This is a response to something our professor said earlier in the semester, regarding a reinstatement of the draft, which he feels is not only morally permissible, but imperative for our current situation in the middle east.
There are some on the left as well as the right that call for bringing back the draft so that "everyone has to sacrifice". The leftist advocates claim that "if everyone was subject to the draft, especially the children of politicians and the super rich, there'd be a greater reluctance to go to war". This ignores the long history of loopholes in the draft law that have always served to exempt the rich and powerful. During the Civil War, you could get out of it if you paid someone $50 to take your place (maybe the equivalent of $10,000 today). The same people that accepted this offer are the ones who volunteer today to join the army and National Guard - working class, mostly small town and rural young people who see this as the only alternative to working at a fast food place or some other dead end job. They can't afford college, and the good jobs that used to exist have been sucked out of the country - "outsourced". They are victims of an economic draft.
During Vietnam, as long as you were in college, you got a student deferment, so people stayed in college and went to grad school. Low income kids couldn't afford to go to college and since there was no poverty deferment, they went to war. Cheney got FIVE deferments from the draft and years later, when asked how come he didn't fight said "I had other priorities in my life". Like the 57,000 dead US soldiers didn't??!!
One of the ways that young guys back then got out of the draft was to join the National Guard. All that was required was to give up one weekend every 2 or 3 months for I think 6 years. Many did this, including George W. Bush. I don't see his daughters volunteering to go to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I agree that war has to be taken seriously. International law says that the most serious crime is to go to war against a country that did not attack or threaten yours. Bush and Cheney and the media built up a hysteria about Saddam having Weapons of Mass Destruction, but it was a lie. The war has been going on for 5 years - where are these weapons?? He also said that Iraq was responsible for the 9-11 attack, but even the CIA has admitted that there is no evidence to support that claim.
His first Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, admitted that Bush and Cheney talked about finding an excuse to attack Iraq NINE MONTHS before 9-11. It was all about the oil, but how could they get young working class people to go risk their lives to defend Exxon-Mobil's profits??
Why can't the people vote on whether or not to go to war? The polls show that 75% of the people want us to get out. Wouldn't this be democracy? Wouldn't this be the moral thing to do?
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This is a response to something our professor said earlier in the semester, regarding a reinstatement of the draft, which he feels is not only morally permissible, but imperative for our current situation in the middle east.
There are some on the left as well as the right that call for bringing back the draft so that "everyone has to sacrifice". The leftist advocates claim that "if everyone was subject to the draft, especially the children of politicians and the super rich, there'd be a greater reluctance to go to war". This ignores the long history of loopholes in the draft law that have always served to exempt the rich and powerful. During the Civil War, you could get out of it if you paid someone $50 to take your place (maybe the equivalent of $10,000 today). The same people that accepted this offer are the ones who volunteer today to join the army and National Guard - working class, mostly small town and rural young people who see this as the only alternative to working at a fast food place or some other dead end job. They can't afford college, and the good jobs that used to exist have been sucked out of the country - "outsourced". They are victims of an economic draft.
During Vietnam, as long as you were in college, you got a student deferment, so people stayed in college and went to grad school. Low income kids couldn't afford to go to college and since there was no poverty deferment, they went to war. Cheney got FIVE deferments from the draft and years later, when asked how come he didn't fight said "I had other priorities in my life". Like the 57,000 dead US soldiers didn't??!!
One of the ways that young guys back then got out of the draft was to join the National Guard. All that was required was to give up one weekend every 2 or 3 months for I think 6 years. Many did this, including George W. Bush. I don't see his daughters volunteering to go to Iraq and Afghanistan.
I agree that war has to be taken seriously. International law says that the most serious crime is to go to war against a country that did not attack or threaten yours. Bush and Cheney and the media built up a hysteria about Saddam having Weapons of Mass Destruction, but it was a lie. The war has been going on for 5 years - where are these weapons?? He also said that Iraq was responsible for the 9-11 attack, but even the CIA has admitted that there is no evidence to support that claim.
His first Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, admitted that Bush and Cheney talked about finding an excuse to attack Iraq NINE MONTHS before 9-11. It was all about the oil, but how could they get young working class people to go risk their lives to defend Exxon-Mobil's profits??
Why can't the people vote on whether or not to go to war? The polls show that 75% of the people want us to get out. Wouldn't this be democracy? Wouldn't this be the moral thing to do?
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