More Troops From Where?

espresso beans to watersblogged!

Irratated Vet and I are having a little conversation at his site. He thinks the number of troops in Iraq needs to be dramatically increased. From his perspective, (I hope I'm conveying his position properly) congressman Rangel's proposed legislation to re-institute the military draft ought to be given serious consideration. The armed forces don't currently have the capacity, he says, to bring thousands more troops that are sorely needed. There's a lot we don't see eye to eye on, but he's an intelligent guy, and he can make disagreeing fun.
IV calls his article, "acknowledging the elephant," so when I found this Cox & Forkum at Watersblogged, (where the draft is also being "debated") I realized I may be the only casual C & F reader in the sphere!
Watersblogged! links to Oliver North via RealClearPolitics. North's view of what motivates Mr Rangel's draft legislation follows:

....Now Democrats, after campaigning for change in Iraq, have a certain responsibility to improve the situation in Mesopotamia. Knowing that it's not as easy as they made it sound on the campaign trail -- and needing more leverage to try to get the troop withdrawal they want -- Rangel is leading the charge to make young Americans believe that if the troops don't come home tomorrow, Uncle Sam will outfit college students with fatigues and ship them overseas.
...."As long as Americans are being shipped off to war," Rangel says, "then everyone should be vulnerable."

I could not agree more. But that only aggravates the REAL issue.

....Rangel and others have claimed that conscription is necessary to ensure that our military more closely resembles the "economic makeup" of our nation. The Congressman from Harlem has said, "for those who say the poor fight better, I say give the rich a chance."
....But the allegation that the current war is being fought -- and that casualties are disproportionately suffered -- by poor, urban, minority males simply isn't substantiated by the racial, ethnic, economic and educational data available.

North's rebuttal is directed at the ridiculous notion that the current military make up are a bunch of losers that are "...stuck in Iraq." But that doesn't even begin to touch the very serious issue of, well, More Troops From Where? The draft is not an elephant, it's a carcass. It hasn't got a chance except as the scare tactic Rangel's looking for. But if not the draft, then what?
All we know for sure is that the current situation is not sustainable.

Rangel - Obama Quagmire

There are people, mostly younger voters, that really believe that somewhere, somehow, we are going to have a draft -- and that it is a Republican idea. This sort of misleading Reuters headline, and its accompanying article, does little to clear up the muck. Democrat Rangel has been introducing this legislation since the beginning of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has always been defeated overwhelmingly. It has always, somehow, been portrayed as something that is supposed to be embarrassing to the administration.

"We did not include that" in legislative plans for early next year, said Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who will be House majority leader when the new Congress convenes in January.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California noted her opposition to the draft in remarks to reporters. She said Rangel was trying to underscore that the U.S. war effort should be a "shared sacrifice" and his legislation was "a way to make that point."

Democrats want to run the war from DC. That idea went over well in Viet Nam. Harvard grads in the DOD and the Democrat majority telling four-star generals how to win a war "nicely." Fighting to win will upset the Fonda wing - not to mention the Syrians and the Iranians - with whom we are supposed to start "negotiating." They don't know what they're going to do, so they are floating trial balloons to see if anything resonates with whoever it is that listens to them.