Where is the Draft?

[Ani_Ibi]

vern humphrey:

We have something over 4 million people a year turning draft age. With a two-year period of service, we’d have something like 7 million in uniform (plus a million or so who just couldn’t serve.) Then we have those already over 18 who never served, and in fairness, they have to be drafted, too. We wind up with some 14 million people in uniform.

The cost of equipping, housing, feeding, clothing, training and so on would be enormous.

I’m sorry, Vern, but the very thought of feeding such an enormous army has me in gales of laughter.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Ani Ibi:

I’m sorry, Vern, but the very thought of feeding such an enormous army has me in gales of laughter.

Maybe after MM is out of rehab, we can hire him as a mess cook.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[Ani_Ibi]

vern humphrey:

Maybe after MM is out of rehab, we can hire him as a mess cook.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[vern_humphrey]

Philip P:

Most western nations have some form of national service, which leads me to suspect the problems of implementing it are greatly exagerrated (along with those of nation health care, but thats an enitrely different debate).

Actually not all of them do, not by a long shot. Those which do don’t maintain combat-ready armies – they use all their resources training recruits and never make it to the next level.
Philip P:

Also, most nations that have compulsory service offer a non-military option, so you wouldn’t necessarily have 7 million folks under arms.

Which is cheaper, how?

And what do these non-military people do? Remember, we’re talking about kids just out of highschool. It costs a lot to train them to do meaningful duties – they can’t be doctors, teachers, and so on.
Philip P:

As far as people seeing plots everywhere, well, if we let paranoid conspiracies dictate our public policy, we’d be in a fine mess indeed. Maybe we could form the conspiracy theorists into their own separate divisions while they served - the John Birch Brigade vs the Organic Granola Patrol

Rangel and Hollings tried to generate paranoid conspiracies to dictate our public policy – I for one don’t want to give them more ammunition.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

**2309 **The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: - the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

It’s excellent for Catholics to base any discussion of the Iraq war on the new catechism.

Leaving aside for the moment all the other reasons why the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq are iniquitous and insane, let’s focus on “just war” condition #4:

---

"The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.”***

Every word of this criterion should be taken with the utmost seriousness. We should remember that we are no longer living in the age of Napoleonic artillery, when weapons were mere toys compared to what the U.S. military has at its disposal today.

A Johns Hopkins University study concluded that about 100,000 or more “excess deaths” had occurred in Iraq’s population since the U.S. invasion of March 2003:

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3962969.stm

This figure, even or half of it, indicates that “just war” condition #4 was violated by our government’s incursion into Iraq.

And this is only one point (and not the central one).

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[thestickman]

Steve O'Brien:

It’s excellent for Catholics to base any discussion of the Iraq war on the new catechism.

Leaving aside for the moment all the other reasons why the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq are iniquitous and insane, let’s focus on “just war” condition #4:

---

"The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.”***

Every word of this criterion should be taken with the utmost seriousness. We should remember that we are no longer living in the age of Napoleonic artillery, when weapons were mere toys compared to what the U.S. military has at its disposal today.

A Johns Hopkins University study concluded that about 100,000 or more “excess deaths” had occurred in Iraq’s population since the U.S. invasion of March 2003:

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3962969.stm

This figure, even or half of it, indicates that “just war” condition #4 was violated by our government’s incursion into Iraq.

And this is only one point (and not the central one).

Keep and spread the Faith.

The notion and evidence there have been 100,000 excess deaths has been debunked over and over again. Your argument has no basis in reality on the ground in Iraq. People are free to vote. People have been free to select leaders for their towns and there’s been a national election.

The human shredding machines are silent. The raperooms are closed. The state run torture chambers are closed. No one is filling mass graves with political dissidents. No one is cutting out tongues of political opponents. Teenage girls aren’t being yanked off the street for Uday and Queball’s nightly debauche. Oil-for-Fraud has been exposed. The Iraqis are working on their own constitution. All in all, the evidence on the ground debunks your argument entirely.

To borrow from ya, Steve. It’s insane to think otherwise, IMO.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Steve O'Brien:

A Johns Hopkins University study concluded that about 100,000 or more “excess deaths” had occurred in Iraq’s population since the U.S. invasion of March 2003:

Aside from the fact that these “excess deaths” are bogus numbers, Saddam killed about a million people.

Further, much of the killing is by the terrorists – if we were not there helping the Iraqis, they’d be killing more.

It appears that the fourth condition has been adequately met.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

thestickman:

The notion and evidence there have been 100,000 excess deaths has been debunked over and over again. Your argument has no basis in reality on the ground in Iraq. People are free to vote. People have been free to select leaders for their towns and there’s been a national election.

The human shredding machines are silent. The raperooms are closed. The state run torture chambers are closed. No one is filling mass graves with political dissidents. No one is cutting out tongues of political opponents. Teenage girls aren’t being yanked off the street for Uday and Queball’s nightly debauch. Oil-for-Fraud has been exposed. The Iraqis are working on their own constitution. All in all, the evidence on the ground debunks your argument entirely.

To borrow from ya, Steve. It’s insane to think otherwise, IMO.

It’s good to adopt a cautious and critical approach to *all * reports of atrocities and war casualties
–especially when these reports are used to justify war. For example, the U.S. media now seem to agree that the accusation that Iraqi soldiers disconnected Kuwaiti infants from incubators after Iraq’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait was a fabrication. Here’s a *Wikipedia * discussion of this matter:

“Although the human rights abuses of the Iraq regime before and after the Kuwait invasion were well-documented, the government of Kuwait set out to influence American opinion with a few spectacular, but embellished and false accounts. Shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the organization Citizens for a Free Kuwait was formed in the US. It hired the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton for about $11 million, money from the Kuwaiti government. This firm went on to manufacture a campaign which described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals and letting them die on the floor. A video news release was widely distributed by US TV networks; false supporting testimony was given before Congress and before the UN Security Council. The fifteen-year-old girl testifying before Congress was later revealed to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States; the supposed surgeon testifying at the UN was in fact a dentist who later admitted to having lied. (For more, see Nurse Nayirah.)”

Here’s the link for the above excerpt:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War

If we reject the Johns Hopkins University estimate of 100,000 “excess deaths” in Iraq’s population since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, we still have to deal with the minimum figure that’s continually being updated by the Web site Iraq Body Count:

iraqbodycount.net/

*Iraq Body Count * compiles its minimum and maximum figures for Iraqi civilian deaths occurring during the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq by totalling the figures in reports from many media sources. It provides an explanation of its statistical methodology on its Web site and indicates that its figures include deaths caused by terrorists and criminals–deaths that the occupying force is obliged to prevent.

As I write this, the minimum figure on *Iraq Body Count * is 23,654. But let’s be cautious and halve this figure to arrive at 11,827 civilian deaths resulting directly and indirectly from our government’s invasion of Iraq. Add the 1,877 American deaths in Iraq for a total of 13,704. This figure still supports the conclusion that the fourth condition in the Catholic Church’s requirements for a just war was violated by the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Again, the violation of “just war” condition #4 is only one reason why the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq are morally wrong as well as insane.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Steve O'Brien:

It’s good to adopt a cautious and critical approach to *all *reports of atrocities and war casualties
–especially when these reports are used to justify war.

Unless you have hard evidence, like mass graves all over the country.
Steve O'Brien:

As I write this, the minimum figure on *Iraq Body Count *is 23,654. But let’s be cautious and halve this figure to arrive at 11,827 civilian deaths resulting directly and indirectly from our government’s invasion of Iraq. Add the 1,877 American deaths in Iraq for a total of 13,704. This figure still supports the conclusion that the fourth condition in the Catholic Church’s requirements for a just war was violated by the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Again, the violation of “just war” condition #4 is only one reason why the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq are morally wrong as well as insane.

Keep and spread the Faith.

Current estimates of missing Iraqis from Saddam’s regime top a million. Surveys of the mass graves indicate about 300,000 to 350,000 lie there – it will take years to dig up, identify and document all those dead.

Condition 4 has been met on that count, alone.

 

[thestickman]

vern humphrey:

Current estimates of missing Iraqis from Saddam’s regime top a million. Surveys of the mass graves indicate about 300,000 to 350,000 lie there – it will take years to dig up, identify and document all those dead.

Condition 4 has been met on that count, alone.

Yep. Met and then some.

 

[thestickman]

Steve O'Brien:

Again, the violation of “just war” condition #4 is only one reason why the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq are morally wrong as well as insane.

Thankfully, the reality on the ground in Iraq, combined with non-sequitur of your Kuwait comments has pretty much squashed the viability of your assertions.

Where is that draft again?

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

vern humphrey:

Unless you have hard evidence, like mass graves all over the country.

Current estimates of missing Iraqis from Saddam’s regime top a million. Surveys of the mass graves indicate about 300,000 to 350,000 lie there – it will take years to dig up, identify and document all those dead.

Condition 4 has been met on that count, alone.

Again, caution is needed in the evaluation of any report of atrocities or war casualties.

I recommend that pro-war people consider the viewpoint of Mark Drolette in “Mass Graves: Are We There Yet?”:

antiwar.com/orig/drolette.php?articleid=4174

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Steve O'Brien:

Again, caution is needed in the evaluation of any report of atrocities or war casualties.

I recommend that pro-war people consider the viewpoint of Mark Drolette in “Mass Graves: Are We There Yet?”:

antiwar.com/orig/drolette.php?articleid=4174

Keep and spread the Faith.

I’m glad you call this “the viewpoint of Mark Drolette” and not “evidence.”

Drolette says:

By any standard, a gruesome legacy. But note the last year of known mass killings: 1991 or thereabouts, years before the U.S. rather incongruently began killing Iraqis to (allegedly) stop Hussein from killing them.

I guess all the massacres of Marsh Arabs following the Gulf War don’t count?

I guess the attacks on the Kurds a bit later don’t count?