Too late!

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Via Hoffmania.

The Discussion: 8 Comments

Bush Secret Plan to Draft Elderly Revealed
(2004-10-19) — Previously unseen documents released by the Kerry-Edwards campaign today reveal a secret Bush administration plan to draft the elderly into military service.

“If George W. Bush wins this election, I warn you that he will kill two birds with one stone,” said John Forbes Kerry, the Democrat presidential candidate. “He’ll bail out Social Security by sending our nation’s grandparents to the front lines in Iraq to die in the wrong war.”

Mr. Kerry, who is also a U.S. Senator, said, “Senior citizens are patriotic, plentiful and many of them still have their old military uniforms and vintage rifles from World War II and Korea. It’s a cynical scheme, and that’s why this administration is hiding it until January.”

According to details of the secret Bush plan, backdoor-drafted National Guard and Reserve troops will come home rapidly as they’re replaced by five divisions of combat-ready “geriatric GIs.”

To date, the Pentagon has not specifically denied the existence of the alleged secret plan dubbed ‘Operation Joint Replacement.’

President Bush, asked to respond to the Kerry allegation during a campaign stop, said, “This is the first I’ve heard of it. But we don’t need to draft our seniors. If we’d let ’em, they’d volunteer. Next question.”

October 20, 2004 @ 1:10 am | Comment

Yet another case of “it’s fine if we do it” but “oh my god, how could they?” if the other side resorts to these kind of scare-tactics.

October 20, 2004 @ 1:40 am | Comment

Li En, just be specific and I’ll address the concern on a double standard. And if this is a scare tactic — which I don’t believe — what about Cheney saying if Kerry is elected we have a greater chance of being attacked again on American soil? Did you condemn that, too? That was a far more egregious example of a scare tactic. The threat of a draft is very real and the argument for it can be made based on mathematics, not crude emotionalism.

October 20, 2004 @ 6:55 am | Comment

This is from Andrew Sullivan today: I ask you to read it and tell me what you think:

But how is it possible to call the Kerry campaign the principal fear-mongers in this election? The entire premise of the Bush campaign has been that if Kerry is elected, the country will be blown to smithereens. I have lost count of the emails telling me that I have to back Bush because if I don’t, I won’t be alive to observe any elections or gay weddings. Cheney walked right up to the line earlier this year of saying that a catastrophe will occur if Kerry wins. Yesterday, he said:
“The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us – biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.”
And Cheney subsquently argued that “I don’t think there’s any evidence to support the proposition that [Kerry] would, in fact” be the same type of aggressive counter-terror president as Bush. Isn’t the implication obvious? Vote for Kerry and get nuked. But, hey, it works in other areas. The candidate who avoided Vietnam has surrogates who impugn his opponent’s war medals. The candidate who favors stripping gay couples of all legal protections gets to call the other guy a gay-baiter. And the candidate who tells people he’s the only thing between them and Armageddon gets pundits targeting his opponent as the fear-monger.

October 20, 2004 @ 10:09 am | Comment

a good article by a republican

http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/10/20/oped-marlow1020-8060.html

October 20, 2004 @ 12:04 pm | Comment

Richard – you miss the point. I’m not endorsing Republican scare tactics. I’m saying that if it’s wrong for one side to do it, it’s equally wrong for the other side to do it, regardless of which party you support.

As for it not being a scare tactic … get real. If current enlistment rates for the year to date continue, the US military will meet its target by a comfortable margin. What need is there for a draft? If conflict broke out in other areas that required significant troop deployments, then it would be a real possibility … and guess which party is the one saying “oh, we should have more troops in Afghanistan” and “Iraq is the wrong focus, we should be focusing on other countries” … well, you can’t just cut and run from Iraq, and if you’re going to start pressurising North Korea (amongst others) you better be damn ready to back it up with military force if it blows up in your face. In other words … seems to me that the foreign policy the Kerry camp is advocating is more likely to send USA into a position where a draft will be required, or cause the US international position and world security be damaged beyond repair if they don’t. So … it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black … the Republican policy may have given the military a real burden … but the Democrat policy will add to it, not subtract it, his promises to get other countries to commit troops not withstanding. (Let’s see some of these foreign leaders voicing support for Kerry start pledging troops if they really mean it … it’s a safe bet they won’t be forthcoming, even if Kerry should win the election.)

October 20, 2004 @ 8:09 pm | Comment

Last I recall, weren’t the bills in Congress calling for a draft sponsored by Democrats? And shot down by Republicans 402-2 in the House of Representatives?

Or maybe I’m just a clueless foreigner watching from the sidelines.

October 22, 2004 @ 4:56 pm | Comment

Democrat Charles Rangel proposed that bill and he voted against it. He said he was only trying to make a point, that we were running dangerously low on military manpower. He was also making the point that bush was ignoring this, as he ignores everything that goes against what he wants to believe.

Li En, last night on the PBS News Hour I saw the former head of the US National Guard arguing why a draft is far more likely under bush than under Kerry based on bush’s go-it-alone track record and the fact that when we need help from allies in the future it will be extremely difficult to get it, since bush has become such a political liability to other world leaders. And we do need more soldiers, and enlistment levels are at record lows, and if we are in Iraq for the 5 years General Frank recently predicted we will almost surely need a draft if we cannot find allies to bear the burden with us. And bush cannot do the latter.

Who knows? Maybe it’s unlikely, but I have heard enough evidence to believe it is absolutely, totally possible, and most likely probable. Now, compare that to the Repubican fear mongering, where they paint pictures of nuclear bombs killing millions, and America destroyed by evil lurking enemies (read up on their new “wolf” commercial to learn what I mean). Fear mongering is always a part of political campaigning, whether it’s about social security or taxes or defense spending. But never, ever, ever have I ever, ever, ever, ever seen a campaign banging the drum that if you elect their opponent you may well die in a nuclear holocaust. It simply cannot be compared to the perhaps unlikely but not at all absurd charge that bush may have to reinstate the draft. Many analysts are saying this; I have never heard one say that Kerry will bring about a nuclear holocaust. We have to make distinctions between pure shit designed to appeal to our most base and primal emotions and your usual election year overstatement. Both are bad, but one is utterly inexcusable. I do hope you agree.

October 22, 2004 @ 5:52 pm | Comment

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