Draft or Prison? Options

[strice]

If i'm drafted i'm going to prison. f*ck the war, i'm not going to kill anybody for oil.

"war is old men talking and young men dying."

[ComradeRed]

1) During Vietnam, most soldiers were volunteers. Even so, the draft severly weakened the war effort. It turned college students as well as many Republicans, normally pro-war, into strongly anti-war. The draft weakened the Democratic Party (Johnson started the draft) politically so much that Nixon was able to win in a landslide in 1972, winning every state but Massachusetts. Nixon's first action was to end the draft.

Our government wasn't overthrown, but the ruling party at the time (The Democrats) sure were.

If Bush were stupid enough to reinstate the draft between now and November, Kerry would win pretty much every state in the country, just like Nixon did in 1972.

Moreover, it is a military fact that the draft will harm a modern army, not help it. This is why Donald Rumsfeld and the Department of Defense STRONGLY oppose the draft. A draft would cause serious morale and logistical problems, and would create simply a mass of unmotivated soldiers. A drafted army would stand no chance against even a weak volunteer force in this day and age. America lost the Vietnam War in large part due to the fact that drafted soldiers did not want to be there. There were incidences of drafted soldiers shooting their own officers, faking injuries, etc. The massive discipline and morale problems, coupled with the sheer logistical difficulty of maintaining a large army in foreign territory with gurellias, meant that the Vietnam War was totally unwinnable.

Modern war means small battles using high-tech forces. It is the wrong strategy altogether to rush in a bunch of conscripts. We would quickly lose military supremacy, and with it, political infleunce.

Furthermore, remember that a draft will only cause more violence: EVERY time the United States has drafted people during a war, there have been riots and hundreds of civilians have died.