Monday, July 25, 2005

Must Read

David Kennedy, The Best Army We Can Buy.

I agree.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tom, my first ever comment has been reserved for something we agree about. Kennedy is correct. I believe we should bring back the draft. The irony of the New Left is that one of its few achievement was the "outsourcing" of our military obligations to military families and the working class. The draft had its faults, but at least Americans shared the burdens of war.

Tom said...

Yeah, I think Kennedy gets a bit breathless about militarism from a small professionalized independent military, but I particularly liked his article for making that point that we have not acted like we are at war. It is actually amazing how little our lives have changed since Sept 11.

dcat said...

If you want to see us out of Iraq in a heartbeat, reinstate the draft. I almost posted to this article at rebunk but was too lazy to write about it. I agree with his assessment in the abstract, but the draft would be a pretty good way to discover just how soft American support for this war is. But if we have a draft, I've said it before and I'll say it again: No exemptions except for clearhealth issues, and the age needs to extend a lot higher than 18 or 19 year olds. In any case, almost every military expert I have ever heard address this does not want draftees, as they tend not to make as good soldiers.