|
CounterPunch
December
31, 2002
Draft Beer, Not Kids
by RON JACOBS
CNN reported on January 30, 2002, that Senator Rangel
of New York will introduce a bill in the next session of Congress
that would reinstate the military draft. Rangel who voted against
the recent congressional resolution authorizing Bush to use force
in Iraq, claims that restarting the draft will make lawmakers
think twice before they rush to war. They will be more cautious,
goes his reasoning, because their sons and daughters might be
among the soldiers going off to kill and die. After all, a military
draft would include all men (and maybe women) in the United States
who were of a certain age. "When you talk about a war, you're
talking about ground troops, you're talking about enlisted people,
and they don't come from the kids and members of Congress,"
he said. "I think, if we went home and found out that there
were families concerned about their kids going off to war, there
would be more cautiousness and a more willingness to work with
the international community than to say, 'Our way or the highway.'
"
Mr. Rangel has not done his homework.
If one looks at the last war where US citizens were drafted-the
war in Vietnam, it is more than apparent that those draftees
who did most of the killing and dying in that war were working
class men. If those men were black, they were even more likely
to end up as nothing but cannon fodder. According to the Oxford
Companion of Military History, "during the height of the
U.S. involvement, 1965-69, blacks, who formed 11 percent of the
American population, made up 12.6 percent of the soldiers in
Vietnam. The majority of these were in the infantry, and although
authorities differ on the figures, the percentage of black combat
fatalities in that period was a staggering 14.9 percent."
In addition, they accounted for almost 20 percent of all combat-related
deaths in Vietnam from 1961-1965 and in 1968, they frequently
contributed half of the men in front-line combat units.
Even when upper-class men went into the
service (as draftees or enlistees), the likelihood that they
were sent to the frontlines as enlisted men was quite remote.
The stories of the 2000 major-party presidential candidates serve
as perfect examples of this. Mr. Gore enlisted and ended up as
a military reporter who served five months in Vietnam covering
the activities of an Army Engineer Brigade. His tour of duty
was cut short by two months. If he had not enlisted, chances
are he would not have served. Mr. Bush used his family's connections
to stay out of the Army and join the National Guard, from which
it is alleged (with considerable substantiation by various media
and veteran's organizations) he went AWOL and was never disciplined.
Most readers who were of draft age during the Vietnam war probably
know folks who avoided service because of their class circumstances
and associated opportunities-I know I certainly do.
As my friend and colleague Jay Moore
likes to point out in his History of the Sixties course at the
University of Vermont, the draft was/is not only about putting
men in the military. It is also about maintaining the stratification
of society based on society's current economic needs. Prior to
1969, the military draft consistently deferred men who were considered
to be "college material." In addition those in college
whose studies might have been useful to the war machine-say in
the areas of technology and science-were granted deferments.
This policy was called channeling and was defended as being in
the national interest. Its converse-the channeling of men who
weren't considered "college material" to the front
lines, was by default, also considered to be in the national
interest. After 1969, when the national draft lottery was introduced
in the name of supposed fairness, the policy of channeling was
continued via the AFQT. Those young men whose numbers were drawn
who were sent to the front lines were more likely to have scored
lower on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT). Those young
men whose numbers were drawn who scored higher, usually because
they had received a better education, were assigned to units
more likely to be out of harm's way, probably in another part
of the world. As any observer of the educational system in the
U.S. knows, neighborhoods with more money usually have better
schools. Plus, many wealthy families often send their children
to private schools. This, of course, usually provides even stupid
rich children with a better education than that received by their
peers in poor and working-class school districts.
Mr. Rangel and others who might agree
with him have it all wrong. A universal military draft would
not cause the warmakers in our government to think twice before
going to war. It would only make them insure that the people
who do the killing for their empire now would continue to do
so on an even more massive scale. Indeed, if there were a military
draft, Mr. Rumsfeld's dream of a two-front war would have an
increased chance of becoming reality. After all, there would
be an endless supply of young, mostly working class and poor,
Americans to fight it. That is, unless antiwar and antidraft
activists could convince them to do otherwise.
Ron Jacobs
lives in Burlington, VT. He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Yesterday's
Features
Bruce Jackson
Saddam
Delenda Est!
Jonathan Swift
How 9/11
Helped Democracy Evolve Toward Perfection
Vijay Prashad
The Jihad International, Kashmir
and Secularization
Salim Rashid
Pat Robertson's
Evangelical Propaganda
Kurt Nimmo
The FBI Monekywrench Alert
Anthony Gancarski
Clinton
Boisvert: Sorry with a Capital S
Tom Stephens
A Meditation on the Nature of Evil
Mitchel Cohen
What We
Say Goes: How Bush Sold the Bombing of Iraq
Leah Harris
It's the Occupation, Stupid!
Annie C. Higgins
Occupying
Time: Israeli Soldiers and Palestinian Youths
Abu Spinoza
War Crimes: Us and Them
Linda Belanger
Words Hurt, But Tanks Kill
Adam Engel
Call Me Johnson
Richard Procter
The Power of Audacity
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
December 24,
2002
Joanne Mariner
Refusing
to Fight in Israel
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Drug
War According to Dr. Mengele: Agent Green Over the Andes
Gavin Martin
Joe Strummer
is Dead: Long Live the Clash!
Daniel Wolff
From Gospel to the Birth of Soul: Sam
Cooke & the Soul Stirrers
David Vest
Stirred and Shaken
Ben Tripp
Yuletide
Saul Landau
The Quiet American Returns
Michael Wolff
X-mas in Zone One
Kevin Begley
Nestlé and a Nation in Famine
Francis Boyle
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Linda Heard
Where are the Wise Men?
Philip Farruggio
On the First Day of X-mas
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|