[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Op-Ed Columnist: Feeling the Draft

Tue Oct 19 07:58:26 PDT 2004

The article below from NYTimes.com 
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Op-Ed Columnist: Feeling the Draft

October 19, 2004
 By PAUL KRUGMAN 

Those who are worrying about a revived draft are in the
same position as those who worried about a return to budget
deficits four years ago, when President Bush began pushing
through his program of tax cuts. Back then he insisted that
he wouldn't drive the budget into deficit - but those who
looked at the facts strongly suspected otherwise. Now he
insists that he won't revive the draft. But the facts
suggest that he will. 

There were two reasons some of us never believed Mr. Bush's
budget promises. First, his claims that his tax cuts were
affordable rested on patently unrealistic budget
projections. Second, his broader policy goals, including
the partial privatization of Social Security - which is
clearly on his agenda for a second term - would involve
large costs that were not included even in those
unrealistic projections. This led to the justified
suspicion that his election-year promises notwithstanding,
Mr. Bush would preside over a return to budget deficits. 

It's exactly the same when it comes to the draft. Mr.
Bush's claim that we don't need any expansion in our
military is patently unrealistic; it ignores the severe
stress our Army is already under. And the experience in
Iraq shows that pursuing his broader foreign policy
doctrine - the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war - would
require much larger military forces than we now have. 

This leads to the justified suspicion that after the
election, Mr. Bush will seek a large expansion in our
military, quite possibly through a return of the draft. 

Mr. Bush's assurances that this won't happen are based on a
denial of reality. Last week, the Republican National
Committee sent an angry, threatening letter to Rock the
Vote, an organization that has been using the draft issue
to mobilize young voters. "This urban myth regarding a
draft has been thoroughly debunked," the letter declared,
and quoted Mr. Bush: "We don't need the draft. Look, the
all-volunteer Army is working." 

In fact, the all-volunteer Army is under severe stress. A
study commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld arrived at the same
conclusion as every independent study: the U.S. has
"inadequate total numbers" of troops to sustain operations
at the current pace. In Iraq, the lack of sufficient
soldiers to protect supply convoys, let alone pacify the
country, is the root cause of incidents like the case of
the reservists who refused to go on what they described as
a "suicide mission." 

Commanders in Iraq have asked for more troops (ignore the
administration's denials) - but there are no more troops to
send. The manpower shortage is so severe that training
units like the famous Black Horse Regiment, which
specializes in teaching other units the ways of battle, are
being sent into combat. As the military expert Phillip
Carter says, "This is like eating your seed corn." 

Anyway, do we even have an all-volunteer Army at this
point? Thousands of reservists and National Guard members
are no longer serving voluntarily: they have been kept in
the military past their agreed terms of enlistment by "stop
loss" orders. 

The administration's strategy of denial in the face of
these realities was illustrated by a revealing moment
during the second presidential debate. After Senator John
Kerry described the stop-loss policy as a "backdoor draft,"
Charles Gibson, the moderator, tried to get a follow-up
response from President Bush: "And with reservists being
held on duty --" 

At that point Mr. Bush cut Mr. Gibson off and changed the
subject from the plight of the reservists to the honor of
our Polish allies, ending what he obviously viewed as a
dangerous line of questioning. 

And during the third debate, Mr. Bush tried to minimize the
issue, saying that the reservists being sent to Iraq
"didn't view their service as a backdoor draft. They viewed
their service as an opportunity to serve their country." In
that case, why are they being forced, rather than asked, to
continue that service? 

The reality is that the Iraq war, which was intended to
demonstrate the feasibility of the Bush doctrine, has
pushed the U.S. military beyond its limits. Yet there is no
sign that Mr. Bush has been chastened. By all accounts, in
a second term the architects of that doctrine, like Paul
Wolfowitz, would be promoted, not replaced. The only way
this makes sense is if Mr. Bush is prepared to seek a much
larger Army - and that means reviving the draft. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/opinion/19krugman.html?ex=1099197906&ei=1&en=fc398f23cdc17d06

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