If you’re been targetted by the e-mail whispering campaign on a “secret plan to bring back the draft”, send a copy of this story from the Contra Costa Times to the list that your name was on:
GOP sets up military draft bill to die
By John Simerman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
House Republicans on Tuesday staged the political burial of a bill to restore the military draft, aiming to shame its Democratic sponsors and end rampant rumors of a secret post-election draft plan.
The bill, HR163, would have required that all men and women ages 18 to 26 serve at least two years of military or civilian service “in furtherance of national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.”
Republicans brought forward the long-dormant bill Tuesday for 40 minutes of debate on the Suspension Calendar, which is intended for non-controversial items.
Their aim, they acknowledged, was less to kill the bill than to kill widespread Internet rumors of a draft.
The bill died, 402-2, but its fate was a side note to a debate charged with partisan bickering.
Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who authored the bill in January, 2003, partly to raise a public debate about the impending attack on Iraq, voted against it Tuesday.
Rangel argued that it deserved full committee hearings and called the GOP maneuver “a disgrace.”
Some Democrats said it was the first time they could remember opponents bringing a bill to the floor, rather than letting it die in committee.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., called it “a smokescreen to divert the focus from the real facts about the war in Iraq.”
Republicans countered that it was the first time in memory that a bill’s sponsor complained that his intact legislation reached the House floor for a vote.
They also blamed Democrats for fueling rumors that have spread alarm across college campuses and elsewhere.
President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have both said there are no plans to restore the draft after 31 years without it.
“The reason we’re doing this is to expose the biggest hoax in show business,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-San Diego, who chairs the House armed services committee.
“The hoax has been carried out through the Internet, where millions of young people are being scared by some anonymous tipster.”
Majority Leader Tom DeLay called the unusual move necessary to expose “the craven partisan whisper campaign now poisoning the national debate.”
One such e-mail claims the existence of a secret plan to launch a national draft next year, and that “the administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public’s attention is on the election.”
That doesn’t hold water, said Pat Towell, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based defense think tank.
“Everybody understood from the get-go that it was clearly a protest (bill),” said Towell. “There ain’t a prayer in hell it’s going to happen.”
Towell said military leaders would be the first to oppose any serious talk of a draft. “The current generation of Army leaders have had a quarter-century getting used to what it’s like trying to make soldiers out of kids who want to be there,” he said.
“I suspect they would argue vehemently (against) throwing sand in the gears with kids who’d just as soon be someplace else.”
Two East Bay Democrats offered differing views on the debate.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, mocked Republicans for scheduling a vote on the bill while refusing to move her bill calling for more military manpower.
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, logged one of the two yes votes. Stark said a draft would raise the stakes of the war for everyone.
“If you’re not at risk, it’s like a game,” said Stark. “The bill was (Rangel’s) concept, and it made sense for me. Nothing’s changed.”
? 2004 ContraCostaTimes.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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