WASHINGTON (AFP) - A senior Republican lawmaker said that deteriorating security in Iraq (news - web sites) may force the United States to reintroduce the military draft.


"There's not an American ... that doesn't understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future," Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq.


"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."


The Nebraska Republican added that a draft, which was ended in the early 1970s, would spread the burden of military service in Iraq more equitably among various social strata.


"Those who are serving today and dying today are the middle class and lower middle class," he observed."

Why indeed? But why should it be our responsibility when it wasn't our decision to go to war? Aren't we already bearing a price in terms of billions of tax dollars sent overseas and higher gas prices? Why should I support a cause I disagree with? Blind patriotism is fanaticism, the very thing we're fighting. As a parent I don't want my kids ever fighting for a cause based on lies and distorted truths. I don't want my kids dying because of a stupid situation started and perpetuated by a self-serving Government Cabal.

The draft would only snare in lower-class and middle-class kids. The upper-class "connected" kids would get cushy appointments if not outright exemptions. If Hagel thinks the current military is non-representative of the U.S. social strata then start the draft with the high-income families (and watch the tax loopholes increase).

Are we to end up like the U.S.S.R. putting all our money in "defense" and internal security? Look where that got them...