Neocons Admit They’ve Blown It – Is The Draft Next?
By Paul Craig Roberts

August 28, 200

Do you remember the ridicule neocons heaped on critics who predicted a quagmire in Iraq? Now neocons William Kristol and Robert Kagan are calling for more troops and more money - two more army divisions and another $60 billion to be exact. “Next spring, if disaster looms,” they write, “it may be too late.” [Do What It Takes in Iraq Weekly Standard, by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, September 01, 2003] John McCain, who experienced, but has forgotten, the Vietnam quagmire has taken the bait and is urging Bush to send more troops.

But there are no troops to send. The Pentagon doesn’t know where it is going to get the troops to carry on the occupation of Iraq at the present level of troop strength. The Associated Press reports that our combat troops are going to be saddled with back-to-back assignments to overseas hotspots. Army officials are concerned that they are going to begin losing many sergeants and junior officers. Officers in infantry divisions are scrambling to find other military jobs that are not subject to overseas deployment.

Meanwhile, the handful of neocons who got our country into this growing mess are still talking about the U.S. invading other Middle Eastern countries as part of their program to deracinate Islam. On top of it all, neocons want to take on North Korea, whose army outnumbers ours two to one.

Bush is trying to get other countries to send their soldiers to occupy Iraq. So far success has eluded him. Other countries don’t like to tell us “no” repeatedly. They say they have to have the cover of the UN, which the neocons intended to keep out. The UN would likely get in the way of the neocons’ plan to use Iraq as a staging ground for invading Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Bush, however, is getting desperate. As our soldiers are pushed off the streets of Iraq and congregate behind hopefully impenetrable barricades, Bush might have to let the UN rescue him on its own terms. The UN should not do so, however, without a firm understanding that it is not freeing up US troops for an attack on another Middle Eastern country.

If you think about it, you will realize that the neocons’ war plans are taking us back to the draft. There’s no way around it. Lacking sufficient military forces to occupy Iraq with its small population of 25 million, what would we do once neocons get us mired down in Iran or Egypt with their large populations? Somebody needs to call a halt to this. It will not be the neocon press or Fox News that does it. These folks hide behind superpatriotism, but their real motive is to make the Middle East safe for Israel.

The alliance of neocons with white southern evangelicals is not enough to control US foreign policy. Sooner or later even the brain-dead are going to realize that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, was not a threat to us (until neocons got us mired down there), and had nothing to do with the events of September 11. We spent a fortune attacking a country that had done us no harm, killing tens of thousands of its people, and giving the US a black eye as an aggressor that starts wars on the basis of lies and disinformation. In the process, we also wrecked the political standing of our best ally, British PM Tony Blair. Two-thirds of the British people now believe that Blair intentionally made a false case for invading Iraq.

When the public tires of flag-waving and war propaganda, how will the Bush administration carry on with its pretense that we have made the world safe from terrorists by overthrowing Saddam Hussein? Voters will begin to wonder why Bush doesn’t sack the neocons who have brought him such deep embarrassment. The longer Bush waits before sacking the neocons, the more voters will wonder why they voted for Bush.

Our situation in Iraq is already bad. It will become untenable if the Shiite majority decides to join in the effort to drive us out. It doesn’t appear we will be able to buy off our adversaries with our money. Will we as a proud nation respond to Iraqi resistance by conscripting our sons and grandsons as targets for terrorists and guerillas?

While we are bogged down, what happens if something hits the fan in another part of the world? Will we be forced to resort to nuclear weapons? Many people much smarter than neocons gave these warnings in response to the neocons’ promise of “cakewalk.”

It is time Bush replaced his delusional neocon advisors with wise people of integrity.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

AMERICAN POLITICIANS CALLING FOR MORE TROOPS

WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (AFP) - Less than six months after starting the Iraq war, the US administration is battling to shore up confidence in its ability to rebuild the country and its military strategy. Though polls indicate Americans still support the campaign to bring down Saddam Hussein, daily attacks on US targets, and their supporters are starting to eat into backing for President George W. Bush's Iraq policy. Opposition Democrat leaders are starting to talk of "quagmire."

Anti-American slogans shouted by crowds in Iraq after the latest car bomb, that killed 85 people in the holy city of Najaf, will no doubt unnerve the US public even more. Bush insisted again last week that the United States will stay the course in Iraq though he admitted it will be hard and sacrifices will have to be made.

The administration has said there are no plans to add to the 140,000 US troops in Iraq but the failure to get other countries to help the stabilization effort has only added to US problems. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage expressed strong frustration at Japan's intention to postpone sending troops to Iraq during recent talks with a top Japanese envoy in Washington, Japan's Kyodo News agency reported.

The much-watched US opinion polls indicate the public would be willing to hand over control of Iraq to the United Nations. Sixty-nine percent of respondents in a CBS News survey released Friday said the United Nations should take the lead in rebuilding Iraq. Just 25 percent said the United States should remain in charge. Forty-seven percent of those surveyed said events in Iraq are slipping out of US control compared with 42 percent who believed the US remains firmly in control.

John Kerry, one of the nine Democrat presidential contenders, called Sunday for greater efforts to persuade other countries to send troops to Iraq. "We are in danger, if we don't do what we need to do in the next months, of having an enormous quagmire, of having a very serious challenge," he told CBS television. Kerry said UN help must be sought. "We must internationalize this effort, we have to reduce the sense of American occupation, we have to take the target off of American troops." He also called for increasing spending on Iraq "by whatever number of billions of dollars it takes to win."

John McCain, an influential Republican senator, wrote in the Washington Post that "our military force levels are obviously inadequate" in Iraq. But he opposed handing over authority to the United Nations. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, has floated the idea of having a UN force with a US general in charge. But even that causes nerves within the administration, experts said. General John Abizaid, the new head of the US Central Command, whose responsibility includes Iraq and Afghanistan, said a greater international participation was needed to end Iraqi fears that they were living under a US occupation. But he has also reinforced the need for better intelligence on the threat from followers of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the foreign fighters that US officials say have entered the country.

Not all experts agree extra numbers are needed. Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said: "The key to winning in this offensive is not numbers, but intelligence, skilled cadres of expert troops, area of language specialists, mixed with constant civic action and political warfare to win hearts and minds."

THE DRAFT: A CALL TO DECISIVENESS

Johann Christoph Arnold

The cheers of the moment are not what a man ought to think about, but the verdict of his conscience. - Woodrow Wilson

Veterans Day was cold and rainy in my hometown this year. But it wasn’t just the weather that dampened parades. It was also the nagging thought that though the holiday honors those who fought in past wars, the ongoing conflict in US-occupied Iraq is currently turning out the largest new wave of combat veterans since Vietnam.

“Do not do what your conscience condemns, and do not say what does not agree with truth. Let no one coerce your will; let it be accessible neither to thief nor robber...The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding yourself in the ranks of the insane.” Marcus Aurelius

Equally sobering were two articles I read on November 11, a date originally set to commemorate the end of armed hostilities. One carried the headline, “Talk of a Draft Grows Despite Denials by White House.” The other reported on the 7,500 U.S. soldiers that have been wounded in action since April—and are now flooding military hospitals like Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

As a counselor I have talked with veterans of every major war in the last century. I have looked into their haunted eyes and listened to their stories. Personally, I am adamantly opposed to armed force. I belong to a peace church that has consistently spoken out against violence for 450 years. Still, I sometimes wonder whether it wouldn’t be a blessing for today’s youth to be faced with a military draft, as long as provisions are made for conscientious objectors (Our author lacks Prophetic Sight).

My generation (I became a teen during the McCarthy era) came of age when opposition to war cost something. My peers and I had to decide to either join the military or to volunteer for alternative service. No matter what we chose, in a sense we all saw combat: not one of us could evade the battle that takes place inside when one is faced with such a question. At that time most Americans had no trouble accepting a draft: they saw the fight against communism as a conflict between good and evil. A recent immigrant and a child of refugees from Nazi Germany, I cherished my adoptive country’s freedoms. But having been brought up to follow the teachings of Jesus, I was also convinced that killing people can never be right.

Most people I knew did not look kindly on such a view. Though many understood how one’s faith might prevent one from signing up, many more saw conscientious objectors as draft dodgers and cowards, and hated them for it. But I knew what my faith demanded, and that I must honor it. Looking back, I feel that deciding to do so strengthened me.

That’s why I believe it could be healthy for today’s youth to face a similar choice. Deciding which side to stand on is one of life’s vital skills. It forces you to test your own convictions—to assess your personal integrity and your character as an individual. Each of us knows right from wrong, but we often lack the courage to act on that knowledge. How many of us are secretly troubled—if not outraged—by the atrocities that are being committed in the name of the "war on terror"? How many of us feel isolated and insecure but are too afraid to speak out?

If the White House and the Congress decide to reinstate mandatory military service, maybe it will sober us and our nation's young. (1 Thessalonians 5). For too long we have taken our freedoms and comforts for granted. We have failed to appreciate our high standard of living, and forgotten the millions who live in grinding poverty. But if the war in Iraq is any indication, harder times are on the horizon. Perhaps they will help us realize that survival does not depend on material things. It depends on one's relationship with God and with one's neighbor.

Hard times could also remind us that there is a power far greater than military might. It is the power of love and forgiveness, which will ultimately lead all peoples together. Love, not armed force, is the only power that will bring healing and peace, especially to those injured and maimed by war, and to those who have lost loved ones—men and women who were willing to pay the ultimate price.

A draft would present every young person with a choice between two paths, both of which require equal courage: to heed the recruiter's call and be rushed off to war, or to say, “No. I will give my life only in the service of peace.” It is for God to decide which is more patriotic.