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Thinking Out of the Box
August 25, 2008
After hearing that ever- so -subtle reference to the draft by John McCain early last week during a Town Hall meeting, it has me thinking about the consequences of drafting young women - our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and lovers.
Clearly, we cannot tolerate a draft in this country, right? Certainly, John McCain was just blustering and being over-the-top as usual when he made a cloaked response to the US military not being able to chase down Bin Laden in the near future, due to a lack of military personnel.
If you hadn't heard about his reference to the draft, it was spurred in response to a question regarding whether our military was going to have the actual forces in the future to capture that ever-elusive war criminal, Osama Bin Laden. McCain often notes that he will send one of our young men or women to the "Gates of Hell" to get him. But, time is running short for the "Gates of Hell" strategy, in that many of our young men and women out there fighting in Iraq are on their third, fourth and, yes, fifth tour of duty. They are exhausted and have been vocal about coming home. Our young volunteers need a rest, need to get well, heal and move on with their lives.
The only way to solve this military personnel exhaustion dilemma, in Senator McCain's mind it seems, is to send fresh meat out to the Iraqi desert. That means re-instituting some kind of draft. Scary. Terrifying. Clearly, he jests.
What would a modern day draft look like? I mean, we know what it looked like in the 60's. But what about today? How would this be instituted and enforced? Who would qualify? What would be the punishment for dodging it? Would it be fair to only draft men? young men? Can we feasibly draft young women?
Could our modern American nation state tolerate the draft of young women?
