California Conservative

During the 2004 presidential election, John Kerry and many of his Democratic colleagues perpetually implied that if reelected, President Bush would re-institute the draft. Despite continually accusing Republicans of fear-mongering, Senator Kerry was hypocritically doing just so. He was using peoples fears of a vietnam-era draft to dissuade them from voting for the President. However hypocritical that was, one top democrat has now gone one step farther with the hypocrisy.
During a CNN interview today, Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY) again expressed his support for reinstituting the draft, and will draft legislation to do so. In the past he has called for mandatory military service

Democratic Representative Charles Rangel said he will again introduce legislation to revive a U.S. military draft when his party takes control of Congress in January…..Military leaders spoke out against reinstating the draft when Rangel introduced such legislation in January 2003, prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Commanders such as Air Force General Richard Myers, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the current volunteer force was better trained and capable than the conscripted troops in the past

Despite the advice of Military experts, Rangel is deciding to again present faulty legislation.

Representative Rangel claims that the congress would not have supported the 2003 invasion if they had fears that their own children and children from their communities may have been solicited to fight. This is a ridiculous assertion, implying that the welfare of others didn’t matter to any of the overwhelming majority of members of the congress who initially voted in support of the war. He is implying that the congress does not take the decision to go to war seriously.

Furthermore, Rangel says “the U.S. fighting force is comprised disproportionately of people from low-income families and minorities.” This statement may work well for him when it comes time to pander to minorities and low-income families, but it lacks the benefit of being true. In fact, Military recruits mirror the US population according to a recent data

Military recruits mirror the U.S. population and are solidly middle class, Carr said. He cited a recent Heritage Foundation report that shows most recruits come from middle-class families, rather than poorer or wealthier ones. Patterns in recent years reinforce this trend, showing a slight dip in recruits from lower socioeconomic groups and a slight increase from upper-class groups

Cross-Posted at The Gentle Cricket

This entry was posted on Monday, November 20th, 2006 at 8:32 am and is filed under DNC, Liberals, Op-Ed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.