The Draft: Now and Later

Note this. The draft looks like it may commence in June 2005, just in time for us to invade Syria, Cuba, Northern Vermont, or Disneyland.

However, as John Kerry has noted, we already have a back-door draft in place in the form of the increasing "stop-loss" measures that are forcing retiring military folks to stay on, bringing discharged military back to active duty involuntarily, and keeping reservists and guardsmen in place for far longer than was ever intended.

In fact, pretending this is anything other than the draft right now is ludicrous. But Bush doesn't want him name attached to a plan that grabs your teenagers until after the 2004 election cycle. Since Mr. Bush steadfastly avoided the draft, it seems rather improper for him to force your kids to go.

Remember when we were told Iraq was a cake-walk? That we would be in and out of Afghanistan quickly? That we were just there to remove a few bad guys and to liberate the people from harm?