in pondering the draft a sudden thought strikes me

Four years ago I cleverly predicted that a military draft in the US was unavoidable and that that would be the beginning of the end of their military adventurism. Ha ha ha. More fool I. Friends delighted in pointing out how I got it wrong.

On the subject of the effect of draftees in the military, I'm with John Pilger. Pilger made a documentary back in 1971 called The Quiet Revolution that detailed the revolt of draftees in Vietnam. It was this revolt, rather than protests at home, that forced the American withdrawal. A combination of troops shooting officers, mutinies on naval vessels and riots in military prisons would eventually have led to a complete breakdown of the US military.

There is a crucial difference between draftees and enlistees. Having chosen one's lot, as enlistees have, is usually sufficient to make them put up with being bullshitted to, maltreated and even being forced to participate in murderous villainy. A rejection of these things is effectively a rejection of one's self. This must be resisted at all costs. The vast majority of people would rather participate in war crimes than wonder if they're the bad guy. Draftees lack this ego-driven check on questioning their behaviour. Certainly fear or confusion will hold them back, but not forever. An unwilling accomplice is a very different beast to an willing one. It was the 'unfettered' draftees who eventually brought the Vietnam war to its inglorious end. Sure enough, those behind the Iraq war knew this only too well.

Speaking of which, let's, for the sake of argument, forget about the war being about WMD's. Let's pretend it was about bringing democracy to Iraq. Democracy requires stability. General Eric Shinseki said that achieving this would require 3-400,000 troops. And he got sacked for saying so. No one said, 'Do you think so? Stability is very important to us.' Ha ha ha.

But let's be charitable and imagine the war boosters had seen Band of Brothers. Towards the end of that you can see German troops in uniform, and under arms, taking over the civil administration of occupied Germany. It's a perfectly fine way of occupying a country with minimal use of your own troops. And in Germany no one wigged out, terrified that these German troops might be nazi-party 'dead-enders'.

It was same-same in Singapore and Indo-China after the defeat of the Japanese. They too kept their arms and stayed in day-to-day control under a tiny allied command. Defeated enemy troops, ideology notwithstanding, clearly have tremendous utility for maintaining stability. Perhaps it was with this in mind that the civilian leadership of the Pentagon sent too few troops. And yet, unbelievably, in defiance of all common sense (not to mention Occupation 101 at West Point) the Iraqi army was disbanded. Not enough troops and a failure to utilise the defeated forces can predictably lead to only one thing. Instability.

Says I, that was the whole point. It was certainly the whole point of Oded Yinon's plan for reducing the Arab countries of the Middle East to ungovernable civil war. Iraq wasn't to be liberated. It was to be smashed to pieces and made to stay that way. Afghanistan likewise. Stability was the last thing they wanted and anything suggesting otherwise was just more bullshit. The truth is that, for the dual-nationals running the Pentagon, the ideal outcome of the Iraq war would be if every single Iraqi died screaming. Or quietly starved to death. Or just drowned in their own shit. It's all good. Think Palestine.

And are we ready for a tiny step sideways? What if I said that these dual-nationals not only don't give a fuck about Iraqis, but they don't actually give a fuck about American troops either? Remember the Iran/Iraq war? I recall Time magazine crowing about how if both sides smashed themselves to pieces that that would be a beautiful thing. Extend that mindset to Iraq and substitute the US for Iran. Speaking of Iran, these same dual-nationals are hell-bent on having the US attack that country too. It can no more be taken and occupied than Iraq, of course. It can only be smashed to pieces. And if the US military is itself smashed to pieces in the process, it's all good! The more the better! Like the chickenhawk our-loyalty-lays-elsewhere civilians give a shit.

There will be no US draft. Certainly not while the US military golem is operating under Oded Yinon's plan. Increased numbers of troops in Iraq might just ensure stability. And that's bad. Draftees would also be the key for bringing the current enterprise, and any future ones, to a premature end. And that's bad. Fresh troops, via the draft, would also rest the current exhausted troops and possibly save the US military from complete degradation. And that's bad too. In this fucked up world, there's lots of things to worry about, but a draft ain't one of them.

A sudden thought strikes me -

The bankers who've sucked America dry for the last hundred years have finished with it. America's wealth had been replaced with debt. All the gold is gone. The marvel that was US manufacturing has been sent overseas. All that remains is the largest military force the world has ever seen. Honestly, how could they leave it intact? With but a small change to the top of the command structure pyramid, it could be sent in any direction the new leadership chose. It would be the only force that could threaten Israel. It's a threat that they'd have to remove. It stands to reason. What if I were to say that the current wars in the Middle East are less about smashing those country's militaries than they are about smashing the US's? What if the destruction of the US military (and NATO now that I think about it) was the whole point of the exercise? With Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran serving merely as the means to do it? Given that the masters of lies layer their lies to depths as deep as their ambition is high, it's a distinct possibility.