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Author Topic:   Military Draft Rumor
jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 13, 2004 01:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Who's promoting and pushing the military draft rumor? Who introduced mirror Bills in the House and Senate to reinstate the military draft in America?

No one but the lying democrats, but then, lies are their very best thing and lies are front and center in their campaigns to take back the House, Senate and Oval Office.

But hey, those lies are for a good cause, now aren't they? And right after the elections, democrats will resume their normal upright behavior...just like Bill Clinton did. Right!

How the Draft Rumor Got Started
An obscure government website that became an Internet conflagration
By JOHN CLOUD
Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2004

A little more than a year ago, an obscure Defense Department website called defendamerica.mil posted a routine notice from the Selective Service System (SSS) seeking to fill vacancies on the nation's 2,000 draft boards. The boards do little these days — the last draft ended 31 years ago — but they are maintained in case a cataclysmic event makes conscription necessary again.

Few noticed the defendamerica posting, but it pinged around the Web and eventually helped create one of the most dubious e-mail phenomena since ads for penis enhancement: the rumor that if he is re-elected, President Bush plans to reinstate the draft.

The President has repeatedly said he favors an all-volunteer military, as does John Kerry. But that hasn't dissuaded a loose-knit coterie of online conspiracists, antiwar activists and Democratic Party operatives from keeping the draft rumor alive.

The chatter began last year after Democrats introduced a pair of bills in Congress to resume conscription. The bills weren't taken seriously in Washington — Representative Charles Rangel said he introduced his version to make the point that the volunteer military is full of minority kids with few options. But the bills led to the formation of a website called stopthedraftnow.com, and they inspired a largely fallacious, prodigiously forwarded e-mail claiming that the White House was fighting for the bills and that "$28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System budget to prepare for a draft." In fact the entire SSS budget is just $26 million, and the system estimates it would need $600 million to oversee a national draft. When Republicans finally brought Rangel's bill to a vote last week, it lost 402 to 2.

But by then the rumor had plodded from chat rooms to the mainstream, especially on college campuses. This fall the University of Minnesota's Daily ran an editorial concluding that "re-electing Bush might very well lead to a draft." The National Annenberg Election Survey released last week found that 51% of 18-to-29-year-olds believe that the President wants a draft, in contrast to just 8% who think Kerry does. Kerry surrogates Howard Dean, Max Cleland and Michael Moore have all stoked draft fears. Democratic Iowa Senator Tom Harkin told the Des Moines Register this month that the White House has "secret plans" to begin a draft. And Rock the Vote, the left-leaning group started by the music industry, is running ads featuring a forlorn-looking young man getting a buzz cut. "OFF TO COLLEGE OR OFF TO WAR?" the ad asks. "Could you be drafted?"

Democrats, who are no doubt thrilled when reporters call about the draft, say it's a legitimate issue. "The Administration is using the military in a way that may make reinstating the draft necessary in the future," says Jim Jordan, a former Kerry campaign manager. He notes that "it's exactly the kind of issue that gooses base turnout."

Maybe. But in dozens of interviews in seven states last week, TIME found that while many students are discussing the draft, few say they will decide their vote on the issue. "The draft is just being used as a tool by Democrats to get Bush," says Kirsten Steffey, a senior at Drake University in Iowa who plans to vote for Kerry. "It's just a distraction from issues I'm more concerned about." Hope as Democrats might, an Election Day boost for Kerry remains, like the draft itself, merely hypothetical.

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LibraSparkle
unregistered
posted October 13, 2004 01:56 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I wish Politics wasn't such a dirty game

Although, as Kerry pointed out in the last debate, the president has basically put a back door draft into effect. The stop loss, for one example. Why not force people who otherwise want out of the military to stay in? Then the Bush Administration can pretend not to be sending people off to war that don't want to be there (as in a draft).

Bush found a way around the draft that has the same effect.

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 13, 2004 02:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Excuse me LS, but those who have a military obligation volunteered and part of the provisions of the contract they entered into with the United States is that they can be extended for a period of time beyond their enlistment period....as circumstances dictate.

In no way is that a back door draft....more libo pop BS by those on the left. You know LS, the left, composed of those who wish Saddam and the Taliban were still in power in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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LibraSparkle
unregistered
posted October 13, 2004 02:53 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Oh please, JW ... No one wishes that.

Anyhow... at least those on the left know the DIFFERENCE between Saddam and Osama/Taliban.

I read an article somewhere that said something like 38% of Republicans still believe Saddam was responsible for 9/11.

I'll see if I can dig it up.

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LibraSparkle
unregistered
posted October 13, 2004 03:21 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Having a hard time finding it. Here's another that suggests even more Republicans are confused:

quote:

Conservatives Must Face Iraq Facts
By W. James Antle III (10/12/04)

*snip*
In fact, an October 6 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 62 percent of self-described Republicans, a fair if imperfect proxy for the rank-and-file right, believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks against America. Fully 50 percent believed that the Iraqi dictator was personally involved in planning the attacks.



W. James Antle III is a columnist for American Daily. His writing has appeared in The American Conservative, where he is an assistant editor, National Review Online, The American Spectator Online, FrontPage Magazine, and elsewhere. His commentaries are also reguarly featured in Enter Stage Right, where he is a senior editor, Mens’ News Daily, IntellectualConservative.com, The American Partisan, The Reality Check, The Patriotist and WEBCommentary.com. Originally from Boston, Antle now lives and works in Northern Virginia.

http://www.americandaily.com/article/5380

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 13, 2004 04:12 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Sorry LS, I'm not going to let you get away with saying no one on the left wants to see the Taliban and Saddam Hussein still in power in their respective countries.

First of all, the entire effort of the left has been to prevent the United States from removing them.....both.

The consequences of a successful effort by the left to prevent US and coalition intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq would be, indisputably that the Taliban and Saddam Hussein would still be in power in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively. Still murdering, still torturing, still raping, still filling the mass graves in Iraq and intimidating, killing, denying human rights and sheltering al-Queda in Afghanistan.

Nor will I let you get away with claiming their remaining in power would be unintended consequences....because the consequence of their remaining in power invariably and predictably flows from the decision to not remove them and is the direct and indisputable result of not attacking them.

Please do not attempt to make illogical arguments with me LS.

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