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Monday, July 10, 2006
Bring back the draft
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Throughout the Iraqi phase of the War on Terrorism, especially when attention is momentarily focused on some other potential world troublespot — last week it was the seconds-long Taepodong-2 missile launch by North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il —a distant hum arises from the campgrounds of the Left.
Harken! Listen closely. The hum grows louder. Draaaaft. Draaaaft. Draaft. Draft. Ah, yes, the draft. March the 18-year-olds, boys and girls alike, down to the induction station for physicals. The Bush doctrine, which allows for preemptive strikes against regimes that threaten us, surely cannot now survive another day without the military draft. That’s the message behind the hum you hear from the Left.
It’s all so tiresome. Sad thing, really, that this nation can’t have an honest debate on the draft. We can’t. The Left injects it not for an honest, good-faith discussion, but because it’s seen as a way to mobilize another group against the war. That group is, of course, those affected, those the Left would have this administration round up and march off to boot camp. That group and their mammas. The Cindy Sheehan Nation.
Frankly, I’d welcome a return of an all-male draft. Every citizen has an obligation to public service. And all service is not equal. No higher national-service calling exists than the military. The highest and best benefits and respect for public service should always go to young men and women who choose the military, as opposed to, say, teaching, working in hospitals, serving in the Peace Corps or some other alternative. All are admirable. But all aren’t equal.
Our democracy would be healthier and stronger if reporters, politicians, professors and other opinion leaders experienced the real “diversity” of America in a foxhole on the front line of the war on terrorism. Sad to say, though, that’s a debate this nation can’t conduct in good faith.
