Re: More talk of draft

I mentioned this before the elections, but no one was listening.

By the way, Rangel also mentions raisin taxes. I'm not sure what these raisin taxes are, but sounds like they'll be discussed a lot next year too. Fortunately, I don't like raisins.

Video here.

Update: Rangel's goal, of course, is to create a military that (he thinks) no one would dare ever use, and he believes he's got a compelling argument: "I don't see how anyone can support the war, and not support the draft."

For the record, my thoughts on the draft from my days in Baghdad.

More Talk of a Draft

From the usual suspect.

Re: War By Other Means

See, this is what happens when non-lawyers review legal books. Michiko Kakutani (well known in legal circles for...) writes of John Yoo:

One of his favorite tactics in this book is to create a ridiculous caricature of administration critics’ views and then dismiss them. For instance, he writes: “A Geneva Convention POW camp is supposed to look like the World War II camps seen in movies like ‘Stalag 17’ or ‘The Great Escape.’ But because Gitmo does not look like this, critics automatically declare that detainees’ human rights are being violated.”

That's not a caricature you dingbat. That's precisely what the GC requires.

The Geneva Convention on POWs lays out remarkably restrictive rules for treatment of prisoners of war. Including such antiquated restrictions as prohibitions on requiring officers to perform manual labor. (Art 50). And regardless of whether they work or not, you have to pay them (Art 60)--with enlisted soldiers getting eight Swiss francs a month and general officers getting seventy-five a month.

So yeah, the GC POW rules are rather...ummm...unique to major European power war which the GWOT doesn't easily compare. Accordingly, Kakutani's "review" is less a review of the book than an angst-driven schoolgirl Facebook rant.

Oh, This Is About Five Kinds Of Ugly

Via Instapundit, a nasty little dustup involving Navy recruiting, racial preference policies, self-identified whistleblowers and potential long term institutional retaliation.

Note, also, that it showed up in the Tennesseean long before the Naval Enquirer got to it. Guess they were too busy sending their reporters to cover the latest New Uniform Proposals or something.

Update: Lex is way ahead of me.

War by Other Means

Former Bush adminisration lawyer John Yoo's "War by Other Means" gets a review today in the New York Times review of books. The review gets a review over at my place.

The last man to die...

...as a result of the decision to abandon Vietnam may not be dead yet.

Update: Insight into one editor's approach to covering those who fall. It's a tough thing to do, but turning away would consign them to mere lists or brief notices. The easy route is rarely right.

Do Tell...

One of the legacies of the Clinton-era military may soon be gone:

Two leading House Democrats said yesterday that they intend to reverse the 13-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays and lesbians in the military when Congress comes under Democratic control in January.
<...>
The military is stretched thin and scrambling to fill the ranks during wartime, and studies suggest that the sexual orientation policy is depriving the armed forces of people who have much-needed skills -- including the ability to speak foreign languages. And a study backed by the University of California, Santa Barbara showed that the Pentagon spent $363.8 million to train and replace the nearly 10,000 people it discharged during the policy's first decade.

1. No way to prove this, but I suspect that most folks discharged under the policy were simply using it to get said discharge. I know of one such case myself - a guy who got orders to Korea back in the mid-90s and decided to "come out". They'd need to find a new reason now.

2. It would be interesting to see the various educational institutions who've banned (or attempted to ban) military recruiting because of this congressional policy respond.

By the way, I've served with numerous guys who could be described as (ahem) very feminine over the years, and some gals who couldn't. This has nothing to do with homosexuality, of course (see Hudson, Rock) just seems to me if there was really a concerted effort to track such folks down and give 'em the boot it's a miserable failure.

Update:

More evidence of low morale

I ran into irrefutable evidence this weekend.

Re: Recruiting

What with all this talk about USAF recruiting ads, I figured I'd clue everyone in on the latest Army recruiting poster.

In other news: I received a letter today from US Army JAG recruiting offering me a chance to join the largest law firm in the world.

I’ve heard a bit about this “JAG Corps”–it sounds like a good fit. I’m considering it.