Truly however this all boils down to the fact that a large percentage of American military officers are cowards and politicians who are more concerned with their next promotion than the welfare of their Marines. This is why the men who are worth a damn leave in droves. This leaves those who are there because they are losers and need the job security and those who are there for the inflated sense of respect a few extra chevrons “earn” them.
Honestly how much spirit can a grunt have when he or she knows deep inside that the war they’re fighting is a political war. All deaths are wars like those are pointless.
I would not want to die for the president, so that he and his supporters can further their agendas, whatever they might be.
The last war i would have fought in was Vietnam, and that was borderline for me. We kept the spread of communism in check.
World War 2 was obvious. We were defending our country, so sighn me up.
Today, none is really inspired to fight for obvious reasons. Sure there are some flag waving patriots that will happily walk to their death for anything the president says, but otherwise our population is lacking “inspiration” in their fighting. I can clearly see why.
The draft would make it harder for people to claim they support their president, ride around with “I support the troops” bumper stickers, without really giving it a second thought.
If a democracy chooses to go to war, they should go to war. Not only a small part of the population who’s votes where drowned in the masses.
I don’t know how much support this war would have gotten in the people thought they would have run a serious risk about ending up in Iraq themselves.
Seeing that the unresponsible people on this list hate the idea of the draft, they probably don’t think it would increase support for the war either.
[quote]Wreckless wrote:
The draft would make it harder for people to claim they support their president, ride around with “I support the troops” bumper stickers, without really giving it a second thought.
If a democracy chooses to go to war, they should go to war. Not only a small part of the population who’s votes where drowned in the masses.
I don’t know how much support this war would have gotten in the people thought they would have run a serious risk about ending up in Iraq themselves.
Seeing that the unresponsible people on this list hate the idea of the draft, they probably don’t think it would increase support for the war either.[/quote]
My feeling was that it would very quickly and very drastically cut public support for the war.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
What could be more democratic than a volunteer military?
How would a draft make it more democratic?
Of course this crap comes from a guy that believes Castro is democratically elected because the whole population is forced to vote for him.[/quote]
A draft IS much more democratic, look at the armies of Greek city states or the Roman Republic as examples. I tend to think many, if not most, of the enlisted men in the U.S. Army, and probably a good chunk of the officers, are there for adventure, the pay, travel, direction and other issues, not pure patriotism. I hope no one serving takes this as a slur, it’s just been my observation that it’s generally accurate.
However, a conscripted U.S. Army would probably be an even bigger disaster than the broken force that followed Vietnam.
[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
What could be more democratic than a volunteer military?
How would a draft make it more democratic?
Of course this crap comes from a guy that believes Castro is democratically elected because the whole population is forced to vote for him.
A draft IS much more democratic, look at the armies of Greek city states or the Roman Republic as examples.
[/quote]
Those states were barely democratic compared to the democracies of today. Back then very few people were actually considered citizens and had a vote.
There are many motivations to join the military. I think post 9/11 patriotism is a bigger motivation than pre 9/11.
[quote]
However, a conscripted U.S. Army would probably be an even bigger disaster than the broken force that followed Vietnam.[/quote]
While the WWII conscripted army of citizen soldiers was hugely successful I suspect you are right.
If we drafted the majority of American males of fighting age and sent them overseas for the duration I suspect we would take Tehran and Damascus in short order. Of course that won’t happen.