1. Who will serve? (Draft in your example)
2. Who will pay for it? (Taxes, or future generations in Bush's example)

I consider the tax question to be more important in this war. I dislike the draft. It is forced labor, and still for largely imperial military purposes.

Taxes however brings it home to tax-payers (rich and poor), especially if separately stated on a separate line.

"Iraq War surcharge" 2.3% of Adjusted Gross Income.

having a standing army creates another moral hazard, Weiss: the temptation to use it….

We must break up domestic lobbuies like AIPAC that would lobby for wars on behalf of their co ethnics.

The 1st draft among English-speaking peoples was in 1862 in the South. Remarkable that Elizabethan England, Continental US at the time of the French Indian and War of Independence had no need for a draft. (BTW pls confirm…my data is from David Frum!!! Yaeh, I know reading the devil himself…..)

Riley is right. Use the armed forces for their noble and legitimate mission of defending the country (which they grossly failed to do on 9/11), and you'll get more volunteers than you can use. But send them overseas for wars of aggression and occupation (virtually the only kind of wars the U.S. fights anymore), and you're simply supplying the war machine with cannon fodder.

Thomas Jefferson and other eminent Founders regarded a standing army as a great evil. Today, we not only have a standing army, but a permanent empire of overseas bases in Japan, Germany, Korea, U.K., Italy, Bosnia, Iran, Afghanistan, and plenty of other places. Until the U.S. finally demobilizes from WW II (63 years late, but better late than never), closes down NATO, and adheres to the constitutional requirement for Congress to declare war, a draft simply gives aid and encouragement to the vast military empire which is sucking the lifeblood out of the U.S. economy. If this continues (as appears likely), the U.S. will become a second-rate power like the U.K. within this century. And it will richly deserve that fate.

Israel is a bad example for the U.S. to follow. Its heavy defense requirements are a result of Zionist land grabs committed within living memory, such that the victims are still fighting back. Normal nations with normal defense requirements (think Costa Rica) do not need national service, and often not even a standing army.

The root problem with national service is that the US fedgov has slipped its constitutional traces and become fundamentally evil. That some lefties support national service shows how socialism and militarism mix like gin and tonic (Hitler's party wasn't called the National Socialists by accident). Don't serve the Beast; don't feed your children to it. Shun and resist it.

But I don't like the idea of a general tax. Why not make a plebiscite/referendum. Everyone who is for war is automatically registered and will pay war tax. ;) ;) ;)

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And Jim, I surely hated the Taliban. But did you support the war in Afghanistan?

The problem is when the resources and infrastructure available to a country's military end up forcing its hand into asserting hegemony, and tilting public sentiment as well by virtue of the chaos, in a vicious cycle of increasing militarism.

In Japan before all the modernization of the Meiji Period, the national slogan was sonnō jōi: Revere the Emperor; Expel the barbarians.

After industrialization and military conscription, Imperial Japan selected a new national slogan. Fukoku kyōhei: Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Military.

As in Israel/the United States, in Japan the nature of the militarist expansionism was rationalized as defensive.

Since Israel/the United States has shown a virtual addiction to asserting militarist hegemony and expanding its region of influence under various supposedly defensive rationales, there would really have to be a massive reorientation and shift of consciousness for a conscripted, standing military to be a good idea.

I am gonna go ahead and venture a guess that Phil doesn't have any kids, or his opinion here might be a little more prudent.

Why anyone would suggest that the U.S. copy Israel on any social policy is beyoned me. But to remodel U.S. society around Israel's military example is absurd. Israel is a mess!

I think it is time that our immigrants and sons of immigrants stop trying to change the nation and truly asimilate or leave.

Putting Israel up as an example for the U.S. to follow shows a lack of knowledge and respect for American traditions. The U.S. needs to be a peaceful nation that minds its own business and enforces sensible laws across the board, not some third-world multicultural empire that has to enforce a phoney culture and cohesion from above.

Its too big, and has too many "interests".