Threat of Draft Will Tame Warlike U.S. Populace

I picked this article up via Z Magazine.

The Black Commentator argues that Threat of Draft Will Tame Warlike U.S. Populace

... a universal military and national service draft such as proposed by Harlem’s Charles Rangel and a small group of other congressmen would utterly wreck the social compact that makes endless war politically possible, by forcing Americans to ponder the consequences of U.S. foreign policy to their own families and friends for the first time in 32 years.

This is backed up by the poll results quoted in the article. The racist and class nature of the Iraq war is further revealed by the fact that non-whites are being killed, and it is the poor who are doing the killing.

Recent polls indicate that a majority of the 70 percent of America that is white still support the war – that is, the social base for Bush’s war policy remains intact. Moreover, the 58 percent general opposition to the war recorded in the mid-January ABC-Washington Post poll was not intense enough to deny Bush an overall approval rate of 52 percent.

Two years of polling indicate that, 1) at least half of white America condones (or cheers) war crimes against Iraqis, 2) much of the opposition to the war is weak in intensity, and 3) the public feels, in general, only distantly connected to the war, or to the soldiers who are fighting it.

All three outcomes are directly related to the all-volunteer nature of the U.S. military. After a generation and a half without a draft, the citizens of the world’s hyper-aggressive, sole superpower, packing more armaments than the rest of the planet combined, have only the most tenuous links to their armed forces. A fraction of American families contribute members to the military, drawn from Black America (22 percent), Latino America (less than 10 percent) and mainly small town and southern whites from the mid to lower income groups. The remainder of U.S. families do not feel directly “at risk” and may therefore cheer, bemoan or ignore U.S. military adventures from the psychological distance of their choosing.

By making draft equally applicable to everyone, everyone will want to ensure that the cause for war is correct.

We have no illusions that national service will come anytime soon. However, the Pirates’ strategy is one of constant escalation, as they attempt to shatter world order and then replace it with their own edifice. Hyper-aggression tends to accelerate the political process. Talking in war-code to a Parisian audience, Condoleezza Rice made it clear that she sees warfare throughout the entirety of our lives: "If we make the pursuit of global freedom the organizing principle of the 21st century, we will achieve historic global advances – for justice and prosperity, for liberty and for peace."

The US ruling class is using war to save itself from oblivion as all ruling classes throughout history have done before it. Capitalism is a pitiless devourers of those who fail to keep up. There are others who are starting to catch up with the USA. They realise that an alliance between them can topple the USA from its perch. Unfortunately, any slippage by the USA only encourages the others to continue their covert warfare against the USA.

The article assumes that people will stop supporting the war if they could become involved in it. I think that a significant portion of the petite bourgeois and teh labour aristocracy realise that the USA is in decline. A successful war could halt or even reverse that downward trend. For them, the gamble in Iraq would be worthwhile even if they had to pay the price of serving under a draft.

The problem with articles of this type is that they think the self-interest of the various classes extends only as far as their comfort. Whereas people can see things better than what is published in the mass media and realise that the Capitalist system in their country is under threat.