> Lawrence O'Donnell
> Rangel Is Right
[...]
> You can see his anger and frustration building each time he answers
> another reporter's question about the draft. The point he keeps
> repeating is: "There's no question in my mind that this president and
> this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the
> flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a
> draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that
> their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way."
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If this were so, I would applaud Rangel's position.
But is there any hard evidence for it? My impression is there hasn't been any correlation between popular support for both the Vietnam and Iraq wars and the class distribution of military casualties. In fact, support has often tended to be highest in those working class communities and regions which have had disproportionate numbers of their young people killed and wounded. When support has wavered in these communities (eg. Murtha's Deer Hunter counties in Western PA), my sense is that it hasn't been because of any deep feeling that the sacrifices were unequal - although I'm sure some of that is always present in working class and minority neighbourhoods - so much as they were being made in what appears to be a losing cause.
The draft, for example, was widely accepted in WW II. During Vietnam, draft resistance became an important issue on the campuses, and the attention drawn to student protests helped galvanize broader opposition to the war, but only after it had already become apparent, as in Iraq today, that the war was unwinnable and that a sizeable part of the ruling class wanted out of it.
So I would say that unless it can be demonstrated otherwise, the left should be wary about jumping on Rangel's bandwagon. It seems to be headed up a blind alley or worse. As I've previously noted, the greater likelihood is that a draft would give the US military the resources it currently lacks to intervene more freely in other countries it considers troublesome.
BTW, I also question Rangel's view that a draft would make congressional representatives balk if their own kids were exposed to it. The latter mostly are able to evade the draft, thanks to student deferment and reserve service loopholes and family connections, as Bush's case infamously shows in all instances. Again, do we know how many children of HR and Senate reps were drafted into combat units in Vietnam?