tells you?

No, do you believe everything that spam emails tell you?


A draft simply isn't necessary right now. Less than 1/4th of our army is in Iraq. The reason why it seems stretched thin is because we don't want to take our troops out of other places, but if it got real bad we would do that before any draft.

oh gee...a govt official says theres not going to be a draft
4 months prior to election time?

then it must be true - there WON'T be a draft!

(hooray! hoorah!)

geez.

We aren't receiving the real casualty stats in the mainstream
media, guys - our military is being slaughered. I know it's
not a comfy thought but, well...sending ground troops into
a region swarming with USA-haters isn't too bright.

Originally posted by ThatsJustWeird
US Starts Drawing Plans to Cut Its Troops in Iraq

You have to consider the possibility that Bush is telling people what they want to hear during an election year. This administration doesn't exactly have the reputation of being the very truthful or forthright.

EDIT: Aren't there two bills in congress right now to start the draft by next June?
EDIT: Didn't Congress recently added $28 million to the Selective Service, to reestablish draft boards?

[edit on 8-7-2004 by curme]

[edit on 8-7-2004 by curme]

There are the two bills hr163 and s89 that clearly plan out a draft...these bills probably won't pass, although there are some senators and house members who support a draft...

A draft simply isn't necessary right now. Less than 1/4th of our army is in Iraq. The reason why it seems stretched thin is because we don't want to take our troops out of other places, but if it got real bad we would do that before any draft.

So, then if less than 1/4 of our military is in Iraq, howcome, many military officials are saying that our military in Iraq is stretched out and is in dire need of reinforcement? It's not just military officials that are saying this either, its everyone that follows the news that is saying the military in Iraq is in need of more troops. And, if you say we need more troops in Iraq, and yet according to you we have those extra troops avalaible for deployment, then howcome we aren't doing anything about it and just letting the matter get worse?

And by the way, it is real bad.

[edit on 8-7-2004 by TheCatalyst]

[edit on 8-7-2004 by TheCatalyst]

here's a radical concept: how about WITHDRAWING ALL THE TROOPS BECAUSE THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO FEND OFF BOMB THROWING
EXTREMISTS WHO ARE MULIPLYING BY THE HOUR??

DOESN'T ANYONE REALIZE OUR BEING THERE DELIGHTS BIN LADEN/

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS THIS?????

Originally posted by TheCatalyst
So, then if less than 1/4 of our military is in Iraq, howcome, many military officials are saying that our military in Iraq is stretched out and is in dire need of reinforcement?

You just answered...
It's being stretched thing because less than 1/4th of our army is there. To occupy a country of that size you would need more troops. Poor planning on our part.
And it's 1/4th our our Army, not military. The US military has over 1.4 mil people. Our army has getting close to 500K. Only 150K or so is in Iraq now.

And, if you say we need more troops in Iraq, and yet according to you we have those extra troops avalaible for deployment, then howcome we aren't doing anything about it and just letting the matter get worse?

I answered this already. I'm not in the military so I don't know why but for whatever reason "we don't want to take our troops out of other places".

And by the way, it is real bad.

My point is it's not bad enough to require a draft. Especially now that the country's been turned over.
Let's say the worst happens. Real draft legislation is introduced (those two bills mentioned below don't even require you to do military service). It's debated, changed, debated some more. Voted on. Passed. Signed by President. Draft begins at set time. By the time any draftees would be ready to go to Iraq, it'd be 2007 at the earliest. I can promise you Iraq will not be as bad as it is now by then, making the whole draft process pointless (well maybe not totally pointless - Americans do need to get into shape).

do you all have any idea how high the casualty stats are??

try over 8000! Those included burn victems and amputees.

average age is 23.

And for what? So Iraqis can attack them, Saddam can make the cover of the NY Post and Bin Laden's factions multiply like rabbits?

Hate to say this - but people around the world have reason to think
we're a violent, stupid lot. I personally don't think Iraqis (who we initially dropped bombs on, folks) are worth the arms and legs of American
23 year olds.

I for one would rather see them get out of there so we don't look
like morons to the rest of the world; don't u all realize people are scratching their heads saying: why are Americans allowing another Vietnam to occur? I've been asked that by both a Pakistani and a woman from Ireland.

Cultures all over the world notice this, people. That's one of the reasons we are hated. It's fairly obvious we don't take care of our own. Keeping troops over there just makes us look like selfish, dumb, "war-is-a-video-game" idiots.

Originally posted by curme
Aren't there two bills in congress right now to start the draft by next June?

Curme-Both bills were introduced by Democrats. One by Charlie Rangel, the other by Earnest Hollings. While I don't know much about Hollings, I have a hard time believing Rangel would ever do anything remotely in support of Bush and Co.

IF anyone thinks for a minute that this government would rather pull the military out of other areas of the world than to reinstitute the draft then you need to wake up and read YOUR spam e-mail. You know darn good and well that this country would have NO intention of taking troops out of ANYWHERE. What would that say about our strength? It is all smoke and mirrors. The big strong USA needs to pulls troops out of other areas because they are stretched too thin? HA! There would be a draft first!!

Originally posted by Shoktek
There are the two bills hr163 and s89 that clearly plan out a draft...these bills probably won't pass, although there are some senators and house members who support a draft...

These are two Bills that are supposedly dead on arrival. One very important thing to note. The sponsors are ALL DEMOCRATS! Look it up the the House and Senate Web Sites.

It seems they've introduced a bill JUST to point at it as a political tool against Bush.

In addition, the only public statement on the draft that I have heard was from Jessie Jackson, on the Hannity show during the Democratic Convention. He stated that we needed to reinstitute the draft because too many poor people's kids were in the army and not enough rich people's kids were. Race AND social baiting using the draft...

Man....if both sidewould JUST TELL THE TRUTH!!!! I'd be a lot easier.

Bush supporters should be happy they may be drafted to Iraq; it'll give them a chance to yell: BRING IT ON! to their enemies faces as opposed to their television screens.

[edit on 30-9-2004 by bushblows]

They just said on Fox that the draft is "nothing more than an urban legend" floating around on the internet.
They got emails from people wondering why no one was reporting on the bill for the draft. It seems that democrats had the bill up as a political tactic to make people think about what would happen if their son or daughter was drafted into the war.
hmmm...

Well, let's look at some of the statistics:

�The Bush-Rumsfeld war machine is responsible for the bloated budget deficit, which will expand as the voids are filled� inevitably by a draft if we remain on the same course.�

�By New Year's Day 2004, one service, the Army, had blocked over 40,000 troops from discharge or retirement on their appointed dates. Over 16,000 of them were National Guard. All told, over 70,000 troops have now been affected by Stop-Loss.�

�On January 20th, Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the U.S. Army Reserve, told reporters that the current situation is untenable, and that the military is facing a severe retention crisis, because the use of troops, especially Reservists is, in his view, abusive. Addressing troops, he said, �We value your service and we're not going to run this like a doggone flesh farm.'�

�Repeated, long-term deployments will clearly take a toll on spouses and children of our men and women in the military here at home. Military service always entails time away from home, but we think that the active services - and particularly the Army - must find a way to better balance the demands of overseas deployments with the needs of troops' families back home. Otherwise, we may face a mid-grade retention problem in the coming years that will be devastating to our forces.�

We're not going to reimplement a draft. There is no need for it at all. The disadvantages of using compulsion to bring into the armed forces the men and women needed are notable. The disadvantages to the individuals so brought in are notable. If you think back to when we had the draft, people were brought in; they were paid some fraction of what they could make in the civilian manpower market because they were without choices. Big categories were exempted -- people that were in college, people that were teaching, people that were married. It varied from time to time, but there were all kinds of exemptions. And what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone....

-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, January 7, 2003

www.fromthewilderness.com...

It seems to me the draft will be reinstated but I hope not. Even though Rummy sure acts like it won't be.

this is completely ridiculous. A draft will open up protest as big or even bigger than that of the '60s. It would result in the republicans loosing control of the congress and probably the presidency, even if its only after a bush re-election this year. It's not poltically viable for the republicans to support a draft, let alone re-instate it. THe only people support a draft in congress are democrats, and the person that started all the draft talk was Charles Rangell a democrat from NY. His reasons for the draft are the very reason why bush and the republicans won't start one. He wanted to re-instate the draft so that everyone will have to participate in the war, and he stated that he hopes this will lead to enourmous protests and widespread opposition to the war, that will prevent the president from continuing the war or starting a new one and possibly unseat him and other republicans from the government.

Its nuts to pretend that the 'evil republicans' are going to bring back the draft. If the democrats really push it in the senate or house, it'll be the republicans who are going to fight agianst it, because a draft would be antagonistic to their agenda and goals.

When you enlist in the milatary, wheter you are a cook or a spec-op soldier, you are an asset of the milatary to use. If you signed up to join the National Guard, I feel for you and your family, but there was a risk. Suddenly the extra 700 dollars a month means # when you are knee deep in some city can't even pronounce miles from home. HOwever, BUsh did not make that decision for you.

There is no need to implement the draft, but theycould make it a choice for inmates, direct service year for year for your sentence. Drop a bunch of shaved head slim-shadys in IRaq and let them play ghost Recon.

Follow the paper trail road

stick on your ruby slippers

And say three times

There is no plan for a draft, there is no plan for.....................

[but remember the factor 20]