More on the draft

Yesterday I was listening to Al Franken on Air America Radio. He had Lawrence O'Donnell on and they were talking about Charlie Rangel's idea of reintroducing the draft. I posted something the other day about the draft saying that I am against it, but I thought Rangel had a point in that it is something that should be debated by congress only to get American people thinking about the war, any war, and it's ramifications. O'Donnell had pretty much the same opinion- Let Rangel's bill come to congress and let them debate it. It's so unsettling to hear peoeple advocate for the war and yet they have no intention of fighting it- let the poor suckers who volunteered fight our battles, is the name of the game.

Today he writes in Huffington Post a few good reasons why this debate should happen:

Let the Republicans give speeches listing all the good reasons why we should have a volunteer Army. But let's hear Rangel's speech about how the burden of war is not fairly shared in this country. Let's get America thinking about exactly who is being left in the line of fire in the war Americans have turned against and know we can't win. Let's get America thinking about John Kerry's line about Vietnam--who is going to be the last soldier to die for a mistake? A real debate on the draft will do that. Don't worry, the bill has no chance of passing.
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I've reached a Rangel-like breaking point with my TV pundit colleagues who championed the Iraq war and now say we can't leave even if we went there for the wrong reasons. For every one of them, I have a simple question: Why aren't you in Iraq? Or why did you avoid combat in your generation's war? The one unifying characteristic that all of us men in make-up on political chat shows share is fear of combat. Every one of us has done everything we can to avoid combat or even being fitted for a military uniform. Just like George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney, we are all combat cowards. It takes a very special kind of combat coward to advocate combat for others. It's the kind of thing that can get you as angry as Charlie Rangel.