This from an op/ed on the subject written by Rangel himself in today’s New York Daily News:

...I intend to reintroduce legislation to reinstate the military draft, making men and women up to age 42 eligible for service, with no exemptions beyond health or reasons of conscience. I believe it is immoral for those who insist on continuing the conflict in Iraq, and placing war on the table in Iran and North Korea, to do so only at the risk of other people’s children.

Read the whole thing, but the statement above pretty much sums up his entire opinion on the matter.

Some in the reality-challenged community are trying to write Rangel’s push for the draft as a “sarcastic” proposal to illustrate the foolishness of invading Iraq (or something like that), but it’s pretty clear to me that Rangel is serious about re-instating the draft.  He wants to do it, but not for the reasons he’s claiming.

Rangel is saying that he supports a draft because it would require the entire country, people from all walks of life, to suit up and fight if we get into a war rather than just sending “other people’s children” to do the fighting for us.  But this reasoning is dead-wrong for a couple of reasons:

First, because it assumes that we have sent “other people’s children” to Iraq against their will.  Not only could that a patently false statement, it’s also insulting to the men and women who put volunteer to put on a uniform and fight for this country.  Not one single person in the military now was forced to join.  Not one.  Were some of them lured into service by perks like specialized training, college tuition, etc.?  Sure, but who isn’t lured into a career opportunity by stuff like that?  And Rangel should quit calling our troops children, because it’s patronizing.  They are not children, they are adults.  Citizens who have volunteered to serve this country in uniform.

Second, because the draft - by forcing people not at all interested in military service to join up - would actually lower the effectiveness of our military and would put more burden for military service upon the poor.  As one Department of Defense official put it:

“I think that it would make the military more average, and the military is considerably above average today,” Carr said. “Two-thirds of our recruits are from the top half aptitude (range), whereas an average or equitable share would be only half. Moreover, we draw disproportionately from the middle class and the upper class. The underrepresented (in the military) are the poor. A draft would only shift the burden toward the poor.”

I know most liberals take the John Kerry view on our soldiers - that they’re impoverished simps who chose military service because they couldn’t get a real job - but that doesn’t make it true.  The truth is that most soldiers come from middle to upper class homes, and they’re hardly stupid.

Rangel’s real agenda here is not to make America’s fighting force more representative of America’s population but rather to make it harder for America to ever go to war and fight for our interests at all.  He believes that if America brings back the draft we won’t get into any more wars, because then rather than simply relying on the services of professionals who volunteer to serve we’d be relying on the services of amateurs who were forced into service. 

In short, Rangel is trying to undermine America’s military capability just to suit his political agenda.  And he’s insulting the troops while he’s doing it.