Fantasyland: Charles Rangel Calls For The Draft As A Means to End American Injustice

Pat's already done a much better job on Rangel and the draft, but since he links to this in his comments, I've brought it over here...

As someone who doesn't really subscribe to partisan ideology, the upside of the Democratic takeover of Congress was that Democrats got relatively more conservative representation in their ranks with people like Jim Webb and Bob Casey, Jr., moving into the Senate. The House Democrats have already demonstrated their maturity by rejecting the ridiculous Jack Murtha in favor of the more responsible Steny Hoyer-- despite the fact that Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi endorsed the former. And, of course, Joe Biden is now poised to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and I've long since argued that he's one of the few politicians-- Republican or Democrat-- who really "gets" the Global War on Terror.

The downside, however, is that many of the House Democrats' most senior members-- the ones who, by design, will step into the leadership positions and committee chairs-- are quite frankly some of its most radical and least centrist members.

My Stubborn Facts colleague Tully noted that David Obey will likely get Appropriations, John Conyers will be chairing Judiciary, and John Dingell will be leading Energy and Commerce, and-- potentially-- impeached judge Alcee Hastings could control the Intelligence committee. He also noted that Charles Rangel would chair the Ways and Means committee-- and Rangel is already working over-time to establish the Democrat's most radical credentials: yesterday, Rangel announced that he will seek to reinstitute the draft because "he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars."

"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way."

. . .

"If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft."

We'll forget for a moment that US history doesn't suggest that a draft has ever really been effective at preventing Americans from going to war, or that if such were true, it could just as easily demonstrate that Americans would rather wait for Pearl Harbors than to take decisive action and prevent Hitlers from militarizing Rhinelands-- a scenario that would have resulted in far fewer causalties at far less cost than the Allies ultimately got involved, four years later. In fact, that is really what Rangel is all about: he's not trying to prepare America to "pay any price, bear any burden" in defense of liberty against potential North Korean and Iranian threats; he's trying to ensure that we won't be able to take preemptive military action in the future. It is the ultimate Nician Plot, after the Athenian statesman who endorsed the Sicilian invasion only if such overwhelming force and resources could be brought to the island that (mistakenly, he thought) no Athenian citizen would ever be willing to sacrifice. It's also doomed to failure, because there's no way he has the votes to support it (three years ago, it failed by a vote of 402-2; I'm guessing the political landscape hasn't changed that much)... But it sure won't help the Democrats shake their perception-- at least in the minds of those of us who actually execute American foreign and security policy-- that their Party is unduly influenced by the irresponsible Left.

And yet that's not really what I found most interesting about Rangel's view. Trapped, as he is, in his old way of thinking, Rangel seems convinced that the military is overwhelmingly composed of minorities and the poor-- that the fighting and dying is being done, not by a fair representation of all Americans, but only by the black and Latino who apparently have no other option but to serve their country.

"Rangel . . . has said the all-volunteer military disproportionately puts the burden of war on minorities and lower-income families."

Let me address that, because-- despite the fact that I now wear a State Department civilian suit instead of my Army greens (and right when they went to a uniform that requires no iron and boots that require no polish!)-- I think I'm far closer to the military ranks than Rangel is. Any attempt to figure out who actually serves in the military, and what their backgrounds are, merely by looking is going to be subjective and inherently prone to error-- to do this right, we need data and fortunately for us, there's lots of it out there. If, for example, we look at the Brookings Institute's Iraq Index, we can find more data about Iraqi reconstruction, security, and fatalities-- both US and Iraqi-- than we know what to do with. Right there on page 6, in fact, Brookings lays out the demographics of American servicemembers who have actually died in Iraq. According to the US Census Bureau (as presented in my World Almanac and Book of Facts), we know that "whites" compose 75.1% of the American population; "blacks" are 12.3%; "Asians" compose 3.6% of society; and "Amerindians" and "Alaska native" are 0.9%. Latinos, who can actually be composed of multiple races and groups, are 12.5%. So if Rangel's right-- and minorities are doing a disporportionate amount of the dying in this war-- we should see far different numbers among the casualty reports.

We don't. As of 30 September, the US military had suffered 2,706 casualties. "Whites" have endured 1,995-- or 73.7%-- of those casualties; "Blacks or African Americans" have suffered 266 casualties-- or 9.8%. "Asians" have suffered 47 (1.7%), "Amerindians and Alaska natives" 29 (1%), and Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders 28 (1%). "Hispanics or Latinos" have lost 308 lives... Or 11.3%. There are also 33 in the "multiple races, pending, or unknown"-- but that 1.2%-- even if they all came from one group-- doesn't really alter the landscape much at all, does it? What we actually find is that Americans are dying at or about the same rates as their representation in American society... Not quite the picture that Rangel wants to develop, but then-- like I said-- he's trapped in a different time and can't seem to understand the changes of the new reality.

And so, oblivious of changes, Rangel will continue to advance his Fantasyland "solutions," while the rest of us living in reality, will continue to look for the real solutions.