Should There Be a Draft? Should Women Register For It?

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

hamburger wrote:

not to put too fine a point on it , but ... ...
i think that the armed forces are there for the defence of the home country - at least under normal circumstances .
i don't think "invading" another country - perhaps under dubious pretext - should become their main goal .
imo the army is there "to defend" the home-country - kill if necessary while defending the country and its citizens .
or we might just as well live like in the days of alexander the great , the romans , the various nordic tribes - i'm sure you are famuliar with their history .
if you are interested , you are invited to look at the "afghanistan" thread .
i don't think i can express my point of view any better here .
hbg

http://able2know.org/topic/82057-1 (afghanistan , does it still matter ?)

Or you can take the position that your own homeland is not the only people deserving of peace and prosperity that might need to be defended or obtained via military might. Or that in our modern world, every man/nation is not an island unto itself.

Do you take the position that your own family is the only one you are obligated to protect, or if you have opportunity or moral duty to protect somebody not in your own family, would you not do so? Do you let a Hitler overrun other countries or exterminate millions of Jews with impunity just because that is none of your business? Or in hindsight, do you think use of your military might be justified in preventing that from happening?

If a free and independent Iraq where rape rooms, torture chambers, and the worst kinds of fear, oppression, and brutality are not the norm, where terrorism is no longer exported around the world, where neighbors no longer need to fear what a tyrannical dictator might do, when hundreds of millions of people do not find their economy shattered or their heat turned off in th dead of winter, etc......if all that can be achieved, do you not think the Iraqi people and their neighbors and all others affected at some point will know that it was all worth it.

We can all second guess the propriety and/or necessity of military force, and history will always be the judge in the end. And yes sometimes history will be kind and sometimes harsh. Conquest for gain is no longer acceptable in our modern world, but defense of necessity has become a very broad term. Those who live under the worst that man is capable of doing to man know that the absence of war is not necessarily peace.

2 Replies

@Foxfyre,

I can only speak from my country's point of view: we have a Basic Law (constitution) in which all is defined. And, if not, a Federal Constitutional Court, where our highest judges tell politicians how the wind blows.

And since we are a parliamentary democracy, the parliament always has to agree when soldiers serve outside NATO borders.
Conscripts are generally not send to international (UN/EU/OECD) missions, only if the explicitly want such.

Quote:

Article 87 a
[Armed Forces]
(1) The Federation shall establish Armed Forces for purposes of defence.
Their numerical strength and general organisational structure must be
shown in the budget.
(2) Apart from defence, the Armed Forces may be employed only to the
extent expressly permitted by this Basic Law.
(3) During a state of defence or a state of tension the Armed Forces shall
have the power to protect civilian property and to perform traffic control
functions to the extent necessary to accomplish their defence mission.
Moreover, during a state of defence or a state of tension, the Armed Forces
may also be authorised to support police measures for the protection of
civilian property; in this event the Armed Forces shall cooperate with the
competent authorities.
(4) In order to avert an imminent danger to the existence or free democratic
basic order of the Federation or of a Land, the Federal Government,
if the conditions referred to in paragraph (2) of Article 91 obtain and the
police forces and the Federal Border Police prove inadequate, may employ
the Armed Forces to support the police and the Federal Border Police in
protecting civilian property and in combating organised armed insurgents.
Any such employment of the Armed Forces shall be discontinued if the
Bundestag or the Bundesrat so demands.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

The USA is no different. Other than temporary military combat action that can be ordered by the President--Bill Clinton used that power frequently while I don't believe George W. Bush has done so a single time--the Congress must sign off on military combat action. Our Congress did so in both our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

I see a big difference, since no-one here can send armed forces outside the country, especially not for "temporary military combat actions" besides with consent from the parliament. [Our "commander-in-chief" is the defence minister.]

Quote:

Article 59
[Representation of the Federation for the purposes of international law]
(1) ... ....
(2) Treaties that regulate the political relations of the Federation or relate
to subjects of federal legislation shall require the consent or participation,
in the form of a federal law, of the bodies responsible in such a
case for the enactment of federal law. In the case of executive agreements
the provisions concerning the federal administration shall apply mutatis
mutandis.

0 Replies

@Foxfyre,

foxfire wrote :

Quote:

Or you can take the position that your own homeland is not the only people deserving of peace and prosperity that might need to be defended or obtained via military might. Or that in our modern world, every man/nation is not an island unto itself.

1) foxfire :
i agree with you that our own countries are not the only ones deserving peace !

2) looking specifically at afghanistan , i do not believe that the western nations are doing a good job in trying to bring "peace" to the country !

3) someone who knows the middle-east well and lives and kabul , has said over-and-over again that it is folly to chase the "terrorists" (taliban etc) from one village to the next without building a lasting political and physical infrastucture for afghanistan.

the person i'm quoting is RORY STEWART .

link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Stewart

i highly recommend to everyone to read his books :
"the places in between" and "the prince of marshes" for a better understanding of the middle-east and asia .
your library probably carries his books or can get them from another library .

4) the topic/thread "afghanistan , does it still matter ? " should tell you my point of view about afghanistan in a fair amount of detail .

link : http://able2know.org/topic/82057-1

5) i have posted over the years about my experience as a teenager living in germany after WW II .
i have nothing but praise for the british and american administration of germany after WW II .
the british and americans helped germany to become a democracy again .
they assisted the german politicians and administrators to build a modern and responsible government .

my entries were mainly in the various "iraq" topic .

i trust you have read some of my posts on that topic .

6) before trying to establish some semblance of stable government in afghanistan , the western nations must achieve security for the people first .
there will be no stable governmant (let alone democracy) without security for the people .

7) military strenght - best under the united nations leadership - will at times have to be used to help the oppressed people of a nation to find their wayback into the "family of nations" - which happened in germany after WW II .

8) i hope my entry will help you understand my point of view , foxfire .
i'll be happy to further discuss with you my point of view .
it would probably be best to either do it under the "afghanistan" thread/topic or set up a separate one .

hbg(enjoying the exchange of thoughts and ideas)

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If I was young and had to go into battle, there's no one other than a hot, sexy babe I'd like to share a foxhole with!

Just a divergent opinion.

2 Replies

@NickFun,

When u need to aim your rifle,
u r supposed to be looking at the enemy.

We will not bring up the need to have beautiful chicks
quibbling n quarreling in foxholes,
maybe about how a foxhole shoud be decorated, where to put the curtains
and requiring u to wipe your combat boots on the welcome mat before u come in.

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@NickFun,

NickFun wrote:

... a hot, sexy babe I'd like to share a foxhole with!

Th eenemy would love to accommodate you.

1 Reply

@Miller,

The enemy would love to give me a hot sexy babe to share my foxhole with? With enemies like that, who needs friends?

1 Reply

@NickFun,

During the war in Vietnam,
the commies tried stuff a little bit like that as a trap,
before doing their best to kill any Americans who fell for it.

0 Replies

@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
As for women being drafted - no. Women are equal to men in entitlement. They not identical to men. It's ludicrous to treat men and women as though there were no differences between them, just because they are entitled to the same rights. Men should try to protect women, rather than putting them in mortal danger.

As I pointed out the landscape of warfare has changed dramatically as we have continued to modernize. It's not all bullets and grenades that we fight our enemies with.

T
K
O

And therefore, what?

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
As for women being drafted - no. Women are equal to men in entitlement. They not identical to men. It's ludicrous to treat men and women as though there were no differences between them, just because they are entitled to the same rights. Men should try to protect women, rather than putting them in mortal danger.

As I pointed out the landscape of warfare has changed dramatically as we have continued to modernize. It's not all bullets and grenades that we fight our enemies with.

T
K
O

And therefore, what?

Therefore, why not draft them? Your attitude is not one of equality. The differences between men and women do not remove the ladies' obligation to serve their country in the same fashion as a man would.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
As for women being drafted - no. Women are equal to men in entitlement. They not identical to men. It's ludicrous to treat men and women as though there were no differences between them, just because they are entitled to the same rights. Men should try to protect women, rather than putting them in mortal danger.

As I pointed out the landscape of warfare has changed dramatically as we have continued to modernize. It's not all bullets and grenades that we fight our enemies with.

T
K
O

And therefore, what?

Therefore, why not draft them? Your attitude is not one of equality. The differences between men and women do not remove the ladies' obligation to serve their country in the same fashion as a man would.

Cycloptichorn

Alright, I'd like to explore this idea further of abandoning certain traditional relationships between men and women. You're on a large ship, far from help, when it has an accident and begins to sink. The captain orders women and children to be placed in the limited number of lifeboats. If this happens to you at some point in the future, will you go and argue with him that you and the other men deserve equal consideration?

2 Replies

@Brandon9000,

A fair question, but in my personal opinion not hard to answer. I think that the ship being civilian the Captain's orders to do so would be be theirs to give. They represent themselves exclusively, and their choices would be theirs alone to defend. However if the ship was full of service men and women, the same order from the Captain would not be acceptable due to the specific nature of what they are signed up for. I have a hard time believing that our women soldiers think themselves less than their male counterparts.

Aside from that, I think the real issue would be why is our navy operating with a insufficient number of lifeboats which could require a Captain to make such a decision?

If you see this as a compromising situation, I think that addressing it proactively is a superior stance rather than on the fly.

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

A fair question, but in my personal opinion not hard to answer. I think that the ship being civilian the Captain's orders to do so would be be theirs to give. They represent themselves exclusively, and their choices would be theirs alone to defend. However if the ship was full of service men and women, the same order from the Captain would not be acceptable due to the specific nature of what they are signed up for. I have a hard time believing that our women soldiers think themselves less than their male counterparts.

Aside from that, I think the real issue would be why is our navy operating with a insufficient number of lifeboats which could require a Captain to make such a decision?

If you see this as a compromising situation, I think that addressing it proactively is a superior stance rather than on the fly.

Apportioning lifeboats might be at the captain's discretion, but it would also be a matter of life and death. If you were there and believed that the captain's decision were philosophically wrong, and condemned you to a likely and unjust death, why would you not say so before it was too late? Either you believe that men ought to protect women or you don't. Your answer, while polite, is evasive.

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

Evasive? How? Because I see a different ethical impact in a Private Captain and Naval Captain's authority?

Who is to say that I would find putting women and children on the boats to be philosophically wrong? What if your wife and child were on board? Would you put yourself in line in front of them?

With our navy sailors, we should not be sorting by gender.

Like I said before, this question begs the larger question of why this scenario could even take place. If you really think that this is a compromising situation, then proactively addressing it seem to be the best way to go.

T
K
O

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

Evasive? How? Because I see a different ethical impact in a Private Captain and Naval Captain's authority?

Who is to say that I would find putting women and children on the boats to be philosophically wrong? What if your wife and child were on board? Would you put yourself in line in front of them?

With our navy sailors, we should not be sorting by gender.

Like I said before, this question begs the larger question of why this scenario could even take place. If you really think that this is a compromising situation, then proactively addressing it seem to be the best way to go.

T
K
O

Are you saying that you would find putting women and children in the lifeboats first to be philosophically acceptable, then? If so, does it constitute a feeling on your part that men ought to attempt to protect women? This is my own point of view. If not, why do you find it acceptable? Please clarify your fundamental outlook on the issue. I'd rather not have to keep seeking clarification on your basic outlook.

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

I see the specific notion of putting women and children out of danger first to be a separate issue form the extremely more broad statement that men ought to protect women.

I think that we have a responsibility to protect each other independent of gender. That doesn't mean that putting women and children out of danger is some contradiction.

That would be like me asking you if believing men should protect women mean that women have no philosophical reason to come to a man's aid and protect them if they can.

Your statements are painted with a brush that is too wide. I won't continue to clarify. If you can't keep up, it's not my duty to keep explaining. You could however answer some of the questions I've returned to you.

T
K
O

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

I see the specific notion of putting women and children out of danger first to be a separate issue form the extremely more broad statement that men ought to protect women.

I think that we have a responsibility to protect each other independent of gender. That doesn't mean that putting women and children out of danger is some contradiction.

That would be like me asking you if believing men should protect women mean that women have no philosophical reason to come to a man's aid and protect them if they can.

Your statements are painted with a brush that is too wide. I won't continue to clarify. If you can't keep up, it's not my duty to keep explaining. You could however answer some of the questions I've returned to you.

T
K
O

You have stated that in a sinking ship, with a limited number of lifeboats, you don't have a philosophical objection to putting only women and children in them. Why, given your other statements, would you not object, knowing it might well mean your own death? You appear to believe that society should treat men and women as though they were identical, which I do not believe, so this seems a contradiction. Why would you not object philosophically, if you were one of the male passengers who would not get a lifeboat?

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

Quote:

You appear to believe that society should treat men and women as though they were identical

Not identical, but they do have a shared interest in said society. How they contribute can be in different ways. My view is that both can find helpful ways to help within the military. I never said they were identical. Stop putting words in my mouth and start putting marbles in yours. I told you I'm not going to keep holding your hand through this and keep clarifying myself. It's all out there. I wont' entertain any more questions. Especially since you don't answer mine.

Besides, sinking ship scenarios don't make valid points about women serving in the military or being drafted. Especially when they require a scenario in which the Navy for whatever reason is not equipped with enough lifeboats? Rubbish.

Being in the military is not all bullets and grenades. Military jobs range from front lines to intelligence support positions. The issue is drafting. If you think that men are so much better fit for the front line, fine. I won't waste my breathe. But realize that argument means zero in terms of drafting women because the military has many positions that are just as valuable.

T
K
O

1 Reply

Should There Be a Draft? Should Women Register For It?

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