Drafty

The war czar, Douglas Lute, has been quiet, and now I know why, because the right is not going to be happy with this latest outburst.

You know, given the stress on the military and the concern about these extended deployments for an all-volunteer military, can you foresee, in the future, a return to the draft?

You know, that's a national policy decision point that we have not yet reached, Michele, because the —

But does it make sense militarily?

I think it makes sense to certainly consider it, and I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table, but ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another. Today, the current means of the all-volunteer force is serving us exceptionally well. It would be a major policy shift — not actually a military, but a political policy shift to move to some other course.

He's simply being honest, which is such a rarity in the Bush Administration that it is almost blinding. But of course we need a draft. If we're on a course, as General Petraeus has said, to spending 9 or 10 years at or near current force levels in Iraq, then we'd have to do a draft immediately, if not sooner. The bodies aren't there. And it would be just to see the burdens of war spread across racial and class boundaries.

This is not to say that I support a renewal of the draft, because I don't support an increased toolkit in the hands of these warmongers. But if they wanted to be serious about war's real cost, they'd authorize it.