Other People's Children
by Theron Dash

The Bushies don't want you to see the flag-draped coffins. Somebody took a picture of some and sent them to the newspaper. That somebody worked for somebody who worked for the Bushies. That somebody got fired, and for good measure, so did that somebody's spouse. That's how we handle things down here at the ranch.

Now there are too many flag-draped coffins, and too many more soldiers needed here there and everywhere, so politicians are calling for the reinstatement of the draft. Black politicians are saying it, white ones too. Equal burden is the idea.

I've got a better idea: stop sending other people's children to die for your vanity, your political greed and religious delusions. Stop sending other people's children---because you sure as hell aren't sending your own---for any reason other than the absolutely necessary defense of their homeland.

The draft is involuntary servitude. The draft is slavery with a better chance of quick death or amputation. The draft the last time around did nothing to equal the burden. There was a draft when George II wasn't putting his smirk on the line, and when Dick Cheney had other priorities. The rich will always find a way, and so will the sort of rich and kind of powerful. The country will pay for yet another massive and punitive bureaucracy, and the FBI will be chasing sons and daughters of conscience instead of not catching terrorists. The draft plus the Patriot Act sounds like a real winning combination. Half a generation disappeared, no film at eleven.

Drafting more soldiers isn't the answer. Sending fewer soldiers on insane missions is the answer. When the country is truly threatened, you won't need a draft. If you do, the country is lost anyway. The draft is just another way of saying you just can't get good help anymore, can you, especially when you don't pay them enough to support their children, and they tend to get killed or wounded in a costly way (if you don't get away with warehousing them instead of providing medical care) before their term of service pays off your training investment. Turnover, that's the problem. All that dirt turning over, and all those flag-draped coffins we aren't ever supposed to see.