Is the US Preparing for a Draft? To My Readers Seeking More Information, Confirmation

To head off the trolls who always claim that Democrats want a draft because of the protest movement before the invasion of Iraq where Congressionals posed as wanting a draft to get Americans to think about the consequences of their support for killing people in foreign nations, I will post some verification here of the Bush administration preparing the Selective Service to institute a wide spread draft both for combat and to siphon up skilled professionals to do work more cheaply for the "government".

Third World Traveler caught some from "The Progressive" which was gotten through FOIA request.

 Here are some excerpts:

The Pentagon is suffering from immediate labor shortages. Recently, the Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR) had to be called up for the first time since the Gulf War to fill 5,600 job shortages in the Armed Forces. The Department of Defense (DoD) said in the recent IRR call-up "20 percent of the call-ups are truck drivers, 12 percent are supply specialists who can use a computer to track supplies, 10 percent are Humvee mechanics, 7 percent are administrative specialists and 6 percent are combat engineers" (USA Today, August 8, 2004). Although Congress would have to approve new legislation to create a skills draft or reinstate the combat draft, Family Circle reported in its July 13 issue that Karl Rove had polled GOP members of Congress in September 2002 to see if they would support the president if he requests reinstatement. Republicans said they would vote for the draft and would likely support the new legislation needed to create the skills draft.

...

1. Promptly redefine the SSS Mission to draft men and women up to age 34 for skills and deliver them within 90 days or sooner to the Department of Defense. Program a massive database to be ready to enter millions of names of those registering their critical skills.

...

The SSS has for decades operated at a low level of readiness. Readiness exercises are conducted on a multi-year cycle but historically these have been little more than training new members every summer and getting draft board volunteers together and going over the procedures of what would happen under reinstatement. The draft boards have become 80 percent vacant over the decades.

In the current five-year cycle of exercises, however, the SSS is clearly ramping up the draft machinery to an unprecedented level. The following information is from the "SSS Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2004":

* Ensure a mobilization infrastructure of 56 State Headquarters, 442 Area Offices and 1,980 Local Boards are operational within 75 days of an authorized return to conscription."

Many of the targeted young (under 35 years old) people will be those with good high skills jobs.  The government (or more likely the private companies that are running our WOT more and more) are getting squeezed (despite making billions of dollars per contract) by having to pay good wages to employees like computer people and other highly skilled folk.  No more of that.  With a skills draft, people can be ripped from high paying jobs and told to work for less because "We're at war, Citizen!"

Fascism: Business and government working hand in hand to the detriment of the citizens.

 PS I was wrong on one point. The new "draft" recommendations are for under 35 years old or up to 34 years old.

My apologies.

BTW, I had a better link earlier which I put on a forum with a supposed quality search function.  The resultant page was straight from the government.  First of all, the search function on that board is terrible and the post can't be found.  Secondly, from reading the report I linked to above I see that most of this evidence on government webspaces was 404'd  anyway. 

tags: military draft  draft  selective service system  war  military  dhs  fascism  

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