When asked about the possibility of a draft Karoline Leavitt our White House Press Secretary gave an odd answer.
"It is not part of the current plan right now but the president again wisely keeps his options on the table."
Our president was given a medical deferment because of "bone spurs" when he faced the draft for the Vietnam War. Common among the children of the wealthy. 58,220 U.S. soldiers died in Vietnam War. The war killed well over a million people.
To produce the political will to have a war on that scale and a draft there would probably need to be a serious terror attack on the US.
Though I wonder, if 9/11 happened today would the same people who rallied to the US and felt bad for us do the same. Or would much of the world just shake their head as you might at a child who plays in the rock pile where you told them there were rattlesnakes?
And also the child is the biggest rattlesnake somehow. Metaphors suck.
But we need to be "at war" and they can't even make up their mind about that.
If there is a catastrophe that inspires the public to support the war more and congress backs? Then it might be made into a real "War(tm)" and then those powers become a problem.
Right now it's just a deadly mess.
@futurebird
Iran has long been one of Trump's bugbears. In November 2018, he unilaterally and without provocation reïmposed sanctions on Iran, even though Iran appeared to be keeping up their end of the bargain.
Then in January 2020, he had Qassem Solameini assassinated. This would have been the most important incident of 2020 if we hadn't all gone into lockdown a couple of months later.
@guyjantic @eirias
I guess conservatives really don't think all of that "export the music and the junk food and the ideology won't matter" stuff works at all?
I think it works. Too well.
@eirias @futurebird i wonder if irans leaders are taking any lessons from the battle of minneapolis/st paul on how to wear down the regime without provoking escalating violence. Maybe keeping their military retaliation against the US partners in the region and local US bases will slow escalation and put pressure on the US to leave, but if they organized an action on the homeland that might provoke the opposite.
That said if the war goes out of control and the US invades, itll end just like vietnam because the iranian people will never accept foreign rule. I doubt they have much appetite for revolution against their government either, while they might be massively protesting iiuc they want democratic reform and incremental policy change, not a repeat of 1979.
We still have a draft in America and it's called "College Costs Too Much" this reliably sends the children of the middle and working class into "military careers"
Why I have a cousin who has done very well for herself as a Navy nurse. You know, so she could pay for school. I think she's old enough that they won't hoover her up into the grinder just yet.
@futurebird Yep. During my time as an undergrad, our tuition nearly doubled one year. A number of my class-mates enlisted in the military because they couldn't afford to stay in school otherwise.
And tuition has gone up a LOT since then.
@futurebird His most eligible son went ahead and got a medical deferment. Bon spurs 2.0.
In my mind that means that it's already planned, just they're waiting until they start something even bigger (probably WWIII.)
It looks much better if you have those things on the record a few years in advance. Or months.
Amanda's Mild Takes explains the many reasons why a literal draft is off the table:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jSWHv1I4bSg
Of course poverty as a draft is still in force.
@Phosphenes @futurebird Different times...
We live in a nazi dictatorship now.
I like the typo you made "bon spurs" sounds like some kind of fancy title for a failson.
The Young Duke Bon Spur Neverfights.
I feel a little bad calling Barron Trump a failson. From his name to his parents he has never had a good chance of living a life that didn't attract that title. But he's getting to be old enough that his choices are his own.
Maybe if his aunt talks to him, maybe he might see that the best bet is to secure his own finances and make a wall between himself and his father. It is unlikely. He may already resent that is is expected.
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