Charlie Wrangle seems to be the only one interested in bringing back the draft, an army of draft dodgers, unsupportable military actions, as well as a lesser then professional force then we already have today.

He's pathetic.

No draft. Blech.

Ostensibly because soldiers are uneducated morons ala John Kerry's impression

This just keeps getting old. My college GPA was higher than Kerry's. It's not politically correct to call us wrong or evil anymore for fighting the war, so now we're subservient, uneducated ignoramuses, entrapped by the powers of our wicked master. The condescension is killing me, couldn't people just go back to spitting in our face and calling us baby-killers?

I did however feel a new twinge of betrayal when they joked about the stupidity of soldiers on Family Guy..............arrgh. Where else can I find such a combination of musical theatre and toilet bowl humor?

James Taranto has been running letters from GIs after Kerry's and Rangel's "stupid" comments.  WHile I knew that the average soldier was not an idiot (that was mcNamarras idiocy to try to make them so), I was very impressed with some of the credentials of those writing to Taranto.  Indeed, I have seen enough GIs posting on this site to know that "stupid" and "soldier" do not belong in the same sentence (however stupid and congress is another issue).

Well I do believe that he first suggested that some in congress want a draft, and that there is national support for it, and then it was that there is a disproportionate percentage of blacks in the army and being killed in Iraq, and now he is the one calling for the draft. While a great number of congress persons as well as the vast majority of political opinion is for a reduction in the commitment rather then an expansion of an army and armed forces presence in Iraq.

A draft would greatly increase our ability to field troops, yet if the goal was to be occupiers that might be a good way of achieving it. The goals have been stability and security, then economic development, and allowing a peace loving nation to grow from a good base where people have jobs and occupations rather then unrest and destruction all around them.

The security goal hasn't been achieved for the place it needs to be most secure, i.e. the capital. To suggest a draft, would assist in this goal or any other military goal is to not understand what is needed, and that is a re-delineation of the goals. A new goal that is realistic. The way of life in Iraq depends largely on what the Iraq people are willing to take up arms and carve out of chaos for themselves, with our help of course, but helping to fight the good fight and fighting the entire fight are two different things.

In the last few months progress has been made in training additional troops in the Iraqi guard and army, so if anything the commitment of U.S. troops should only need to be decreasing not increasing.

The President of the United States is at odds with just about everybody in thinking that we need to increase our commitment, in the past two years, a major shift in everybody below him was executed during the process of building a new cabinet, lately it has been restructuring the military command in Iraq, and civilian leadership over and over in Iraq.

This isn't the 51st state folks, The president can do all he wants, and wish all he wants, what the reality is Iraqis are going to have to stand up for their neighborhoods or die in submission of a policy of violence.

We have yet to see significant progress in the reduction of violence in the last 3 months, 3 months before that no reduction either. Reducing the number of troops would have three benefits, if their tactical deployments were just reduced, not changed...

-reducing the potential number of U.S. troop casualties
-allowing a re-deployment into Iraq if the situation became vastly worse then it is (hard to image)
-truly giving the reigns to the Iraqis and forcing them to make their own sacrifices and choices.

Its a long and bloody struggle either way. The country may fall apart into two or three separatist states anyway even with our help. What matters is we do not have a draft or a huge army, a very powerful one, and an over-deployed one, we also have other interests in the world potentially needing attention. China, North Korea, and Iran for starters.

I'm sure they could find a job for me, I'd love to get behind an M4, or sit in an F-22 and shoot down some Mig's if I could just see far enough.

The issue may not be WANT but NEED. If we try and increase the ground forces by 100,000, it remains to be scene if that can be accomplished under an ALL Volunteer force.

Ah yes, the draft that some people here said would happen years ago. 

There is not going to be a draft, this is nothing but scare tactics. 

"If we try and increase the ground forces by 100,000"

Congress will pull the funding out from under the president, regardless of the political fallout, and in fact, the democrats will actually benefit from doing that. The troops won't but then it comes time for President Bush to make "hard decisions" instead of the Iraqi's. Iraq should be fighting this war anyway. If they want the damn freedom they have to die trying to get it, or make the sacrifices to get it.

"Ah yes, the draft that some people here said would happen years ago.
There is not going to be a draft, this is nothing but scare tactics."

I agree, the only situation you could expect to see a draft, is nuclear war, or another state sponsored war, China for example, rather then the occasional terrorism action. Something that threatens mainland United States with invasion is probably the only one that will happen in the next 25-50 years.

"No they won't. Because they know if they do their reelection chances will go in the toilet."

If they start talking about putting 100,000 more troops into Iraq, i.e. nearly doubling the commitment, sure they will. What choice would Democrats have over the president? They see the answer as draw downs and pull outs, not increases in troops, the only reason that part of the party is going along with this is that this appears to be the last ditch effort. There is no public support for doubling the commitment of troops in Iraq, certainly no democrats re-election chances would be damaged. Unless you supported more troops to being with. Which there were few democrats that did.

Who's re-election chances would be hurt even if you were Republican? I think the last election demonstrated that the patience for experimentation in Iraq is out. The majority of the public wants a victory, or a winner, and an end to the situation. An end to the violence. In the absence of a victory, or ability to end the violence, which is what we have right now, considering the victory conditions have changed drastically from the onset of invasion and pre-war run up... then they would like to prevent the continued sacrifice of American troops to morbidity and mortality.

The continued violence has not subsided, has not come to an end, upon leaving one area and declaring it secured, shortly there after insurgency sprouts up again like a bad weed. Well there apparently is no way to remove the roots. In the absence of security there is no ability to remove the insurgency. Without removing the insurgency you cannot stop the violence.

I'm not convinced that even 1 million troops could hold down martial law with as porous as the borders appear and the manipulation of the situation by Iran and Syria.

Removing the funding for the war, would perhaps be the only way to get a one up on the president and get the troops pulled out. Whether or not the president wants that to happen or not. I firmly believe that the democratic party is fully capable of making that stand weak as they are. It is up to the President, he had not created other options for himself. The latest stonewall from the administration, has been to replace generals on the ground, which may have been a better thing then worse, and then to have every official from Dick Cheny down to say "we are focused on making this plan work"... as if every plan they had had before that they proclaimed "stay the course" was the best one, the one that would topple the insurgency.

When do we say uncle here? Never, the British have been with us every step of the way since 9/11, in Iraq since the Gulf war, but they have finally run out of logistics, ability to fight the insurgency, unable to sustain overseas operations at the tempo that this situation has demanded because of the b.s. post-war plan.

Well we are not far behind. With troop deployments exceed 12 months 18 months, you cannot ask these guys to remain in the field for 24 months, though they would willing give that time and effort to this cause. We need to be smart, and choosy, if Iraqi want to mess around while their country goes to hell. That should be their choice. We didn't create this insurgency, they did. Because they did not make security their top priority, they have not made the sacrifices necessary to secure their own borders, to provide for their own re-construction. We have done that every step of the way and though there are things to show for it, but for the cost approaching $400 billion, we should be expecting more. There are also very key things missing. i.e. the ability to leave after 4 years, we can't get out even if we wanted to.

That is an unacceptable situation to have the army in, over-extended, too small, ill equipped, but battle hardened, because if North Korean marches on South Korea, or a nuclear weapons goes off in an American city, or Israel, what are we to do, up over our heads in Iraq?

Again, the only way to get out of Iraq is a new administration that makes that their goal, or removal of funding by the congress, effectively tying the hands of President Bush.

If you all want to sleep better thinking there are no conditions in which we would have to have a draft, do so. But there are, there have been before, and if we find ourselves in need of lots of men and women for the military, there aren't enough recruiters, no benefits package available that can come up with the ability to fight in certain situations.

Which is worse, not being able to defend our country or not willing? We will have to leave Iraq sometime, someday it would be nice to leave it better then we found it, but to continue to sacrifice our own deploy-ability, our own interests, our own men and women for their cause, a cause which they don't seem as interested in achieving as we do, then we should give serious thought to just calling it over and letting them solve it on their own.

I don't think they are able to cut off the funding because 21,500 more troops might have an effect. If the effect is measurable and progress is made then great. Then I'm for attempting to stick it out a few more months or a year.

What hasn't worked, at least well enough, since security is no better, was adding more troops in months/years past since the post war began. They have done it a few times, and extended deployments to keep troops in theater there.

The government has brought the army and marines up to speed with armored vehicles but the bombs are so big sometimes as to penetrate tank armor. The IED's are detonated in ways we cannot counter-measure. The influx of explosives is so rampant we cannot stem the violence. The insurgency springs up because we along with the government forces cannot do the damn job.

Like I said, at this point, a million troops might not be able to save the situation. Because the crack is already in the dam. The only part of the country able to run itself is the Kurdish region which has been self governed since just after the gulf war because of the no-fly zone, and that they have been doing it for a decade already.

"Bush - or may - but do honor and love the soldiers"

I think President Bush is a troops President, absolutely. I also believe that President Bush firmly believes in this mission, the destiny of Iraq however is in Iraqi hands, it is there country, not the 51st state of the United States. It would be a bad thing if the country fell apart, but I think it would be a worse thing if the country fell apart and we had nearly 200,000 American troops trying to stabilize it and Iran dropped a nuke on Israel, or North Korea decided the time was right to re-unite Korea.

We need to stay flexible and getting bogged down inside Iraq is with each passing day, becoming more dangerous then letting Iraqis sort it out on their terms. Each passing day, our deployments become overextended, Iran gets closer to building a nuke, and we don't have a real ability to respond to a firestorm situation with ground forces. That is a condition that has never occurred in the history of our country since WW1.

If it were our fight, if it were Flordia or Maine, we were fighting for I would say stay, but this is Iraq, Saddam is gone, a new government is in place, the people have gotten a taste of what it is to be free, I don't think that even if this government doesn't survive, that the Iraqi people will just give up the hope that was the great American experiment in Iraq.

Islamic extremism is going to continue to hurt us in any way they can regardless of what we do. Stay or go. There plans for our death and destruction do not change whatsoever no matter where our troops are. We had very few troops dealing with Iraq before 9/11, just the carrier in the gulf and the no-fly zone, we had nobody in Afghanistan. Yet they attacked anyway.

"but they do love the ones willing to make a sacrifice for them. And to abandon them is the kiss of death."

I agree, the only circumstance that denying funding would work in is if the President wanted to get us deeper into Iraq, not only would the funding become agenda, but the utterance of Vietnam isn't too far off. This conflict looks more and more like Vietnam with each passing day. No exit plan, changing goals, removing generals, stonewalling administration, insufficient measurable progress in country.