> > I don't know about you, but this scares the heck out of me.
> >
> > ~Quartz
>
> I think I remember hearing that draft bills are very frequently in Congress but never get through, so this isn't necessarily a problem, can anyone offer more info on this?
>
> -white"Gortman64 should be happy..."helm

Yeah, this is total nonsense. Let's look at the linked article:

"Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and HR 163 forward this year [. . .] These active bills currently sit in the committee on armed services."

S. 89 (http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:S.89:) last had any action on January 3, 2003. That's about 18 months ago. It was sent to committee and has basically died. It was introduced by Sen. Hollings of South Carolina, a Democrat. Not exactly a Bush pawn.

H.R. 163 (http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:H.R.163:) was introduced to the House the same day (Jan. 3, 2003) as S. 89 was to the Senate. It has been waiting for comment from the DOD in committee since Feb. 2, 2003. It was introduced by Rep. Charles Ranger of New York, another Democrat.

If you do a bit of research, or just happen to remember when these bills were introduced, you'll find that the purpose of them was to protest the (then impending) war in Iraq. Nobody took them seriously.

As for the rest of the article, there's almost nothing of substance. Congress gave more money to the Selective Service. This is not the same as the Draft. The government is understandably ensuring that the Selective Service is staffed; its purpose is to ensure that, if we have a draft, we can quickly call up and find people who are draft-eligible. In a time where we have committed force to a bunch of countries, this just makes sense.

The rest of the article is a bunch of rumor mongering. No sources are cited. No "military experts" or "influential members of Congress" are quoted, though we're assured that they suggest a draft may be necessary.

The best part, though, is the stuff about the Canadian border. In December 2001 we revamped our border policies. This was three months after Sept. 11. Is this a surprise? We rolled Border Patrol and INS into Homeland Security, too. The idea that we did those to CATCH DRAFT DODGERS and not to, say, better patrol the borders is great. Talk about the fallacy of questionable cause!

I wouldn't worry about a draft. Iraq is not a very good place to be right now, but it the United States is not exhausting its military occupying the country. This article is fearmongering that seems aimed only to throw bad publicity at the president during an election year.

Stephen