We Need to Reinstate the Draft Before We Jump Into Ukraine

The ink’s not quite dry on the pullout from Afghanistan before US officials are looking to make the world safe for democracy in another corner of the world. What’s mind-boggling is the fact that fifty percent of Americans support this initiative — meaning let’s send other people’s kids to Ukraine so we can crank up the military-industrial complex and give our economy a great big boost.

That’s why we need the draft back ASAP. We need a shot of reality. Citizens need to be assured that if the lunatics in Washington have their way and we go to war once again that it will be our precious loved ones who must put their asses on the line. Not somebody else's kid who signs up for lack of good alternatives but your kid.

You may not be old enough to remember the protests across the country during the Vietnam War. That was when we had a draft and yours truly anxiously awaited his lottery number to assess my chance of being drafted to make the world safe for democracy in the jungles of Vietnam. The graduating classes before mine were decimated, friends returned looking like zombies, other friends did not return at all.

With the draft firmly in place, all US families had some skin in the game. Families did not sit back and watch twenty years of war go by without a whimper of protest as Americans calmly watched the years go by in Afghanistan. Universities were literally on fire with protests.

Back to my burning question for all the US families who are anxious to rush into Ukraine, is Ukraine worth the life of your child or grandchild?

Let me answer that for you — their life should not be wasted in yet another of our endless wars. Get a grip on hindsight. Vietnam is a communist country now — where’s the threat to democracy that we were fighting and dying for? We lost, now Vietnam has a tourist economy where young Americans can crawl through the very tunnels where US servicemen died— imagine the thrill.

We just spent twenty years in Afghanistan making the world safe from terrorists — do you feel safe from terrorists? Nope, we lost again. Ran home with our tails between our legs and it’s a good thing we finally cut our losses when we did. Besides now we have plenty of home-grown terrorists to deal with.

When you have the world’s largest and most expensive hammer, you must find something to smash. We have the largest most expensive military machine in the world and they just suffered another humiliating loss — they badly want a win. Is that worth your child’s life? Because if it’s not worth the life of your child, how can you consign another’s child to fate you wish to avoid for your own.

Let’s be honest. Why would we go across half the planet to make the world safe for democracy when democracy is not safe in the US. Many in the US are ready to embrace fascism and chuck democracy as evidenced by voter disenfranchisement and wanton support of the wanna-be dictator Donald Trump. Half of US citizens want to break the country apart into smaller pieces — no more one nation under God.

We have so many pressing problems right here in the US that we fail to address. How many more homeless veterans do we need? We fail to support the ones we have now. How many more of our citizens must be maimed by another senseless war? As for the war, we fought to defeat terrorism yet we have our own home-grown terrorists to deal with to the extent that I fear the crazy US-born and bred shooter more than any foreign terrorist. We can’t afford universal health care or discount university fees, but we can afford to wage war on the other side of the globe — to what purpose to prop up democracy a system that is failing here?

I no longer have faith in our government to make rational informed decisions for the good of the multitude of our citizenry. We have two political parties who have lost the art of compromise to the point where every action is aimed to thwart the opposing party. Is this the government to trust with the decision to go to war with Russia? Not to mention the instability of our government — McConnell and his band of not-so-loyal Republicans only grant the US an operation license for about six weeks at a time before they threaten to shut down the government and default on the world over the debt ceiling. Imagine conducting a war in that environment — sorry joint chiefs, no funds until we can work out our domestic squabbles. Minority Leader McConnell needs his time in the spotlight. Perhaps you could lean on dependent families to crank up the bake sales and garage sales to keep the troops fed.

Face it! We can’t defeat the rag-tag Taliban or the pajama-clad Vietnamese — now we want to take on the Russians. The Russian army is hardly a pushover. Their supply lines will be short, ours will be long and if pushed into a corner they could always release a couple of nukes to relieve the pressure.

The very thought of defending Ukraine is insanity. Bring back the draft, before we become engaged in another twenty-year fiasco. We need the rioting protests on campuses across the country to restore our nation’s conscience. Without serious protest, we will be back at war once again.

And for those of you who want a war to defend Ukraine — push your kids to the front of the line.