More On The Draft

AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth: "...On the subject of the draft I'll just take a page out of Colin Powell's biography : My American Journey ''I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war. The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live - were an anti-democratic disgrace. I can never forgive a leadership that said in effect: These young men - poorer, less educated, less privileged - are expendable (someone described them as economic cannon fodder), but the rest are too good to risk. I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed and so many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.' About his first tenure in the White House: Organisation doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavours succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people can you accomplish great deeds. About democracy: democracy did not always function well in the light of day. Democracy is give and take. People have to trade, change, deal, retreat, bend, compromise, as they move from the ideal to the possible. To the uninitiated, the process can be messy, disappointing, even shocking. Compromise can make the participants look manipulative, unprincipled, two faced."

In closing, I am outraged that the same people who did everything in their power to avoid service in Vietnam (while they supported it at the same time) now have found themselves in a position of power only to create a brand new Vietnam of their own.

The only difference is that in Vietnam they had an exit strategy (I got that from a bumper sticker).

John Bruhns
Iraq war veteran
Take A Stand ..."