Les Blough
The Department of Defense is experiencing/forecasting
Mon Feb 16 12:09:31 2004
64.140.159.183

(Cont'd) http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5081.shtml

"The Department of Defense is experiencing/forecasting a sharp and dangerous shortage of young men and women willing to serve in uniform. As more and more nations undergo re-armament either to bolster their economies or in preparation for war, the United States may not be able to appropriately respond to growing national and international security needs. In view of our military personnel shortage, should the draft be reinstated to satisfy military force levels?"

Does anyone think for a moment that this regime in Washington will hesitate to reinstate the draft as the numbers of recruits continues to shrink? Does anyone believe that they will stop at anything to prosecute their war? Does anyone really believe that the Bush Administration will pause and reflect on what they have done and reconsider their decision to go to war - or to continue their corporate-driven war? Reflection and self-examination do not seem to be in the vocabularies of these people.

Already, Blair, Bush and their cohorts have done nothing but defend, distort, and deny in the face of incontrovertible evidence that their invasion of Iraq was built on lies about the existance of a credible threat from Iraq and the alleged WMD. Do you think your government will reinstate the draft after the 2004 elections, regardless of which party wins? Failing a complete pullout of American troops from Iraq and losing the corporate "spoils", it appears that reinstatement of the draft will be on the government agenda for 2004.

In the article cited above, Craig B. Hulet?, he stated:

"It is going to get much tougher on the troops over these next years, including new troops that are part of the planned military draft."

VI. When, How Will it End?

When and how will this war end? In 2001, a day after George W. Bush visited the destruction of the World Trade Center, he read from a foreboding speech, warning us that his "war on terrorism" will not be won in a single battle:

"I will not settle for a token act. Our response must be sweeping, sustained and effective. We have much to do and much to ask of the American people. You will be asked for your patience, for the conflict will not be short. You will be asked for resolve, for the conflict will not be easy. You will be asked for your strength because the course to victory may be long."

In speaking those words, he paved the way to conduct a war, prosecuted in secrecy, with no accountability to the American people, no measures for success or failure, and no "exit strategy". Forget the old warnings of "mission creep". Forget formulation of an "exit strategy". This was to be a war like no other in the history of man - a promise he has delivered in spades. Asking how and when it would end is now a "foolish question". But ask we will.

Noone can say what the end will look like. But we can and should learn from our own history. Consider this from the article I wrote in November and cited earlier:

"How often I hear folks ask, 'Did we learn nothing from Viet Nam?' Can the embarrassing, tragic and costly American exit from Viet Nam on April 29, 1975 be considered an 'exit strategy'? Can any rational mind consider it an 'exit strategy' when the invaders flee their victim-country with their asses on fire? Can we imagine any scenario in which the U.S. and British governments could possibly consider this to have been a 'successful war'?

"- Perhaps only in the minds of those White House advisors who apparently wanted only to destabilize the Middle East and turn Iraq into another Palestine and Baghdad into another Beirut. Also, perhaps those "rebuild Iraq" companies, friendly to the Bush family, who with their crooked no-bid contracts profit from the war on Iraq. Perhaps they will have considered it a success. But how can this ever be considered 'a success' in the minds of civilized, sane and rational human beings?"

VII. Awakening

When will America wake up to the fact that these numbers of killed and wounded in Iraq will continue to mount? Do we have to wait until 58,000 are killed in this so-called "War on Terrorism" which, according to George W. Bush, has no end in sight? Must we to listen to this AWOL-Commander in Chief invite more Iraqi Resistance Fighters to "Bring it on" to our sons and daughters while we stand by to read of their deaths in tomorrow's newspaper? Do we have to wait until then before we show up on the street with sufficient numbers to demand an end to the madness? Do we have to wait for a repeat of the Kent State University killings at the hands of the government police (aka The National Guard)? For more DNC riots like we had in Chicago? For more campus protests ending in violence? For more families devastated? For more veterans who have to relive the nightmares of what they have done and of what has been done to them for the balance of their lives? For more ripping apart of the fabric of our society? For thousands, tens of thousands more Iraqis slaughtered like their lives and families mean nothing? What ever happened to the so-called and highly-touted "Powell Doctrine"? Where is the exit strategy?

How will we get out of this, another dirty, Godless war, fought in the service of Global Corporatism? What will the "Exit Strategy" from this mess look like -when it is all over? The images of U.S. soldiers fleeing Vietnam have been burned into our minds for 30+ years with U.S. helicopters pushed off the sterns of ships, decades of suffering by Vietnam Veterans with disabilities, their broken families, the never-ending searches for MIAs and a national guilt that will haunt us for years to come. To these memories, the Wars on Afghanistan and Iraq will carry the additional baggage of the effects of depleted uranium on Afghan and Iraqi children and the loss of the culture to which all human beings owe their genesis. What images will be burned into our minds 30 years hence? Indeed, what images of us will be carried into history for those looking back?

© Copyright 2004 by AxisofLogic.com

About the author

Les Blough is founding editor of Axis of Logic, launched May 18, 2003. He grew up in the country in Pennsylvania where he began working on a dairy farm in his youth. He has been writing poetry since the age of 12 and political essays for many years. Currently, his work is divided between his counseling & forensics practice and his work as a poet, political activist, writer and editor. He is a graduate of Bob Jones University, University of Tennessee (Nashville) and Penn State University (College Park). He lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his family. More biographical information about him is provided in the About Us section on the front page of Axis of Logic. He welcomes your comments: les@axisoflogic.com

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Fallen soldier's mother says her son 'died for absolutely nothing'

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.asp?brd=1091&dept_id=425744&newsid=10958951&pag