Daily Kos is reporting that the draft "must" be ready in 75 days

[Clark2008]

Only 13 days away now.

On March 31st, the Director of the Selective Service System (the SSS) is due to report to the Pentagon that the agency is ready to open 1,980 draft board offices around the country and be ready to operate lotteries by June 15th.

The next several weeks I believe will be crucial on the draft question. The generals have all gone before the nation and the press and said the recruitment is down and things look grim.

The only thing holding back the draft at this point appears to be Bush's losing fight on Social Security. He must wait until that vote is won or lost before he can take the unpopular and long-planned step of reinstating the draft.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/19/191951/450

Anyone seen anything in the media about this?

[Iterate]

1. And the timing?

After the universities dismiss, and before the fall sessions?

[CottonBear]

2. What's Kos' record of being right on breaking stories?

I'm afraid it might be true. Someone, please tell me I'm wrong?

[robcon]

6. Ok, I'll tell you. You're wrong

There is no bill, or movement to authorize a draft. There is no way to have a draft without a draft law.

[Coastie for Truth]

7. The law is there

Was passed in the early 1970's. Look in Titles 10 and 50 of the US Code. Just no specific authorization to induct.

[TheWatcher]

12. That may be true

But pray tell WHEN did this group let somethng as silly and trivial as "law" stop them from doing anything?

These people don't follow laws or rules. And if they need to subvert them, they will do it.

You aren't talking about a representative government here.

You are taking about an out of control Crime Family that is quite willing to use an entire poulace as a means to an end.

What people need to get their heads around is if this group hasn't done it yet, they simply haven't found a way to get away with it yet.

Have no illusions, they are working on it.

[salin]

19. Didn't congress approve a "special skills" draft

last year? Or did they just pass setting up a system for registering people (up through mid thirties, if I recall correctly) in professions considered high need - such as medical docs and nurses, tech workers, etc. ?

[rainbow4321]

27. Pdf showing 2003 memo

Apparently gotten thru FOIA:


http://blatanttruth.org/selective_service091304.pdf

Check out pages 4 and 6..talks about "marketing campaigns" and "marketing the concept" of the skills draft if it turns out to be needed
------------------------------
Main webpage w/ background and timeline:

http://blatanttruth.org/draft.php

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

21. I was contacted two years ago...

about serving on my local draft board. When news of this activity leaked out, the Bush Administration quickly went covert, saying they had "no plans" to reinstate the draft.

Believe me, the laws are all on the books and it only takes a presidential signature to make it happen. They've spent the last two years quietly putting the bureaucratic infrastructure in place.

[CottonBear]

23. Thanks for your response.

I hope that there is not a draft. I'm not opposed to a service requirement like the French have. I am opposed to a military draft.

[robcon]

29. I think all five responses are vague. There will be no draft

unless Congress authorizes it, and * signs it.

There is absolutely no movement in Congress by anyone to create such an authorization. None.

I'd call draft-predicting 'wishful thinking' except that it is wishing for the worst.

Mark it down: no draft.

[Richard Steele]

34. Your IGNORANCE would be amusing, if the situation were less DIRE.

The procedures which required CONGRESS to 'authorize and sign' things were completed DECADES ago.

The DRAFT is already on the books, buried in hundreds of dusty rules and regulations.

All that is required NOW is for the pResident to sign a one-paragraph 'Order'saying "Make it SO".

But, hey, the Prez can't do it all himself, right?
Before he signs that order, they would have to do MONTHS of prep work involving thousands of people!

First of all, they would have to re-activate thousands of 'Draft Boards', and appoint people to fill the positions on those boards.

I guess we should all just relax along with 'robcon' until _THAT_ starts happening!

Mark THIS down: robcon is hideously MISTAKEN, at best....

[ellenfl]

3. you're being funny, right?

Anyone seen anything in the media about this?

ellen fl

[pstans]

4. Here is another post on this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1672036

[Clark2008]

5. Thanks. The other one must have been very far down

and I didn't see it.

Mods, you can lock this thread.

[nevergiveup]

8. It will never happen

If the draft is reinstated and in 2006 we still have troops dying in Iraq, the Repubs will lose both houses of Congress.

[rainbow4321]

14. Unless it is NOT their base getting drafted....

As in the medical and special skills draft. Who gets to decide the definition of "special skills"?? I'm thinking it ain't going to be the have and have more/elite base that has these skills...unless the skill is for crooked CEO's and the like. Given the right definition, shrub and his cronies could send a shitload of people over there, all without pissing off his fellow repukes and their families since those sent will be from the middle and lower class groups.

[Wabbajack]

16. Not all pukes are rich

a lot of middle class/poor vote puke.

[lukasahero]

31. True - only the ones they actually care about are

The republicans don't care about the middle class or poor. They talk about "social issues" and use wedge issues as scare tactics to get the "heartland" vote but do nothing to stop the very issues they campaign on.

Fact: They used gay marriage and abortion to get the "family values" votes. Fact: The first item of business on shrub's agenda since re-election? Social Security which he did NOT campaign on. Fact: Who will make money on that little bonanza? Wall Street.

No, not all republicans are rich but the ones whose children will be able to avoid the draft, the only one shrub actually cares about, all are.

[dorktv]

9. I have to lose 58 lbs to be drafted!

Expect the obesity epidemic to get even worse!

[chomskysright]

10. Yes!! bring it on!! and this folly will cease...

[Skink]

11. So a high carb high fat diet.....

Super size me will become required viewing.

[leesa]

13. Hmmm...just in time for the Scott Ritter predicted invasion of Iran?

There's no way you can expect * not to plan a draft...they want 30 years of war, they have said so again and again.

[salin]

20. I saw Ritter later clarify his statements - he didn't say an invasion date

was set - but that a policy for a bombing / invasion was due on Bush's desk... and as such that bush is lying when he says there is no policy being pursued or set.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. Only at Rense...

who got it from:

http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html

As I just posted on the other thread this is from LAST YEAR and is part of the normal annual report given every March or April.

ONLY CONGRESS CAN REINSTATE THE DRAFT

and while I can't imagine trusting Congress to do the right thing, this is one vote they don't want to have to defend when they go home and meet their constituents.

I've been seeing activist alerts about this for the past week, and a lot of people are giving themselves wedgies over it. Yes, the SSS is getting ready, but it's always getting ready. Most draft boards have all new members, since the old ones are time limited, and this is the year to break the new ones in, so there will be more sctivity.

[markus]

17. Cooks, drivers critical skills?

I guess that privitization thing didn't work out to well, did it, guys?

From the FOIA document: "However, truck drivers, cooks and several hundred other skills are also considered "critical". "

[TroglodyteScholar]

18. There will be a LOT of people telling draft boards to go f*** themselves

Myself included. This isn't my war, or the war of a large percentage of Americans.

I definitely don't think I'll be alone in defying this kind of action.

[DoYouEverWonder]

22. Of course, they should only draft

people who voted for W and his illegal wars. Leave the rest of us alone, thank you very much.

[DemoTex]

24. Local Selective Service Board member application. Only one hitch ...

Local Board members are volunteers appointed by the President. They play an important community role closely connected with our nation's defense. If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local Boards throughout America would decide which young men in each community receive deferments, postponements, or exemptions from military service based on federal guidelines.

This form is for people interested in becoming a Local Board Member with Selective Service. To register with Selective Service, you should go to the on-line registration page.

If you are interested in receiving information on becoming a Board Member for the Selective Service System (SSS), please complete this form. When you submit the following information to the Selective Service System, you will receive an application for board membership, a business reply envelope, and a Board Member Information Booklet that gives details on Board Member responsibilities. After you have submitted your application, a Selective Service employee will contact you to schedule a personal interview.

http://www4.sss.gov/localboardmembers/bminquiry.asp

I applied for a board member position on my local SSS board weeks ago. Of course I'll never hear from them because this, too, is totally controlled by the Bu$h regime. If and when a draft comes (maybe it will, maybe it won't), it will be administered as fairly as - say - Bu$hco's no-bid contracts to Halliburton in Iraq. In other words, if yo' daddy ain't a card-carrying GOP boot-lick, you are toast. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
:scared:

[trudyco]

25. But if you go to the SSS website they say that

HR 163 house reps voted 402 to 2 against the draft on Oct 5, 2004.

Which bill passed that had to do with a special skills draft?

[rainbow4321]

26. It is already there....

In "standy mode". It can be implemented without them starting the full draft. Gotta love the wording that promises it wouldn't effect the current US medical population..we don't have enough nurses as it is. No matter how "small" of a percentage they try to take, US patients and nurses left behind to work even more short staffed will get screwed.


http://www.sss.gov/FSmedical.htm


MEDICAL DRAFT IN STANDBY MODE
The Health Care Personnel Delivery System (HCPDS) is a standby plan developed for the Selective Service System at the request of Congress. If needed it would be used to draft health care personnel in a crisis. It is designed to be implemented in connection with a national mobilization in an emergency, and then only if Congress and the President approve the plan and pass and sign legislation to enact it. No portion of the plan is designed for implementation in peacetime. If implemented, HCPDS would:

Provide a fair and equitable draft of doctors, nurses, medical technicians and those with certain other health care skills if, in some future emergency, the military’s existing medical capability proved insufficient and there is a shortage of volunteers.

Include women, unless directed otherwise by Congress and the President.

Draft a very small percentage of America’s health care providers into military service. Impact on the availability of civilian health care would be minimal. Those health-care workers whose absence would seriously hurt their communities would be deferred on the basis of community essentiality.

Begin a mass registration of male and female health care workers between the ages of 20 and 45. They would register at local post offices. HCPDS would provide medical personnel from a pool of 3.4 million doctors, nurses, specialists and allied health professionals in more than 60 fields of medicine.

Require minimal training for HCPDS draftees, because they are already skilled personnel.

[formernaderite]

28. Somehow this has become a pipe dream of the left...

to finally beat the repubs. It's not going to happen...because the repubs know this.

For the last time....there will be NO draft.

[Wilms]

30. .

[nascarblue]

32. You guys got to stop with the draft nonsense

I am kind of blown away that so many seem to not know how these neocons play it by now.

The fact is, there's already a backdoor draft. And even with the upcoming possible Iran campaign, the US military have been practicing bombing runs with Israel. So even if there is an Iran campaign, it will most likely be a joint airstrike..

By the way, these "draft" threads have made it onto Freepers DUmmies greatest hits...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1367255/posts#comment?q=1

[Wilms]

33. I'm not following...

That there IS a back door draft is part of the reason the miltary is scratching around for recruits. And they ain't meeting targets. Is the idea we'd only bomb Iran/Syria and not invade/occupy?

Let them call the whole thing off. Problem solved.

[Wilms]

35. I googled draft. I swear, this was the first hit.

http://www.sss.gov

Better this...

http://www.antiwar.com/whitehurst/?articleid=5049