To Draft or Not to Draft

There are currently 140,000 US troops in Iraq and 100,000 private contractors. This mix is due, I think, to the "gutting" of the military under Clinton which was actually part the the 'greater efficiency' vision long shared by Cheney and Rumsfeld. You know... building a new kind of military. It all reminds me of our hero, Steve Austin, from the old TV show The Six Million Dollar Man:

Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Except it only ever worked on TV.

A smaller, highly specialized military supported by privatized services is a beautiful concept. In theory it eliminates the need for a draft -- We gut the military of bureaucrats and menial labor and leave nothing but an elite fighting machine, allowing the invisible hand of capitalism to fluidly provide the other types of support according to demand. The war machine is no longer flirting with capitalism... they're doing it on the kitchen table.

Hyper-capitalists tend to forget that while efficiency is inspired by profit, so is corner cutting -- and thus I would not entrust, let's say... a little thing like national security... to private contractors. And it's not just about profiteering, it's also about allegiance and competing resources, direction, accountability, and the same old issue of how to ensure you've got enough supply to meet demand when its needed (repeat after me: JIT is not a military term).

The point is that the grand theory has been proven wrong at our first run out of the gate. The means to fight war may have evolved over time but the concepts of war itself are timeless. And so, it seems, is the ages old question of what to do with the conquered. While killing the men and impregnating the women is a quick and highly effective method of subjugation and eventual integration, it's not a technique we employ in this civilized day of nation building. What's still required post-conquer is to occupy; to move in and set up shop. To secure. To fill the power vacuum until it can be allocated. To quell the urge to rebel until it can be replaced by the urge to prosper. All of this takes four things: a clear objective, a clear victory, a great deal of time, and a great big, accountable army. There are no shortcuts.

So all of this in the context of Bush's contrived 'troop surge' has got me to thinking. If he really means to win this, why has the size of the military not been increased to ensure it? If this is truly WW III (as certain folks are fond of saying), and if Iraq is truly the Central Front in the War on Terra, why not run a WW II-era "Uncle Sam Wants YOU!" campaign? If defeat is unthinkable, why not reinstate the draft? And since it takes time to get new recruits up to speed, why wasn't it started at least a year ago when we knew the situation was going downhill?

The cynic in me believes it's politics and anyone who says Bush is above polls is either a fool or a liar. Clearly we've been in need of additional troops for a long, long time but the November Congressional elections were paramount. And now, with support for this FUBAR'd war at about 30% (probably the same unshakable 30% who still think Bush is doing an OK job) it would be political suicide to ask for the people of this country to start offering up their children and grandchildren in the name of Iraq. Not that I agree with Bush (on almost anything) but I might have some respect for him if he actually did that since it would show an actual iota of real, honest to God leadership. So far he's only asked us to shop. Not to fight and die for this legacy war of his, or even to starve the beast by conserving energy. We've only been asked to mindlessly run around spending money.

I really don't think a recycling/rearranging of the troops (um, I mean "surge") is going to make much of a difference in Iraq. It would be nice if it did but I don't think it will. The time to have affected the outcome of the war was in the planning, before the invasion. Perhaps even a few years into the "peace". But now I think the course is set. Even if they enacted a draft and took my daughter (or quite possibly, in a few years, daughters) and fully and officially occupied that country, it would take a decade or more to weed out the sectarian seeds that have begun to germinate. And make no mistake -- while we babysit Iraq for a decade, al Qaeda will be establishing roots and growing strong and hearty elsewhere.