Sometimes I hate being right

[Jazzman]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

Which leads us to the possibility of a draft. Those troops have to come from somewhere and recruitment isn't exactly on the rise these days.

Which is a good, and frightening, point. I supported going into Iraq, but wouldn't have if I had known how it was going to go down. I am wholly against going anywhere else until operations currently being undertaken are drawn to a close and the military can withdraw and regroup. And that's if it is absolutely necessary to go anywhere else.

But a draft even at this point is totally unwarranted. During the first Gulf War the U.S. sent far more troops than this time. (I'm too tired to look up actual stats right now, but I want to say it was 450,000 then, as opposed to 150,000 or 200,000 now? I'll check tomorrow.) Yet there was no draft then. I'm convinced that this current problem has arisen because politicians again (as during Vietnam) fancy themselves war strategists, instead of leaving that job to the professionals, which is a huge policy mistake and a very costly and dangerous lesson to have to learn again.