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Selective Service Sustains Self, Stirs Shit
Gosling
Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered User regular
Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered User regular
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2746094&page=1
The gist: The small staff the draft has haven't been able to do routine maintenance since 1998. They announced plans to do that routine maintenance in 2009 (FUN FACT: The next President begins his/her term in 2009). Just that simple act caused the media to swarm all over them.
I'd put up some discussion questions, but I have a feeling this thread's going to take a life of its own no matter what I say after the article banana banana poontang.
Dec. 22, 2006 — The Selective Service plans to test its operational system in case the United States again opts to draft young American men into military service — a test laden with meaning as the Bush administration considers increasing the size of the military and a surge of new troops in Iraq.
Preparations for the new test, slated for 2009, will begin in June. But Selective Service officials, who have been overwhelmed with telephone inquiries over the news, are quick to say that this test is merely a routine exercise.
"The whole thing's a tempest in a teapot," agency spokesman Dick Flahavan said. "We're not getting ready to spring a draft."
The Bush administration has opposed a draft, with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying the current all-volunteer force is adequate and more effective. But the prospect of a draft has been increasingly controversial as the three-year-old war in Iraq grows progressively more unpopular with the American public.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson on Thursday told reporters that "society would benefit" under a renewed draft, though he later said he did not support bringing it back.
Democrats opposed to the Iraq war have used the threat of a new draft to draw Americans' attention to the stakes of the conflict. Incoming Ways and Means Committee Chair Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said last month that he plans to reintroduce legislation in the 110th Congress to reinstate the draft.
A Troop Surge
The test was announced as President Bush appears likely to declare a surge of 30,000 or more new Americans troops to join the current 140,000 soldiers on the ground in Iraq to curb rising violence. Bush told The Washington Post that he is also favorably inclined toward increasing the size of the Army and Marines. The services have recently lowered standards for many of the 1.4 million-strong service members now in uniform in order to maintain current recruiting levels.
Rangel has offered — and voted against — the measure in the past. In October 2004, a month away from a tight presidential race fueled by rumors of a new draft, the Republican-led Congress overwhelming defeated Rangel's bill to restore conscription, 402-2.
Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., and Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., were the only members of Congress to vote in its favor.
Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said the proposal is not high on the congressional priority list come January, but she commended Rangel's commitment to the cause last month.
"It's not about a draft; it's about shared sacrifice in our country," Pelosi told reporters in her office.
But when asked directly if she supported a measure to reinstate the draft, "No, no," was Pelosi's answer.
The test is a dry run of the machinery that randomly selects men who are legally obligated to sign up at 18 and the bureaucracy that considers conscientious objectors and appeals for delays based on hardship.
History of the Test
The agency has run through tests periodically since mandatory draft registration was reinstituted in 1980 for the first time since the Vietnam War. But it hasn't tested the system since 1998 due to funding shortages, Flahavan said. The organization's budget has slipped from about $28 million in the 1980s to $24 million in 2006. So the test, last planned for 2005, has also been delayed, Flahavan said.
"The year 2009 seemed like the closest time we could do it given resources and manpower," Flahavan said. "It may not even happen then depending on what we look like in 2008."
The agency has a full-time staff of 150 but would need 6,000 to carry out a draft. Another 11,000 part-time officials in 2,000 local draft boards and state headquarters have been designated, but only do annual training in case of a draft, agency officials said.
"My title's bigger than my staff," quips Flahavan, associate director for public affairs. "Most of our structure doesn't exist during peacetime because there is no draft."
The gist: The small staff the draft has haven't been able to do routine maintenance since 1998. They announced plans to do that routine maintenance in 2009 (FUN FACT: The next President begins his/her term in 2009). Just that simple act caused the media to swarm all over them.
I'd put up some discussion questions, but I have a feeling this thread's going to take a life of its own no matter what I say after the article banana banana poontang.
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
Gosling on
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It's outdated, but if we need to keep it, it needs to apply to women too.
Who are you, and what have you done with the real FyreWulff?
On a more serious note, given the amount of blatant lies that have come from this administration, is anyone really surprised that the media doesn't believe "we're not planning for a draft?" I mean, seriously, "we're not going to war in Iraq," "Secretary Rumsfeld will be around until the end of my term," "we had nothing to do with the Wilson leak," etc., etc., etc.
Eventually, you tell people enough lies, and they stop believing you.
Some days I feel like joining the military and making something of myself and some days I tell myself I would just take the prison term.
Clinton had a chance to kill it off but caved in to pressure because getting rid of Selective Service would "dishonor" those who were drafted in World War II.
Honestly though, the Democrats are more likely to issue a threat than Bush - they have been the ones threatening to call it in hopes that people would vote the war out of existence.
Not "the Democrats". Charles Rangle.
Pffft. The Democrats.
2 years is a long time you know. :?
...if they dont have money...
...to actually use the sytem...
...that they get paid to use in the first place...
...then why do these people still have jobs?
And as much as the american public is hating on the war right now I dont think a draft would really go over to well. I think that most people would rather have the whole mess over with.
To add to that; how would a few thousand young boys with guns "beat" guerillas and rioting civilians?
Because they're dressed like civilians and run up to you and explode. Plus they positive that they're going to eternal bliss afterwards.
EDIT: This coming from my cousin who is on his thrid stop-loss and piloting helicopters in Tikrit as we speak.
Actually, I think we do have a program that gives people citizenship in exchange for serving.
Jobs Americans don't want.
Like getting blown up.
As long as they're poor, who care where they come from?
If America itself were under attack though, I can at least SAY I wouldn't flee the draft. I think there should be a distinction between 'willing to fight for your country' and 'not wanting to go to a pointless and deadly quagmire.'
That sounds like the French Foreign Legion. You sign up, after 5 years of service you become "french by spilled blood".
Why would he be affected by stop loss three times? Stop loss prevents you from getting out of the military, and they can only justify it once, for a limited period of time.
Either your cousin is feeding you bullshit or you aren't paying attention. Believe it or not, they actually have rules to follow in the military.
Links for your benefit:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2005/d20051213mythfact.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda06-09.cfm
nice.
I've noticed that it's mostly suburban and rural folk going.
Which doesn't surprise me at all.
I was pretty sure that the majority of the country was in the cities.
http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book/1population6.htm
This says I'm right.
Sort of.
Suburb has its own chart, which is absolutely stupid.
On a not-entirely-unrelated note, I was listening to an interview on NPR recently (I think it was Friday, but I have no more specific information) in which an Air Force general was saying that, while the Army is having trouble filling recruitment goals, the AF is in exactly the opposite situation; they're looking at laying people off due to lack of funding. Basically they have too many airmen. They recently set up a system to allow "blue to green" transfers, basically letting airmen transfer to the Army instead of being laid off. Very few people took them up on the offer.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
Maybe if you were good friends with transsexuals.
You've got to remember though, that's a result of not having funding. They're still below the minimums needed to effectively fulfill their mission.
In that hypothetical situation that they did bring it back, I'd move. Personally, I don't have to worry, I'm 29 (30 in a month
Not anymore--Canada has agreed to extradite draft dodgers. Really, it's go to war or prision.