Public Indifference to U.S. Military Deaths in Afghanistan Requires Re-instituting the Draft as a Means of Reminding Americans of the Need for a Less Selfish Personal and Public Morality

© 2010 Peter Free

 

30 June 2010

 

Ask this question

 

If I will not physically stand with my brothers and sisters whom I send to die in my service, who am I?

 

A military draft would fix problems that need fixing

 

A return of the military draft would:

 

(a) remind Americans that indifference to our military’s underclass dying in service to the rest of us is profoundly immoral,

 

(b) reduce the United States’ tendency to use its military as an impulsively-used bludgeon in the pursuit of stupid wars, and

 

(c) definitely terminate the geopolitical non-strategy on display in Afghanistan today.

 

Contrast the Vietnam era with today’s Afghanistan bleed

 

The contrast between public involvement during the Vietnam and Afghanistan eras is stark.

 

The most plausible explanation for the contrast is the presence of the military draft during Vietnam and its absence today.

 

There’s nothing like a military draft to make people comprehend that death in the national service should be a shared sacrifice.

 

The draft focuses the brain and helps to prevent stupid errors in the use of deadly force.

 

During Vietnam, a substantial portion of my generation was roused from post-adolescent apathy by the daily bite of the draft and the endless stream of body bags returning from the war.

 

In contrast, that same generation today, and its younger peers, apparently thinks the volunteer military should be fine with dying or being maimed on our behalf, with only an occasional, “Hey, thanks for serving,” from us.

 

That “hey, thanks” phrase doesn’t mean anything, when it comes from people who don’t have the foggiest concept of what it is like to be shot at and blown up by a disguised enemy that hides among innocents you have been ordered not to kill. 

 

“Hey, thanks” doesn’t mean anything when the speaker has not got the sense of duty, service, courage, or shared sacrifice to contemplate carrying his or her share of the burden.

 

The burden could be shared either via (a) military service or (b) in publicly displaying vociferous opposition to sending an isolated military underclass into Afghanistan’s killing zone.

 

Our military youth are not slaves, nor do they comprise a Roman centurion class

 

An immoral nation is one that repeatedly tolerates sending the same, tiny group to do its deadly and dying work.

 

The United States is not and should not be Rome.  A legitimately democratic nation cannot tolerate the creation of what is, effectively speaking, a military slave or centurion class.

 

Yet that is exactly what we have done and continue to do, with each passing day of the very long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

It is time to bring the draft back

 

It is time to bring the military draft back.  It would serve as a reminder that the maintenance of freedom requires shared sacrifice.

 

A military draft would goad us into exhibiting more governmental intelligence in selecting the battles we choose to begin.

 

A draft would remind us that whom we elect may kill us

 

A military draft would revitalize aspects of our democracy by reminding a wider public that whom we elect to government office matters.