Many Countries Now Phasing Out Military Draft

	posted by Scott on Saturday January 06, @11:59PM from the draft dept.
	The Washington Times had a great, in-depth article about how several countries are eliminating the military draft, and the reasons for its demise. From the article: "'The draft was very efficient if what you needed was a large mass of semiskilled labor to deal with a direct and massive threat to your homeland,' said Philip Gold, director of defense studies at the Discovery Institute...'That does not even remotely describe the threat that the United States and its European allies are facing for the foreseeable future.'" Economic concerns as well as the social unpopularity of the draft, demonstrated during the Vietnam War, are other reasons that the draft is coming to be seen as obsolete.

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Phasing out of military draft (Score:1) by claude on Sunday January 07, @08:32AM EST (#1) (User #85 Info) This is good news. Draft should be illegal everywhere.         We should go further: declare wars illegal, unconstitutional.         And of course increase creativity to solve conflicts peacefully.         I think women can and must do a lot in relation to this.Not doing it is perpetuating wars.         Why? Because they have the voting majority! ( see the book of Naomi Wolf : Fire with Fire.( 7,000,000 more women than men have the voting majority in USA alone).           Now, morally: once wars would be illegal, we should thank all men for being soldiers in the past , to protect any society. Than, we should apologize for criticizing them for being violent because they went to war: they were obliged.             Further, perhaps, the one who still criticize should be accused of moral harassment!             There is alternatives to wars.             Roger Fisher has written books on that ane there is interviews on the web.             claude saint-jarre

Re:Phasing out of military draft (Score:1) by BusterB on Monday January 08, @03:05PM EST (#2) (User #94 Info) http://themenscenter.com/busterb/ Sorry, but I'm not convinced, and neither am I encouraged by countries phasing out the draft. I think that global warfare is less likely now than it was seventy years ago, but then the people who lived seventy years ago though so, too. Declaring war illegal and phasing out the draft are noble gestures, but when someone else amasses an army and starts attacking your country with a mind to taking over, what do you do? Wave Hansard in front of them and say, "But it's illegal!"? That's not likely to have much effect. No, the next time some group somewhere in the world decides to take over everything, and we need someone to go and stop them, we'll be recruiting young men again and sending them off to their deaths. Legislation or no legislation, when a country is in danger they need to send someone, and as Per so eloquently writes, "There are no feminists when the life boats are lowered." So, regardless of what legislation they pass, when the chips are down it will still be our sons that we send to have their brains blown out; the ladies will suddenly rediscover tradition and politely decline to participate.

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