Feeling a Draft

Economist and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, shows how when the situation in Iraq is combined with Bush's vow to fight until the bitter end, a military draft seems inevitable:

Meanwhile, US forces are poised to attack the Shiite holy city of Najaf in order to kill or capture the rebellious cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The US started Sadr's rebellion by closing down a Shiite newspaper that was not sufficiently obsequious to the American dictatorship which has taken Saddam Hussein's place.

Moderate Shiite clerics, who have been attempting to hold the US to its promise of democracy and elections, have indicated that an attack on Najaf would lead to a generalized Shiite uprising.

Such an uprising would involve huge numbers. The calls for more US troops would be urgent. The only source of those troops is to reinstate the draft. If the insane idiots running the Bush administration persist in their macho bully mentality of escalating the conflict, we will have a test of Kaplan's prediction that Americans will gladly sacrifice 30,000 of their sons.

Click here for the rest.

Personally, I think Bush is going to do everything he can to avoid conscription. The military prefers soldiers who want to be soldiers, and a draft would make the growingly unpopular war all the more unpopular. As the insurgency continues to take its toll, however, the President's options will decrease: he can only burn money on mercenaries for so long.

This is an interesting dilemma. If only we weren't talking about human lives.

Thanks to J. Orlin Grabbe for the link.

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