Hell no we won't go.

Is it feeling drafty around here?

Since everyone seems to think that all soldiers come from low income areas perhaps instead of a draft they are just going to force more of us to be low income people thinking it will improve enlistment rates.

There's getting to be a lot of scrutiny over the techniques used by recruiters to hit their numbers. One high school journalist in Colorado posed as a druggie, and the recruiters helped him find ways to hide his drug use so he could enlist. He wrote about it for the local paper.

Is it any surprise when we read about the B.S. some of these kids get up to? Lynddie England sounds like she was brain dead...

Most likely we need a draft.

No Brandon we do not need a draft. What we need is peace and diplomacy not bluster and bombs.

Well, I agree with both of you. If we have a draft, you can be damned sure that whoever is president will think long and hard about making the next pre-emptive stike...

If we have a draft, and I say if we need to spruce up the rules just a bit. Deferments for anyone having the bucks for any jerkwater college in the country just won't get it. Not again

I have always been in favor of a draft. As long as we see the existence of an armed force as a necessity, I believe it is every citizen's responsibility to contribute to the defense of one's country. (Whether an armed force is necessary at all is a separate question.) I do not trust an all-volunteer army. The people serving today are mercenaries; to them, being in the military is just a job. A citizen army, on the other hand, is a historical tradition in most democracies. An army of mercenaries is loyal to its leaders and commanders; a citizen army tends to be loyal to the ideals of the republic. It is much harder to imagine an Abu Ghraib type of scandal with people off the street as the perpetrators. Most would have bridled at the idea and opposed it. Helping to defend one's country should be considered a sacred duty, not something to be left to "professionals." Again, I distrust the "professionals." Have I made that sufficiently clear? And I'll add this: for many young people, the training and discipline provided by the military experience is a positive force for acquiring a habit of self-discipline in later life.

First, of course, we have to get the hell out of Iraq where we had no business going in the first place.

edited once to correct typos

Now, that is an interesting concept, MA. I may even adopt part or all as my own.

You sound like Neville Chamberlain, a notably unsuccessful world leader.

Neville Chamberlain was hardly a "world leader," and the implication is that Au is displaying spinelessness in the face of a clear and present danger. What happened to supporting one's argument as a sine qua non for indulging ad hominem, as expounded by you, and a cornerstone of Brandonian rhetorical morality?

Neville Chamberlain was a mediocre parliamentarian who was able to exploit a "can't we all just get along" message to form a successful coalition of divergent interests within the Conservative party (that's right, the great appeaser was a Conservative) and become the compromise candidate to form a government in 1937. That he got as far as he did in politics has far more to do with the deservedly high reputation that his father, Joe Chamberlain, enjoyed. His elder half-brother, Austen Chamberlain, was among the first to speak out against the danger of Adolf Hitler. But he died on the eve of his brother's triumph in welding the Conservative party together to become a united and successful party once again, after the divisive years following Bonar Law--who had saved the Conservatives from collapse, but died before building the party to its greatness. It is probably as well that Austen did not live to see what his brother had wrought. Neville Chamberlain was a very efficient administator, as he had proven in earlier governments--but such men frequently achieve their success at the highest levels of government because of their ability to compromise and to "seek consensus." That he caved in at Munich to the guttersnipe Hitler ought not to surprise anyone, and little surprised perceptive individuals in 1938. Neville Chamberlain was not a world leader, for precisely the reasons that made him a successful parlimentarian. Winston Churchill, who changed his political coat on more than one occassion, was a lousy parliamentarian. He was, however, as he proved in two wars, the latter of which was a desparate fight for very survival from its inception, a world leader.

You seek to smear Au by inference with comparison to Neville Chamberlain, and a suggestion that calling for peace and diplomacy is a species of appeasement policy, naive and cowardly. It is also clear that you equate the putative threat of Hussein with the never to be doubted threat of Hitler. In order to establish such a thesis, you first have to demonstrate that Hussein in 2002 was the same degree of threat as was Hitler in 1938, and that is going to be goddamned difficult for you to do, without getting into a silly "is so-is not" argument about unsubstantiated claims of support for AQ terrorism on the part of Iraq--unfortunately for your dubious position, the WoMD portion of the argument was shot down in flames long ago. I'd be happy to take you on in the debate, but rather unwilling to wait the months of reading you will need to do to cobble together an argument based on a sound knowledge of European politics from 1919 to 1939--something which you'd need to do to support your claim. This is so because so far, all that you have demonstrated is that the most you know about Neville Chamberlain is that one might be vaguely justified in bringing the name up in order to raise debate to the hysterical level of a shop-worn appeal to the very real threat of National Socialism in 1930's Europe as being equivalent to the alleged degree of the threat posed by Hussein in 2002. Given the very real likelihood that the Shrub and his Forty Theives (there is a delicious irony in the analogy given that it now centers itself in Baghdad) knowlingly lied through their collective teeth to get what they wanted.

Really . . . some people's rhetorical standards.

There are a lot of dangerous people in the world, who ought to be opposed, such as the Iraqi insurgents who don't want to see Iraq become a democracy. They did, after all, threaten those who might vote, and also bombed polling places. There are also people in the world, who are trying to kill us right now. It seems to me that various radical Islamic groups have declared war on us, whether we declare war on them or not. I would certainly count Al Qaeda and franchises among groups that it would be foolish to do much negotiating with, unless we're prepared to start taking orders from them, and convert to Islam as well.

Certain people have this mantra of "diplomacy not bombs," which is based on a failure to really comprehend that evil exists in the world and sometimes must be opposed with force.

Certain other people have a "mantra" (boy the conservatives love that one, makes 'em sound so superiorJ) that all Muslims are by definition suspect as terrorists.



There would be no insurgency had we not invaded Iraq. I note the complete absense in your snitty response of a reply to the pointed criticism i made of your feeble attempt to inferentially compare Hussein to Hitler, by comparing Au to Neville Chamberlain. But, i guess that's understandable; in debate as in so many other things in life, one needs go with their strongest points. In the case of this debate, you choose to go with high-toned moral superiority, the only "strong" point you have at this point.



They most certainly did. I do not for a moment entertain any illusions about the desire of former members of the Ba'at Arab Socialist party to regain their former status and power. That, however does not authorize the following nonsense:



Which means exactly what with regard to this war? It does not occur to you that having invaded Afghanistan with nearly world-wide support, we've now fouled our own nest by the invasion of Iraq against nearly world-wide protest? It does not occur to you that this invasion has increased the number of those who wish to kill us in the world?



Do you then suggest that Au, or I, or anyone here suggests that we negotiate with al Qaeda, or it's "franchises." Another shabby and rather too obvious rhetorical trick. There is absolutely no reason to assume that this is what Au advocates.



Opposing evil with force is what we have done in Afghanistan. Before you can make the claim that we are as justified to invade Iraq as we were to attack Afghanistan, you'd have to demonstrate that Iraq constituted a clear and present danger to us, as clear and present as was the case with the Taliban and its open, public support of al Qaeda. You have always failed to do that in these fora heretofore, and i continue to entertain the highest expectations of your future inability to do so.

Well, gosh, I didn't compared Hussein to Hitler in that post, nor did I say that my comments were specifically about Iraq.

When Au says that diplomacy, not bombs, should guide us, he is making a general statement, which apparently does include our war with Al Qaeda. Apparently being a general policy statement, it sounds a lot like Chamberlain and his ilk.

As I'm sure you will believe, I could go through the Iraq invasion thing again, but I don't have the energy at this point in the evening.

Yes, i haven't the least doubt that, given the necessary energy, you'd be more than willing to try to reheat the same old, stale chestnuts you've always attempted to fob off on us about the threat which was posed by Hussein.

Au did indeed make a statement about bombs vs. diplomacy. He made it in the context of a discussion about the inability of the administration to meet its manpower needs to continue the occupation of Iraq. That makes it a very context specific statement. It was your ludicrous rhetorical trick to attempt to suggest that he advocates negotiating with al Qaeda, which is not at all in context--it is not at all apparent that he refers to al Qaeda.

I am greatly amused however by your reference to our war with al Qaeda. You know something we don't Brandon? Are the cowboys closing in on bin Laden even as we speak? I get it now, the war in Iraq, that's all just a diversion to lull them into dropping their guard, right? We're about to come down on them like a ton of bricks, huh?

Suggesting that Au can be likened to Neville Chamberlain in a thread which specifically deals with the Iraqi war is most assuredly comparing Hussein to Hitler inferentially. I suggest that we're not so stupid as you must think us to be, and that we all are very well able to see what you meant.

Just one more ludicrous rhetorical trick, and then I really have to hit the sack.
1. They have declared war on us.
2. Yes.

1. I've never denied that we are at war with al Qaeda, i simply see no evidence that the Shrub is actively making war on al Qaeda.

2. In your dreams Brandon . . . so perhaps you should hit the sack.

Sentanta
A discussion with Brandon is equivalent to one with an empty barrel. Have long since learned to tune him out. He travels from thread to thread spewing the same tired rhetoric like a broken faucet in dire need of repair.

No, Brandon I was not talking about negotiating with Bin Laden. Nor was I suggesting Churchillian type of appeasement. It is time for you to come to gripes with reality. What we are experiencing in Iraq is the result of our own doing.

Will they Draft girls?

Are you hoping so?

They won't put you in barracks with the boys, you know, CG.