In
1980 Ronald Reagan ran for president against President Jimmy Carter,
and promised that if elected he would end Selective Service registration.
President Carter had reinstated Selective Service registration in
response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, several years after
President Richard Nixon had ended the draft.
Reagan condemned conscription, saying in 1979 that it “rests on
the assumption that your kids belong to the state…. That assumption
isn't a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea.”
But once elected, Reagan kept the Selective Service intact.
In September of 2003, a Defense Department web page called for applicants
to man the draft boards. After receiving negative publicity, the
page disappeared. The Selective Service now states that, “notwithstanding
recent stories in the news media and on the Internet, Selective
Service is not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed
Forces.”
Actually, the Selective Service is always getting ready for a draft.
Its website boasts that the agency trains “over 11,000 volunteers…
so that if a draft is reinstated, they will be able to fulfill their
obligations fairly and equitably.” President Bush assured Americans
after 9/11 that there is “not a chance” of bringing back conscription.
Yet two bills have been introduced in Congress that would reinstate
the draft, apply it to women as well as men, and allow no deferments
for college students. Legislators Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Hillary Clinton
(D-NY), and Charles Rangel (D-NY) have spoken favorably about the
idea. Presidential hopeful John Kerry has vaguely called for “mandatory
service” on his website, though the term “mandatory” was taken off
the site after it received unwanted attention.
Some say the draft is unnecessary, but the military is desperate
for bodies. With an expanding “War on Terror” and U.S. troops deployed
in 140 countries, the government has already resorted to “Stop-Loss
Orders”: so far more than 40,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq
and Afghanistan, in spite of their wishes, have had their contracts
extended, in some cases beyond the year 2030 (i.e. indefinitely),
as reported in The Washington Post last December. The Army has recently
announced that troops heading to Iraq and Afghanistan will stay
longer than previously anticipated. If all this is seen as necessary,
total conscription may be closer than many people think.
Even some antiwar folks want to reinstate the draft, either to make
military service more “equitable” or to make Americans less favorable
toward war. But Vietnam had plenty of privileged draft dodgers,
as well as tens of thousands of American casualties, in spite of
the supposed equity and deterring impact of conscription. Unlike
in the Vietnam era, present-day Canada would not be an asylum for
draft resisters. In December of 2001, with little attention from
the media, Bush signed a “smart borders” agreement with Canada to
allow the U.S. government to extradite American draftees in Canada
back to the United States. If Bush says there is “not a chance”
a draft will come to America, why did he think it necessary to make
such an unprecedented agreement with Canada?
The draft has a history of brutal enforcement in America.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln drafted hundreds
of thousands of men and ruthlessly suppressed a violent draft protest
and riot in New York City, shelling the city, sending troops and
killing hundreds – a savage spectacle graphically portrayed in the
2002 movie, Gangs of New York.
During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson drafted 2,800,000 young
men into the armed services, jailed draft protesters, and locked
up conscientious objectors in military prisons such as Fort Leavenworth,
where many died of pneumonia.
During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt forced ten million
conscripts into battle and incarcerated 6,000 conscientious objectors.
The draft remained in a limited scope after World War II and saw
its full-scale rejuvenation with the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Draft
resisters escaped during those wars, but with Bush’s “smart borders”
agreement with Canada, escape may prove more difficult this time
around.
The bottom line is that mandatory service is anathema to a free
society. It strips away the fundamental liberties – and in many
cases the lives – of the same Americans that the government’s wars
ostensibly defend.
The Selective Service has no purpose if the draft will never come
back, and the draft has no place in the land of the free. To defend
American freedom, one of the first things we should do is honor
the noble promise Ronald Reagan was unable to keep, and abolish
the Selective Service, destroy the agency’s records, and never let
the draft rear its barbaric head again.