CIA was recently discussing a strike on Iran. How much chance do you think there is that US will declare a war against Iran? And do you think the draft can make a comeback if the strike is made since the US ground troops are by no means huge.
I doubt it . All we would need is around 300,000-400,000 troops. We have enough forces to carry out an Invasion of Iran, the problem is how do we deter other threats.
Well in my opinion Air power is all that is needed to deter a DPRK attack and Air/Sea Power is all that is needed to deter China from invading Taiwan. So moving a great deal of the ground forces from the pacific and the United States would not expose us to a much greater threat.
So no in my opinion a draft would not be nessecary or desirable.
The draft is never either desirable or necessary. Why? Because the draft is slave labor, and slave labor is morally wrong. The moral is the practical.
Hey, I never said that the draft was necessary, moral or desirable. I just wanted to know whether the current or future government would be likely to bring the draft back or not.
Well in my opinion Air power is all that is needed to deter a DPRK attack and Air/Sea Power is all that is needed to deter China from invading Taiwan. So moving a great deal of the ground forces from the pacific and the United States would not expose us to a much greater threat.
Air Force didn’t work in Vietnam.
Besides do you think it would be practical to invade Iran.
Vietnam is a completly different context. The South Vietnamese were incompotent and could not fight a ground war.
Both Taiwan and South Korea are different. As far as Taiwan is concerned, China can not invade them because they do not have a sufficiant air/sea lift capability. Their only option against Taiwan is to cut them off with their Navy (which is why I said we only need Naval and Sea power to deter China from this course of action). Then there is South Korea. They have 670,000 ground troops, roughly the same ammount that North Korea has ready for a ground invasion of South Korea. South Korea has an emmense advantage in both ammount of armor, training, etc. Within 48-72 hours South Korea would call up over 2,000,000 soldiers. After this happens the North Koreans don’t have a chance.
With US Air Power, it ensures that the North Koreans get halted before 48 hours.
Air Force didn’t work in Vietnam.
But there was no attempt by the military to gain the immediate surrender of the North Vietnamese government, using air power. Using the Air Force is part of the answer; how it is used is even more important.
Besides do you think it would be practical to invade Iran.
Not in the slightest, at present. An invasion is sensible only if its purpose is liberating the country. If the purpose is to stop a rogue government, ground troops are counter-productive. I also think there is no chance the US will declare war on anyone for decades – we don’t do declared wars anymore. I see no reason to believe that the US will take military action of any kind against Iran, barring some overwhelming action on the part of the Iranian government.
I don’t believe that Ronald Reagan would have supported a military draft. GWB is no Ronald Reagan, so you can compute my answer by tossing a coin. Obviously, nobody will moot the idea of bringing back the draft, until after November. I woud put the draft in the same category as the national ID proposal: it will get chatted up for a while, but will die down in a year.
Not in the slightest, at present. An invasion is sensible only if its purpose is liberating the country.
It takes an aircraft fom call in of an air strike to the bomb hitting the ground in excess of a half hour (usually much longer). You can begin to see the problem of hitting these terrorists. Simply firebombing every major Iranian city is not going to by itself end the threat.
I think all they will do is blow up the suspected terror camps and blow up the known nuclear program. Some spec forces troops may be on the ground but committing a massive ground campaign to “control” the country is unlikely. They are close to revolt over there anyway all they need is a trigger.
I think all they will do is blow up the suspected terror camps and blow up the known nuclear program. Some spec forces troops may be on the ground but committing a massive ground campaign to “control” the country is unlikely. They are close to revolt over there anyway all they need is a trigger.
It isn’t easy to identify the suspected terror camps and it requires a lot of intelligence. Random bombing kills a lot of innocents.
It takes an aircraft fom call in of an air strike to the bomb hitting the ground in excess of a half hour (usually much longer). You can begin to see the problem of hitting these terrorists. Simply firebombing every major Iranian city is not going to by itself end the threat.
I’m afraid I don’t understand your reply. If the government in Tehran launches an attack, it’s a fairly simple physical matter to obliterate Tehran, and an entirely political matter to decide if you will do so. It’s obvious that you can’t eliminate terrorism by any reasonable military action, short of actually eliminating all life in Iran (which would only deal with terrorism organised inside Iran, not Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc). Invading with hundreds of thousands of GI’s would not solve the problem of terrorism in the Middle East, and it would be the height of stupidity for the US government to think that it would.
I’m afraid I don’t understand your reply. If the government in Tehran launches an attack, it’s a fairly simple physical matter to obliterate Tehran, and an entirely political matter to decide if you will do so. It’s obvious that you can’t eliminate terrorism by any reasonable military action, short of actually eliminating all life in Iran (which would only deal with terrorism organised inside Iran, not Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc). Invading with hundreds of thousands of GI’s would not solve the problem of terrorism in the Middle East, and it would be the height of stupidity for the US government to think that it would.
What I’m saying is that if you don’t have ground forces to at least control the borders there is no way to stop the bad guys from fleeing into other countries. All the survaliance aircraft in the world could’t even find half of them, let alone find them in a place where we can attack quickly before they scadadle.
Could the US accomplish a liberation of Iran by supplying weapons and training to the pro-democracy forces in combination with air strikes, in the absence of a major ground force? Or could this lead to another improper government if the US does not maintain a presence?
Could the US accomplish a liberation of Iran by supplying weapons and training to the pro-democracy forces in combination with air strikes, in the absence of a major ground force? Or could this lead to another improper government if the US does not maintain a presence?
US armed and trained Osama Bin Laden to fight Soviet Union in Afghanistan. See what happened. It might not be that good an idea unless ofcourse the US mantains a presence in the country. But that would by no means obliterate the danger of a fascist government.
Just to clarify to all future replies, when I say “presence”, I mean a large ground force, separate from CIA or agents used to train rebel fighters (or police, after the fall of the government).
Could the US accomplish a liberation of Iran by supplying weapons and training to the pro-democracy forces in combination with air strikes, in the absence of a major ground force? Or could this lead to another improper government if the US does not maintain a presence?
No. The problem is not that the pro-democracy forces lacks arms, but that they don’t know the names of the state police agents who will kill them for opposing the government. Turns out your neighbor is a VEVAK agent, and you get carted off to prison or simply killed, so don’t talk to your neighbor. Either of them, because you don’t know which one is an agent.
The most useful thing that the US could do (if it could do it) would be making known the names and addresses of all of the secret police. Eliminating the clergy would be the second most useful thing.
Are you seriously suggesting the murder of religious leaders just for being religious leaders?
Are you seriously suggesting the murder of religious leaders just for being religious leaders?
If that was addressed to me and my suggestion of eliminating the clergy, obviously not. If I had said “liquidate” or “eviscerate”, you could conclude that.
In an oppressive theocracy where clergy are responsible for the murder and imprisonment of innocent people, those who need to be liquidated will turn out to be, overwhelmingly, clergy: but this is not a biconditional. It’s not the fact of being clergy, but rather the fact of being a murder, that earns you the strong moral condemnation. In this case, because of the theology involved, there is also a causal relationship between the religious views and the actions, but because man is volitional, you have a choice of not being a murderer even tough you are a Shiite cleric.
what’ so funny is taht two DEMOCRAT senators proposed legislation for the reinstitution of the draft, so as to scare college students alike into thinking bush supported it.
CIA was recently discussing a strike on Iran. How much chance do you think there is that US will declare a war against Iran? And do you think the draft can make a comeback if the strike is made since the US ground troops are by no means huge.
I am very much against the Draft; for me this is a “hot button issue.”
Government has no justification whatsoever for initiating the Draft.
The Draft is slavery.
If that was addressed to me and my suggestion of eliminating the clergy, obviously not. If I had said “liquidate” or “eviscerate”, you could conclude that.
“Eliminate” usually means “kill” so that seemed a reasonable inference. Thanks for the clarification.
As for the draft, I think it is very unlikely. The Pentagon neither needs nor wants untrained unwilling cannon fodder. As said, note that the idea is being pushed by Democrats. It’s a scare tactic intended to make people vote against Bush because they think they or their kids might be drafted.