A reader response to the draft hoax which continues to circulate:
There seems to be continuing circulation of the bogus DRAFT theory.
So I went to one of my sources today to see if I couldn't get this put to bed once and for all. This source is extremely reliable and the information given to me has always been so on the money....it's scares me at times.
I will post below the answer given to me. Below the answer highlighted in bold will be an email continuing to circulate throughout cyberland. I hope once and for all with this inside info highlighted in bold will put you readers in cyberland at rest.
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Well. This looks to be separate from the Rangel Bill (HR163) but I believe that what happened to HR163 is instructive.
Given the hoopla in the national press about the possibility of a renewed draft, House Republicans on Tuesday (10/5/04) brought HR163 up for a vote. It was defeated 402 - 2.
Was that election year politicking? Probably. Is there widespread support anywhere for a (Military) Draft? No....especially not in the military. It takes too long to train someone who doesn't want to be serving in the first place, it's too costly, and it results in lost lives on the battlefield. The warfighters will resist a military draft to their dying day.
Now, a skills draft? For the military, again, NO. There are more than enough IRR members as well as new recruits that we don't need to do that. I'm not saying we won't call up any more inactive reservists. I am saying we won't draft them.
Finally, a draft to populate government offices? I have heard of no such effort, although I wouldn't necessarily hear of it in my position. I don't think there is anything like that in the works. Both the Clinton and Bush Administrations have put into place programs that reward young people for voluntary government service with things like college tuition assistance. I don't thing the government needs to draft folks for the Pentagon or the National Park Service.
With all of that said, it looks like somebody with an axe to grind - The DNC? - is floating this half-truth in order to scare folks into voting for them instead of the current Administration.
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Here is the info that continues to circulate throughout cyberland:
This is a SPECIAL MILITARY DRAFT ALERT.
In May, the Seattle Post Intelligencer published an article about a document they received through the Freedom of Information Act. It was revealed that the SSS is currently “designing procedures†for the implementation of a “Skills Draft†and had held a top-level meeting on it with Deputy Undersecretaries at the Defense Department. This draft would change the essential mission of the Selective Service and require “virtually every young American,†male and
female ages 18–34, to register for the Skills Draft and list all the
occupations they are proficient in to fill labor shortages throughout nearly the entire government. If enacted, the Skills Draft proposed in this FOI-recovered document would change America as we know it.
The Pentagon is suffering from immediate labor shortages. Recently, the
inactive Ready Reserve had to be called up for the first time since the Gulf War to fill 5,600 job shortages in the Armed Forces. DoD said in the recent IRR callup “20% of the call-ups are truck drivers, 12% are supply specialists who can use a computer to track supplies, 10% are Humvee mechanics, 7% are administrative specialists and 6% are combat engineersâ€
(USA Today, August 8, 2004).
Although Congress would have to approve new legislation to create a Skills Draft or reinstate the combat draft, Family Circle reported in its July 13 issue that Karl Rove had polled GOP members of Congress in September 2002 to see if they would support the President if he requests reinstatement. The Republicans said they would vote for the draft. They would likely support the new legislation needed to create the Skills Draft. While Bush and the Republicans are of course keeping the return of the draft and the new skills draft as quiet as possible, many anti-draft organizations have recently begun warning of a “Coming New Draft.â€
The Issue Paper document was revealed through the Freedom of Information Act by Seattle Post Intelligencer reporter Eric Rosenberg, who wrote a partial explanation of it that was printed May 1, 2004.
Rosenberg’s article was edited, however, and some key points about this document were omitted in the published article. What follows is a full explanation of the document.
This document is real, having been acknowledged by the DoD and the SSS when they said no action is being taken on it at the present time. However, given the current manpower shortages for certain skills and nurses, if Bush gets back in, expect all the options outlined in the Issue Paper to be implemented by the end of December of this year, and at the least a non-combat skills and medical draft to start next year, if not the male combat draft, ages 18–25.
Despite Rumsfeld saying the draft is not needed, this is the same neo-con administration that has repeatedly lied to and misled the American people. Draft-age youth and their families are left looking at a “long, hard slog†in Iraq (Rumsfeld secret memo), the neo-con plans to invade still more nations, and then having to take Rumsfeld and Cheney’s word not to worry about the draft, that they “are not considering it at this time.â€
Although official word is that this secret list of options is not being
implemented—the Issue Paper options have NOT been rejected and the 6-page proposal is rather sitting in the Pentagon, waiting. In addition, the SSS itself has said that it is “designing procedures†(Seattle PI, May 1, 2004) to implement the skills draft, meaning designing the compliance cards and the data fields needed to keep track of “virtually every young American†and their skills. Acting Director of the SSS Brodsky has also said the Skills Draft is the “top priority†of the Selective Service for 2004.
From the FOI document, we now know that on February 11, 2003, Charles Abell, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and William Carr, Deputy Undersecretary for Military Personnel Policy, met with Lewis Brodsky, the Acting Director of the Selective Service and some other officials. This is the highest-level meeting you could have about the Selective Service, outside of Rumsfeld and his inner circle. They were there to discuss the urgent “issue paper†now revealed, which starts: “With known shortages of military personnel with certain critical skills, and with
the need for the nation to be capable of responding to domestic emergencies as a part of Homeland Security Planning, changes should be made in the Selective Service System’s registration program and primary mission.â€
Although it would require changes in current draft law, the far-reaching
proposal shows how far the Republicans are going to plan and prepare for a huge expansion of the draft. The Issue Paper options include:
* Change the very mission of the SSS to become a massive conscription service in the War on Terror for the entire government.
* Conscript men and women in a critical skills non-combat draft up to age 34 with no deferments of any kind, except “essential community service†(like the Medical Draft).
* Allow a non-combat draft for shortages in critical skills, without calling a combat draft.
* Fill labor shortages of all kinds throughout not only DoD but the whole government, especially high-paying professionals like computer networking specialist or linguist.
* Create a massive database of “virtually every young American†ages 18 to 34. This database would be used to draft in war and to recruit in peacetime. State and even local governments would be given access to the names for recruitment and help in emergencies.
* Create a single-point, all-inclusive database, in which every young person would be forced to send in a “self-declaration†of all of their critical skills, chosen from a long list of occupations like the Armed Forces Specialty Code. The self-declaration is similar to IRS compliance and the filling out and signing of your tax forms. All young people would be required to keep the government updated if they acquired a new skill. SSS Compliance forms will be available at every Post Office. The usual penalties of imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine would apply to all non-registrants.
* A draft or recruitment could be for any one of the skills you self-declare on the compliance form, not your current or primary skill. This greatly increases your chance of being drafted if you are 18–34.
* Bring the Medical Draft (HCPDS) up to speed and fully test it through readiness exercises.
* Reduce induction time from being able to deliver all inductees in 193 days down to just 90 days for skills inductees.
This secret paper urges the mission be changed “promptly,†meaning they really need it, it would draft for the Pentagon as well as the enormous Homeland Security branches as well as other government agencies, even state and local!
For obvious political reasons, the decision was made by Bush, Cheney and Rove to sit on this 6-page proposal until after the election in November.
Yet the SSS was told to go ahead and begin “designing procedures†for the Skills Draft in 2004 and make it their “top priority.†It can be expected that if Bush gets back in, and the DoD and SSS are still asking for the Skills Draft, the “Next Steps†part of the document will be put into action and the most expansive option to change the SSS mission will be rapidly legislated.
In the secret planning meeting document, the next steps strongly recommended by SSS Acting Director Brodsky were:
1. “Promptly†redefine the SSS Mission to draft men and women up to age 34 for skills, and deliver them within 90 days or sooner to the Department of Defense. Program a massive database to be ready to enter millions of names of those registering their critical skills.
2. Expand mission to deliver personnel in skills draft to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including FEMA, NSC, Border Patrol, INS, Customs, Corporation for National Service, Public Health Service and other federal, state and local government agencies.
3. Form interagency task force to provide Administration with recommendation on this skills draft for the entire DHS and the rest of the government.
4. Obtain White House Statement of Administration Policy on the future of the SSS.
5. Be prepared to market the skills draft, raising the non-combat age to 34 and the drafting of women to the Armed Services and ppropriations
Committee.
This proposed expansion of the draft, forcing all people under 35 to
register with the SSS, man or woman, is primarily proposed, according to the document, because the cost of providing contract professionals, like computer network specialists, would be “prohibitive.†In this way, the proposed Skills Draft would help preserve Bush’s massive tax cuts for the wealthy by lowering the massive budget deficits.
That’s the new Skills Draft and the secret document behind it. But what about the Combat Draft?
Selective Service has been registering young men for over twenty years and at any moment the President can go to Congress and ask them to reauthorize conscription for the male combat draft for ages 18–25. It doesn’t take much to imagine a re-elected Bush going to Congress and saying “We cannot cut and run from Iraq or the War on Terror. I need you to reauthorize conscription.â€
And they would not have to pass a whole new draft law to do it. All that is needed is a “trigger resolution,†which could be passed in the dead of night—and bingo! No debate, no regular bill, just a short resolution passed quickly and the draft for men 18 to 25 is back.
That is why the Democratic draft resolution being offered by Rangel and Hollings is totally irrelevant. These are known protest bills and actually
propose drafting women for the combat draft, just to make sure they will never see the light of day. Rangel and Hollings offered them to raise the issue and confront Bush. Hollings even said he wouldn’t vote for his own bill!
They are not needed—and the press and the Republicans will bring them up as red herrings to distract everyone from what is really going on: the Republicans, and the SSS are quietly, behind the scenes, oiling up the draft machinery—getting ready to reinstate for the Spring of 2005. Taken singly, each of the clues indicating the return and expansion of the draft might seem insignificant but when you add them all up with what the Selective Service is doing to gear up the combat draft, a clear pattern emerges, leading to the inescapable conclusion that a Bush re-election will see not only a Skills Draft, but a return of the Combat Draft as well. . . . read the rest, print and distribute.
How this is NOT the so-called Rangel Draft Bill, with a Timeline of actual Draft activity in fulfillment of the goals outlined in the SSS Issue Paper of Feb 11, 2004
Selective Service eyes women's draft The proposal would also require registration of critical skills
Eric Rosenberg
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 1, 2004
WASHINGTON—The chief of the Selective Service System has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about whether they have training in niche specialties needed in the armed services.
The proposal, which the agency’s acting Director Lewis Brodsky presented to senior Pentagon officials just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, also seeks to extend the age of draft registration to 34 years old, up from 25.
The Selective Service System plan, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, highlights the extent to which agency officials have planned for an expanded military draft in case the administration and Congress would authorize one in the future. . . .
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