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November 20, 2006
A Drafty Plan To Sink The Armed Forces
The disproportionately high representation of the poor and minorities in the enlisted ranks is well documented. Minorities comprise 35 percent of the military and Blacks 20 percent, well above their proportion of the general population. They, along with poor and rural Whites do more than their fair share of service in our ground forces.- Rep. Charles Rangel, D, NY War's Burden Must Be Shared
We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties.
- John Kerry, 1971 Winter Soldier Testimony.
Up on Capitol Hill it's as familiar as the sight of Puxatawny Phil. At regular intervals up pops old Charlie Rangel like Whack a Mole, madly waving his proposal to bring back the draft and spouting all the tired old lies we've been hearing from the Democrats for decades.
To hear Rangel talk, there are simply too many blacks and minorities in the armed forces. Something must be done to discourage them from signing up in numbers disproportionate to their representation in the general population. Despite evidence that no one's forcing America's finest to volunteer, Rangel believes serving one's country is a burden, not a privilege. Therefore he has thoughtfully sponsored a bill that will spread this odious duty more "equitably".
We suppose there are many good reasons to reduce the numbers of minorities in the military. After all, as highly decorated military experts have testified, an all-volunteer force would rapidly fill up with the worst sort of riff-raff:
"I am convinced a volunteer army would be an army of the poor and the black and the brown," Kerry wrote. "We must not repeat the travesty of the inequities present during Vietnam. I also fear having a professional army that views the perpetuation of war crimes as simply 'doing its job.'
And we all know how those people are, don't we? Always committing crimes? You simply have to watch them all the time. Perhaps Rangel is right and we do need quotas to balance things out racially so that the lower elements don't predominate.
Rep. Rangel's words are carefully chosen to exacerbate race and class tensions, but they also beg an interesting question: how would his constituents react if Republican lawmakers introduced a bill limiting the numbers of blacks in the military on the basis that they were "overrepresented"? After all, is it really fair for them to garner a disproportionate share of those valuable reenlistment bonuses, especially when statistics show that they when it comes time to fight (contrary to what politicians like he and Senator Kerry tell a misguided public) they aren't volunteering for dangerous roles in the combat arms and infantry in numbers equal to their representation in the general public?
Crunching the numbers from the Vietnam, Gulf and Iraq Wars tells an interesting story. Moreover, it's one that directly contradicts the inflammatory rhetoric the race merchants are trying so desperately to peddle. But that's not surprising, for Rangel readily admits his primary motivation in bringing back the draft has nothing to do with helping the military accomplish its mission:
Mr. Rangel, a Korean War veteran, said he hoped his military-draft bill would discourage lawmakers from voting to authorize future military conflicts."There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," he said.
Repeated polls have shown that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of military conscription, and the Pentagon has long opposed any draft.
Rangel's rationale for reinstating the draft is that the poor and minorities are disproportionately impacted by war; he claims they're being killed in greater numbers than their representation in the general public. But the data do not support his contention. Oddly enough, during Vietnam when the draft was in place:
Black fatalities amounted to 12 percent of all Americans killed in Southeast Asia - a figure proportional to the number of blacks in the U.S. population at the time and slightly lower than the proportion of blacks in the Army at the close of the war."
In striking contrast to that figure, during the present conflict with an all volunteer force, blacks are about 12% of the American population, 18.6% of the enlisted forces, but only 10.9 % of the fatalities. In other words at the two-year mark they were markedly underrepresented in the death toll by race. What does this do to Rep. Rangel's thesis?
The truth is in the numbers, for contrary to the litany sold by John Kerry and Charles Rangel, our all volunteer forces are more likely to have graduated from high school and to be from the suburbs or rural areas than the average American. And there's a good reason for the disparity in combat deaths by race: it turns out that blacks and whites join the military for different reasons.
While overall, minorities comprise 30 percent of the Army, one of the two services that would be expected to bear the brunt of close combat in Iraq, they tend to be underrepresented in the combat arms. As the incomparable Tom Ricks observed in a January 1997 article for the Wall Street Journal, the "old stereotype about the Army’s front-line units being cannon fodder laden with minorities" is false.The fact is that blacks disproportionately serve in Army combat-service support units, not combat units. When Ricks wrote his piece, such units had become "majority minority," with more black soldiers than white. By contrast, he observed, the infantry, which generally suffers the most casualties in wartime, had become "whiter than America." African Americans constituted nine percent of the infantry, compared to 11.8 percent of the age eligible civilian population. In 1995, 79 percent of the new troopers were white, compared with 74.3 percent of civilians. There is little evidence to suggest that these figures have changed much over the last five years.
Why is this the case? Ricks pointed out that the new demographics of the Army have to do with the dynamics of an all-volunteer force—Blacks and whites join the military for different reasons. On the one hand, white youths are frequently looking for adventure while they try to raise money for college. As a result, they tend to flock to the combat arms, especially elite units like the Rangers and airborne. On the other, young black males, "are generally seeking skills, and so gravitate toward administrative and technical jobs. Because they often find the Army a fairer and better place to live than civilian society, blacks tend to stay enlisted longer: Though only 22% of today’s recruits are black, the Army itself is 30% black."
In addition, most pilots are white, as are most special-operations forces, e.g. Navy SEALS and Army special-forces. This leads one to the conclusion that in a war, middle-class white kids, not minorities, would be at the greatest risk, since they make up the bulk of the combat arms. So much for the conventional wisdom.
So by all means, Representative Rangel, let's bring back the draft. We need to get rid of all this opportunity, not to mention spreading the risk more equitably from the middle class white community to blacks, who (if you believe the numbers) aren't shouldering their fair share of the load.
After all, it's the right thing to do, if you believe all that race-mongering garbage.
Which we don't. This is supposed to be a free country, in which men and women who love the nation which gave them birth may, if they so choose, voluntarily sacrifice their lives for those ideals which give even you the right to say ridiculous and untrue things that inflame hatred and division between Americans. But it certainly is a shame in this day and age when people are still playing the race card.
Weren't we supposed to get beyond that? And by the way, what are your children doing, Mr. Rangel? Because we know where John McCain's are.
They wouldn't have to be drafted.
Posted by Cassandra at November 20, 2006 07:14 AM
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Comments
Right here is where you nailed it:
Rangel believes serving one's country is a burden, not a privilege.
That says it all.
Posted by: Daveg at November 21, 2006 07:59 AM
So, can we twist this and connect the dots that Kerry's comments about a stupid military were racist? Just asking.
Posted by: Cricket at November 21, 2006 08:08 AM
Cricket: So, can we twist this and connect the dots that Kerry's comments about a stupid military were racist?
Dern it, Cricket, you beat me to it! I was thinking along that same line.
My response to all this draft talk: Show me the money! If we have dollars for a draft, we have dollars for sustained decent pay raises, guaranteed benefits and the money to take care of those who've already served.
Posted by: LongTabSigO at November 21, 2006 08:41 AM
What can I say? Great minds and all that. While the Engineer doesn't grouse too much about his pension, in order to sustain a fighting military and take care of the grievously wounded and dependents, some things have to be kept low.
Even though the purpose for not getting a full pension after 20 years was to keep productive
veterans employed.
And we won't have dollars for a draft from the welfare. They will take those dollars earmarked for those who have served. When Clinton cut into the bone and sinew of the military about ten years ago, the welfare rolls grew exponentially. And where did the money come from?
*crickets chirping*
Posted by: Cricket at November 21, 2006 08:53 AM
Was that supposed to be *Cricket's chirping*, Cricket?
Jus' askin'........ >;-)
Posted by: Sly2017 at November 21, 2006 12:42 PM
nah. it means that in the thunderous silence from the opposition, one can hear crickets chirping. I wish I could make that kind of music. I have a keyboard and practice, does that count?
heh.
Posted by: Cricket at November 21, 2006 04:43 PM
Here's a question-- I've been in five years, and about... hm... half of supply on my current ship is Philipino; easily a third of those folks were born and raised in the PI, half of the rest just born there.
Add the many Mexican folks, the Argentinan, a couple of Polish guys, and the Brit guy that I ran into yesterday-- where would these volinteers fit in a military that's filled with folks who don't want to be there? (Moreso than the twits that join thinking they're going to be getting a free ride.)
Right now, we've got a good military. There are bad eggs, and the above mentioned idiots, but they are really very rare-- less than there were in my high school, by far. They STILL get my liberty curtailed when they are stupid out on town. (I'm in Japan-- Ambassadors of our nation, FTW.)
I shudder to think of how we'd be thought of if we had a ton of idiots, both in other countries and stateside.
Posted by: Sailorette at November 21, 2006 05:00 PM
I just read a particularly asshatted article written by ... *speaking of crickets chirping* JAMES WEBB in 1980.
Talk about being wrong, wrong, wrong... he is calling for bringing back the draft. He says if current enlistment trends continue the Army will be 42% black.
Ummm. No. After reading the litany of general jackassery he cites I am just MYSTIFIED at why this dimwit thinks we need, of all things, a draft to make things worse.
Sheesh.
Posted by: Cassandra at November 21, 2006 05:07 PM
I, uh, know what you meant......I was being facetious. And ya darn right, if ya practice, it counts! And I feel fairly confident that it doesn't sound as badly as you think it does.
Posted by: Sly2017 at November 22, 2006 12:01 AM
Donald Sensing has some interesting info on the financial side of imlementing Rangel's draft plan at :
http://www.donaldsensing.com/
Posted by: yak at November 22, 2006 12:16 AM
As I recall, hasn't there been a democratic proposal to bring back the draft for the last several years?
Posted by: Sailorette at November 22, 2006 04:11 PM
I've linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2006/11/re-drafty-plan-to-sink-armed-forces.html
Posted by: Consul-At-Arms at November 22, 2006 06:05 PM