John McCain, War Games And The Draft

John McCain has it on good authority (George W.) that The Hundred Years' War is more than a boring chapter in European history. It's Chapter One in the Bush/Cheney foreign policy crisis handbook, War Games: The Pre-emptive Punch Power Play.

The Bush/McCain doctrine is clear: It is imperative to strike the first blow when we have a notion someone out there means to hurt America. Or even piss us off. Especially if they've got oil. Or a pipeline. We hit first and we hit hard. Any perceived enemy is fair game. No verifiable evidence of evil intent required. These Grand Ole Pugilists know evil when they see it. Dubya has sixth sense enough to look into the eyes of another power player and see right into the guy's soul (a skill, one can hope, he will share with McCain should November bring us a GOP victory).

Bellicose, saber-rattlin' War Games. That's what Bush/McCain foreign policy is all about. America is not alarmed.

Our role, as defined by the current administration, is to go to the mall. We are the Shop-for-Freedom Fighters. The vast majority of us are non-military families. And it's just fine to play the War Game when the "pieces" -- the toy soldiers -- belong to somebody else. But what do you do when the troops are worn slap out?

My friends, John McCain feels a draft.

And I'm with you all the way, good buddy. We Southerners are famous for firing the first shot when we're in a snit. I'm with you when you say the new draft should not be like the old one. You did not, of course, offer us any idea as to how you would amend the Selective Service. So, liberal or not, I'm going to do my patriotic duty. If we're going to fight the good fight for the next hundred years, we need some damn rules.

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We need a draft again. A shiny new one. The old Selective Service was just that -- selective. There were easy deferments for those who had the money to stay in college. Lots of Vietnam-era privileged guys got a sudden yen for graduate degrees. And others, like George W. and Dan Quayle, could avoid the draft altogether because daddy had money, had power, had influence. Daddy just pulled a few strings and got you bumped ahead of every other poor guy on the National Guard waiting list, or got you into grad school even when your academic record put you so low on the list of applicants you left skid marks.

Nope. We can't have that. We're going to play fair this time. No matter whose keester winds up in a sling.

Look to games to define the rules of fair play for games. Let's do it like, say, the NBA. You know, first round draft picks, second round, third round and so on. And no deferments. None. Here's how it goes:

First Round: The kids, nieces, nephews and/or grandchildren of every member of the executive branch who supports the war. The president and vice-president are the first Americans to send all of their family's kids off to war. Every last one of them.

Second Round: Legislative branch kids. Legislators who vote to authorize war send their own children. Along with executive branch kids, they are the first wave to the front lines.

Third Round: DOD, Pentagon and war-mongering think tank policy makers/writers. All their young'uns are gone.

Fourth Round: Hit up corporate America. Kids of defense contractors, oil company execs and the like.

If you love the notion of a war, if you promote it, vote for it or stand to make a profit from it -- then you are certainly happy to do your patriotic duty. You'll want to share, to the fullest extent, the power and glory of your righteous war. You've earned the privilege. Kiss your kids goodbye. For the duration.

Senator McCain, I am so with you on this new draft.

And it'll work wonders. I'm sure of it. You can bet we'll see some serious talking going on in Washington. We'll see a veritable renaissance of diplomacy and intelligent, thoughtful discourse in solving our problems. There won't be another Vietnam or Iraq in our future -- not with the kids of the powerful at risk first. Talk about your checks and balances! No more manipulative, lying, pre-emptive rush to war without consequences. Like impeachment.

War Games will be rare indeed when the children of the powerful and privileged are the first to play. The cost of war, our leaders will tell us then, is too damned high.

Comments

[Pavane]

Excellent article.

[MargaretO]

Good blog, Linda.

Maybe we should knit John McCain a nice wool sweater to go with his draft.

[SuboSubo]

Love this one, Linda!

I especially love the whole draft rounds idea. I'm sure that all those deferments will be readily surrendered by the high and mighty who send somebody else's kids to war.

Even tho you didn't mention it, I'm sure you meant to specifically include young women in the bright and shiny new draft. Didn't you?

No more debutante balls, no more cotillions, no more of Daddy's Little Girl taking a year abroad. Hell no, let her go!

[Carolinacolumnist]

Linda Hansen here.

Oh, yes. I specifically meant to include young women in the bright and shiny new draft. We're all equals, right? Well, when it comes to bearing the burden of war, some of us are more equal than others...

Let Big Daddy's Little Girl (and Big Mama's, too) face waltzing off to war wearing those tacky fatigues, dodging bombs, bullets and IEDs rather than a meddlesome media--without a spa or stylist in sight--and see how fast the dynamics of diplomacy change in D.C.

[mamacat]

Thanks for the blog. Fun to read.

I see a real advantage to a universal draft. It seems to me that wars of aggression are less likely when the citizens of the country doing the aggressing have to actually think about the consequences of their national policies. It is absolutely true that draftees are not generally as well motivated as enlistees, but sometimes that can be a real good thing. Draftees are most likely to be motivated when the war is fought to defend the country, instead of some stupid reason like the POTUS can't read a map, and invades the wrong country.

I think that on balance, draftees in World Wars I and II performed well. (Sgt. York was a draftee.) The consensus was that the wars needed to be fought. In Vietnam, draftees did much more poorly, and for good reason. It is not normal for people to want to suffer and risk death and maiming, not to mention killing other people, in a war that doesn't make sense.

I have been in outfits that had draftees, and I have been in outfits that were all volunteer. All volunteer outfits definitely have a higher morale, and people tend to work harder, but in today's America, that just means that they are more likely to be used for purposes that draftees could not be used for, like waging unjust wars of aggression.

- a vet for Obama

[phae100]

Great article.

[NoDrama]

That didn't work during Viet Nam, the quality of the military was demonstrably low - and improved by all measures and accounts when the draft ended (the year AFTER my birth -cadre was in the lottery.) But McCain can't be touting "One spouse, One house!" as his values, so I suppose it's go hawkish to keep control of the narrative for one or two news-cycles as the DNC in Denver looms.