- WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon
has begun recruiting for local draft boards, dredging up painful memories
of Vietnam era conscription at a time of deepening misgiving about America's
occupation of Iraq.
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- In a notice posted on the defence department's Defend
America website, Americans over the age of 18 and with no criminal record
are invited to "serve your community and the nation" by volunteering
for the boards, which decide which recruits should be sent to war.
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- Thirty years have passed since the draft boards last
exerted their hold on America, deciding which soldiers would be sent to
Vietnam. After Congress ended the draft in 1973, they have become largely
dormant.
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- However, recruitment for the boards suggests that in
some parts of the Pentagon all options are being explored in response to
concerns that the US military has been stretched too thin in its occupations
of Afghanistan and Iraq.
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- Although Pentagon officials denied any move to reinstitute
the draft, the defence department website does not shirk at outlining the
potential duties for a new crop of volunteers to the draft boards.
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- "If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately
2,000 local and appeal boards throughout America would decide which young
men who submit a claim receive deferments, postponements or exemptions
from military service, based on federal guidelines," it said.
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- Pentagon officials were adamant that there were no plans
to bring back the draft.
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- "That would require action from Congress and the
president and they are not likely to do that unless there was something
of the magnitude of the second world war that required it," said Dan
Amon, a spokesman for the selective service department.
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- Bringing back conscription would be catastrophic for
George Bush in an election year, and at a time when parallels are increasingly
being drawn between Iraq and Vietnam.
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- However, officials were not immediately able to explain
how the advertisement appeared on the site. Mr Amon said the notices were
a response to the natural attrition in the ranks of the draft board, where
some 80% of 11,000 places are now vacant. "It is the routine cycle
of things," he said.
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- But it was unclear why the Pentagon decided at this time
it was necessary to fill staff bodies which had played no function since
the early 1980s.
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- The idea of a draft has never entirely disappeared, and
is contemplated by Democrats and some military experts.
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- In the run-up to the war, the New York congressman Charles
Rangel argued for a draft on the grounds that the US military was disproportionately
made up of poor and black soldiers, and that it was unfair for America's
underclass to go off and die in wars.
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- In recent weeks, there has been growing concern within
the defence department about relying too heavily on members of the National
Guard and army reservists.
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- Some 60,000 of the 130,000 US soldiers in Iraq are members
of the National Guard or the reserves. An opinion poll last month in the
Pentagon-funded Stars and Stripes newspaper, showed 49% threatening not
to re-enlist.
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- The families of reservists have become increasingly vocal
in their complaints after the Pentagon's decision to extend duty tours
to up to 15 months.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2003
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1077906,00.html
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