Dodging the draft

For the past few weeks, the Bush administration has been fighting the label "new Vietnam" as it deals with criticism about its campaign in Iraq, which has seen an increasing number of casualties during the month of April. Though the administration claims the criticism is unfounded, one eerily recognizable aspect of the Vietnam War reared its ugly head last week.\nIn front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Vietnam veteran Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., argued for the reinstitution of the draft, asking, "Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?"\n The answer to Sen. Hagel's question is simple: the American public never asked for this military endeavor. We never had a say in how, when or why the United States should invade Iraq -- we were simply told. And no matter where you stand on the issue of the U.S.' involvement in Iraq, the fact that the American public didn't get a say remains true. So why should the government begin to force its citizens to pay for its decisions?\n Hagel backed his argument by saying, "Those who are serving today and dying today are the middle class and the lower-middle class." He believes a draft will even out the number of men giving their lives equally between the social classes. What he fails to recognize is those men from the middle class are dying because they volunteered to do so. And maybe they are middle and lower-middle class because the military doesn't pay them enough -- but that's another issue. \nYes, instituting the draft would allow all men from all social classes to die for their country, but unwillingly. The volunteer servicemen overseas have made a conscious decision to serve their country, and it belittles that great sacrifice to render their deaths insignificant because they are all middle class. \nIf we had some rich boys over there, things would definitely improve. Thank you, Sen. Hagel, for that insight.\nWhile some may be quivering with fear at the sound of the D-word, we don't feel our government will be taking such a drastic measure any time soon. First of all, the Republicans have been leading everyone to believe they are working to pull out of Iraq, and instituting a draft would fly in the face of the party's public campaign to leave an independent Iraq as of June 30. \nThis is one lone Republican -- not the voice of an entire party or administration. Even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "I don't know anyone in the executive branch of the government who believes it would be appropriate or necessary to reinstate the draft." \nSo if the Secretary of Defense isn't worried, why should anyone else be?