TEXAS’ Widest Circulated and Read Newspaper with a Black Perspective

Click here to join our mailing list and to receive late-breaking news

Are Sen. Kerry and Bush draft dodgers?

 As I labored through the mass media (looking for news and issues that’s important to African Americans to analyze for Publisher’s News Analysis), I very quickly got tired of reading, or hearing the totally meaningless revelations about Sen. John Kerry’s highly suspect military heroics, as opposed to Pres. George W. Bush’s suspicious disservice during the Vietnam war. And I suspect that most of African American News & Issue’s estimated 2 million readers are also tired of the ongoing and distracting war record issue, that isn’t going to do a thing to improve the quality of life in the Black community where most of their family and love ones are still living in by choice. With that in mind, I’m not about to throw gas on the embers by discussing that moot controversy.

Instead, I would like to ask a question that I’m sure millions of young, draft aged Americas are waiting on the mass media to ask the future chief executive. But, as we’ve learned, during the eight plus years that we’ve been reporting news and issues from an uncompromised Black perspective, topics important to Black America are seldom, if every discussed in the mainstream media until we start asking questions (that should be asked), until somebody answers them, one way or another. Consequently, the question that we feel needs to be answered before Black voters go to the polls on Nov. 2, 2004, is whether, or not, either man who wants to run our country (for the next four years), will call for a draft? Even if it becomes necessary to send more and more of our young people to Iraq, or anywhere else the war on terrorist takes place?
Although the question has made both--Bush and Kerry--draft dodgers, they seem to have cleverly avoided discussing the real and present danger of running out of patriotic young people who have grown more and more convinced that Pres. Bush made a big mistake when he made that preempted strike to remove Saddam Hussein from power and eliminate the threat that he posed for America. Actions speak louder than words notwithstanding, I’m sure you recall when the Reps. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and John Conyers, D-Mich., the two most outspoken members of the Congressional Black Caucus, started talking about a draft when it became enviable that Bush was going to start a war. They were accused of politicking and playing the race card, although both men have served their country honorably.

Rangel was quoted in the Jan. 3, 2003 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle to say, "If indeed the president believes war is necessary in terms of our national welfare, then he has to believe that sacrifices need to be made, and those sacrifices need to be shared. We have to kick up a notch the sense of patriotism and the sense of obligation." Conyers, also was maligned when he said, "Once the conscription process for service in the military becomes universal and mandatory for all those who meet the criteria . . . it removes the long-held stigma that people of color and persons from low-income backgrounds are disproportionately killed and injured while serving as ground troops on the front line." As much sense as that makes to Conyers, and me, for some reason their colleagues attacked the Congressmen.

“Critics of the congressmen, along with neutral observers, said their motive appeared to be a political attempt to call attention to race and class inequities in the military during the buildup to Iraq, rather than a call for mobilization toward war. ‘A member introducing legislation that they don't really support in order to play politics and embarrass the president is disingenuous,’ said Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., who co-sponsored with Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., the Universal Military Training and Service Act of 2001, which would have mandated basic military training for Americans ages 18 to 22,” concluded the Darryl Fear’s article, that he originally wrote for the Washington Post. But I knew Rangel was for real about the draft, because he mentioned it when he spoke to the Fort Bend Coalition of Black Democrats several years ago.
Pentagon officials insisted, at the time, that with the National Guard and reserves to complement active personnel, America had more than enough troops to fight a war against Iraq.” In fact, when Rangel reopened the debate on Feb. 2, 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called a press conference and announced, “A draft added ‘no value, no advantage’ to the military because they served for such brief periods.” It is obvious that Team Bush supports an all volunteer military, but military experts realized that a draft was in America’s immediate future when the mission of some 20, 000 of the 134, 000 troops in Iraq had to be extended. Meanwhile, in January 2004, the Selective Service started expanding, due to the Pentagon’s urgency to fill 10,350 local draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board posts as soon as possible.

Cutting to the chase, I’ll just let you read an article (“Actions Indicate Administration Has Plan To Reinstate Military Draft if Bush Re-Elected”) on AmericanFreePress.net, “The military draft may be reinstated by mid-2005 if President George W. Bush is re-elected in November. An appropriation of $28 million has been provided in the current defense budget to bring the nation’s Selective Service System up to speed, which many people believe will likely lead to a national draft of young men and women by June 15, 2005. U.S. military professionals have told American Free Press that due to the Iraq war and large troop deployments in Korea and Europe, a manpower shortage in the armed forces has reached “a state of critical mass.
“Neither Bush nor his Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), would dare to push for reinstating the draft during an election year. The draft was ended in 1973. But many people believe Bush has put the machinery in place to begin a draft by June 15, 2005, which includes setting up and staffing local Selective Service boards throughout America.” Surely, if called Black America would serve. And if, or when it happens…just remember you read that Kerry and Bush were “draft dodgers” in African American News & Issues first.