BY SHELTON BAUMGARTNER
Ahssa! Editor
When I was a kid, I would describe to my friends why it was that I
often sounded so negative.
"It's opposite positive thinking, " I would say.
My mother employed this to its full existent whenever there was a
presidential election.
While my mother was raised a staunch Democrat (her father blamed Hoover
for the Great Depression), she gradually became more and more
Republican as Nixon's Southern strategy started to pay off and the two
parties essentially flipped political identinties. (Nixon in 1960 was
considered the more "liberal" of the two major presidential candidates
when it came to civil rights.)
So be it Reagan in 1980 and '84 or the first Bush in '89 my mother
would tell everyone willing to listen that the candidate she sup****ted
was going to lose, even though she wanted them to win.
It was as if she thought she could ward off evil Democratic spirits by
luring them into a false sense of security. "I believe the Republicans
are going to lose, so, you, should, too."
So it is with a heavy heart that I have to say we should bring back the
draft, even though I really don't want it.
Even though I feel it's sorta sinister, cheesy, defeatist and a little
bit Manchurian Candidate-esque for liberals to view a return of the
draft as the only way to get Americans to sit up an take notice about
the current abysmal situation in Iraq, there are other factors at play
that have produced my own personal "tipping point" on the matter.
The chief issue is what is currently going on in central Asia and the
ever-deteriorating situation in the DPRK.
What if we go to war against the DPRK at the same time that Islamic
fundamentalists take over Uzbekistan and start threatening our
strategic interests in central Asia? Where would we get all the troops?
Even though the AotRoK has more than enough men under arms to fight the
ground war should it come to that, American pride and geopolitical ego
is going to require that we send a few hundred thousand troops to the
peninsula within days of the 6.25 war starting up again.
So while we're in Iraq and the DPRK, all sorts of mischief could begin
in central Asia..and before we know it we're going to be violating
Napoleon's dictum: never fight a land war in Asia.
Regardless, there would be many positives to bringing back the draft,
chief among them we could throw more troops at Iraq. While I opposed
the United States invading Iraq, now that we're there, we need do the
job and do it right.
When it comes to geopolitics and Iraq, my own personal Jesus on these
issues is Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is quoted as saying recently that:
While our ultimate objectives are very ambitious we will never
achieve democracy and stability without being willing to commit 500,000
troops, spend $200 billion a year, probably have a draft, and have some
form of war compensation.
Start the draft and you get your 500,000 troop, you can throw a few at
the DPRK if needed and could have a few more hundred thousand on call
if we needed to kick some ass in central Asia.
And, of course, the cherry on the pie is that all those doe-eyed
conservative idealist of draft age smoking pot on college campuses and
"drinking the Koolaid" provided by the GOP would suddenly become the
shock troops of a new liberal movement in the United States.
And...it would but a different spin on Pax Americana. Americans would
care where our troops went and why. We would have to take the horrible
mess that is Iraq seriously, not just roll our collective eyes and
worry about who is winning the morning AC Neilsons, GMA or Today.
Politics would mean something again.
Draft or no draft, I fear our "long [geopolitical] nightmare" that
began on Sept. 11 isn't over yet. We still got us at least a good five
years of pain and suffering before we fish or cut bait in Iraq...and
the DPRK...and central Asia...and Iran.
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