Charles Rangel, a Congressman strongly opposed to the war against Iraq, is introducing legislation to bring back the draft.
How can this be? Ultraliberal congressmen like Rangel quite openly loathe the military, just like our former President Clinton once admitted. They advocate cutting military spending every chance they get. So why on earth would they favor a military draft?
Congressman Rangel, with a rare and cynical candor for a Washington politician, provides the answer to this question himself: “I believe that if those calling for war knew their children were more likely to be required to serve — and to be placed in harm’s way — there would be more caution and a greater willingness to work with the international community in dealing with Iraq.”
In other words: Antiwar types like Rangel know they have lost the battle. They know the 1960’s are over, but they’re not ready to quit just yet. Mind you, Rangel supports the draft not because he fears our military can’t win in Iraq without a draft. He supports it because he fears our military can win. By his own open admission, he’s proposing a draft in order to frighten Americans out of supporting a war we seem poised to win.
This is darker than mere politics. For a member of our government to use the military in this way amounts to nothing less than treason: treason to both our nation’s safety and to Rangel’s own presumably antiwar “principles.”
At the same time, there’s a twisted logic to it all. Ultraliberals like Rangel, who now completely control the Democratic Party leadership, seek to sacrifice the individual to the state every chance they get: through forced health care programs, forced child care programs, forced schooling, forced reparation payments to great-great grandchildren of slaves … on and on. It actually makes sense they would be at home with the military draft. The draft means force and modern liberals like imposing force — on American citizens, not on America’s enemies such as Saddam Hussein.
The draft is a form of government coercion completely at odds with the principle of individual rights our military is supposed to be defending. When you already oppose individual rights, however, it’s quite easy to support the draft — especially for as grotesquely cynical a man as Mr. Rangel.
