Conscription

Non-essential Conscription

As the war on terrorism continues more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are dying every month. The government is struggling to organize the number of soldiers maintaining the opposition in both Afghanistan and Iraq which brings up a popular topic-conscription (mandatory military enlistment). Senator Charles Rangel of New York was the one that introduced the call for the military draft upon the Senate. The draft was revoked and still hasn’t been in affect since the Vietnam War over thirty years ago. Reinstitution of conscription would not help this country right now, it will just make matters worse. It is not necessary to permit a draft in the United States because our advanced voluntary military should be able to control the defense of our country.

If years from now we are still fighting in operation Iraqi freedom and record numbers of troops are dropping, then congress should start to propose a draft, not now. They probably are pre-warning us right now yet won’t actually pass this mandate until next year or months from today. Who knows, the government can construct a draft tomorrow if they feel that it’s necessary.

A meeting between democrats and republicans took place in January this year regarding conscription. They basically discussed how and when this will take action. “The middle class and lower middle class should not be forced to bear the burden of fighting and dying if, in fact, this is a generational war.” (Senator Chuck Hagel-Republican from Nebraska) He and many other senators made it clear to the press that if there was a draft, then the majority of the upper middle class and upper class would be targeted to fight for our country. I agree simply because during the Vietnam War, many children of the higher social layers of society found any possible way to avoid the draft.

Our military defense has the most advanced weapons and protection system in the world. Ever since Bush took place in office, our taxes were contributing towards the expenses of the military. After watching the Department of Defense spend billions of dollars on military needs these last past four years, I wonder why they have to bring up this non-essential topic. This budget that Clinton actually proposed was $277.5 billion for the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to consider on what was necessary for the service. The majority of the money was spent on weapons systems such as upgrades on all armored fighting vehicles and the well equipped patriot missile air defense systems which were highly used during the wars in the Middle East. All other expenses were spread among improving peace-keeping treaties in Bosnia and Kuwait to increasing the pay rate of the soldiers and raising the allowance for housing for military family members.

There should be no discussion on introducing conscription for all the following reasons: Recent upgrades and weapon systems spent on the military defense; there is over 1.4 million men and women on active duty and 1.3 million serving as reservists in the armed forces today; institution of the draft should be last resort; it will tear this country apart just like the last draft; too many drafted civilians will defy orders and not want to fight, causing problems.

Another important factor that the government should take a close look at before restarting the draft is the financial incentives. We will need more money to pay the drafted soldiers as well as the ones already in. They should just focus on retention and keeping the well trained soldiers (who know what they’re doing) in the service. How will the civilians that fall into the draft react to training or fighting when they don’t want to?

Why can’t they consider having a stop-loss (when service members can’t get out even if their time is up) or call back the prior military