Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Kuros]

No, this isn't an invitation to suicide. Here in the States, we commemorate the sacrifice of soldiers by bearing yellow ribbons. But this can be problematic.

Here is what I want you to do instead of shaking my hand

[stilicho25]

I was ready to go on the warpath when I read the section on elitism, but luckily I read the rest, and will have to agree with much of what he said. A huge draft army is great because it makes empire difficult (try drafting people for stupid reasons and you lose an election) and a huge army is much better than a small prof one. If we brought ww2 numbers to bear anytime we got hit, we wouldnt get hit.

[SparkleKorea]

[Captain Corea]

Hmmm... Military First policy, eh?

Sounds familiar.

[Kuros]

[mises]

There was one on my second-hand car when I bought it. I took it off. It seemed rude to be driving to restaurants and beaches with a "support the troops" sticker on my car.

The author makes an excellent argument for conscription.

[Kuros]

But conscription is at the bottom of the Army reform pile.

[Mosley]

I'll admit that that intro had my blood boiling too( a government librarian just as worthy as a Marine grunt?! Riiiiiiiight....). But it turns out this guy has something of an argument going, albeit one I don't totally buy into.

There's a tiny bit of egalitarianism in my ardently libertarian soul that sees the appeal in having Biff & Todd doing their military thing for their country as well as Buck & Bubba. But...

"Hey, Hey, LBJ...how many kids'ya kill today?" The specter of the anti-war movement, fueled in large part by opposition to the draft, has haunted federal US politicians ever since Vietnam...notwithstanding the irony that opposition to the draft came mainly from those who escaped it, namely the upper-middle class "radicals" who benefited from college deferments.

That concept definitely has been around American political life for a while. Draft riots in the Civil War? You bet..."Rich man's war & a poor man's fight!"

And here's a reflection on how the non-regs have become so important in the all-volunteer armed forces(ignore the anti-Bush/Dan Quayle rhetoric).

http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2004/MERC-Feb-12-Thu-2004/23167795.html

[Nowhere Man]

First off, very interesting reading, Kuros.

I found myself alternating between nodding and shaking my head.
NB: You HAVE to read all of that, not just the intro.

Where to begin? Reading responses, conscription.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec0XKhAHR5I

That's a furkin joke which we DON'T need to revisit.

However, had there been a draft in 2003, that would probably have avoided the whole clambake. I'd recommend us not fighting wars lest we declare them.

But...

I'm no swami, yet I told people in 2000: A vote for the GOP is a vote for war.

Every time we ferry off for another war where we're NOT defending the country, the Republican claptrap about defending/serving our country dies a little more.

I'd say we're at 5 years on a 20-year lease of not hearing that BS.

To get back to conscription, I'd have fought WWII. Possibly Korea. My father did. The whole idea of forcing people to go die for BS wars conflicts with the idea of not getting into them to begin with, and we know damn well the rich got out of Vietnam.

How about we draft people into the Peace Corps? Make it pay the same as the armed forces?

But that won't happen. Kicking and screaming, they will be dragged out, the paleolithic vestiges of 50-100 years ago. The gays are coming (out), and the armed forces will slowly become like the other "professional" militaries around the world.

That's pretty much where it is.

Scout Sniper,

I appreciate some of your points, but dragging others into a war you shouldn't have supported to begin with is hacking at the branches and not the roots. Maybe you'd have better fellow marines if it were 1941 and not 2011.

[Kuros]

The Unquiet Life of Franz Gayl

This is a very long article recounting the resistance Gayl received in his quest to get more MRAPs to patrols in Iraq to replace the exposed Humvees.

[Leon]

Realisticly speaking The military isn't elite at all for the most part. How can an organization made up of, in large numbers, of kids with only a high school education be elite? There are elite units, but as a whole it's not. The whole support the troops thing is a political thing, if you don't say it over and over again you get blasted for not being patriotic. Look at who mostly has the yellow ribbons, lower class and some middle class people, because thats where the military draws its numbers from. Realistically teaching is more elite, and yeah that librairian might be more elite than that Marine, I've met marines and I've met libraians and in some cases I'd support that. As for the draft, just ask most koreans how they feel about their service, they feel, largely, like its a waste of their time. I have lots of friends in Singapore doing their cumpolsary two years of service and they like meeting all the people and making that bond, but they'd rather be finishing school or starting careers. Right now the military is a great oppurtunity for thoose without much education, let them have it.

[Reggie]

I'm against a draft. I think people for a war should go fight it on their own dime and their own time. Nobody else should have to pay for their so-called "service" and nobody should have to go kill people or get killed in a war they do not believe in.

What percentage of our troops believe in the wars? The number has steadily fallen over time. And how many would be there if they weren't getting paid? How many are willing to drive a truck bomb into the enemy's base camp? That's why we're going to lose the war. Our troops are bankrupting America in a cause they themselves don't believe in whereas the jihadis believe in their cause and aren't dependent on tax revenues and national debt.