Universal service - or empire in the making?
5 June 2006
The Universal National Service Act of 2006 to be debated tomorrow is a truly remarkable piece of legislation, though its introduction on February 14, 2006 and subsequent processing up to this date has received remarkably little media coverage. The substance of this bill is to authorize the Executive to draft anyone in the country, whether a citizen or not, for a period of 2 years to serve in the military or perform civilian national security work.
It states, among other things, that "It is the obligation of every citizen of the United States, and every other person residing in the United States, who is between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a period of national service as prescribed in this Act unless exempted under the provisions of this Act." Note that there is no clarification to the effect that such service must be justified - i.e., that only those whose service is necessitated by the reality of the situation must be called to serve. No, everyone must serve - save for a few exempted categories, such as those who are infirm, those who have served in a uniformed service for over 6 months, etc. Once the bill passes, the President will have an immediate authority to call up everyone from the age of 18 to 42, including mothers with small children for whom no exemption is mentioned, and take them out of their civilian lives for the period of two years. In this time of no officially declared war a mobilization will be allowed that would easily dwarf the World War II mobilization.
We are talking tens of millions of people, folks. The US military now stands at about 1.5 million. It is stretched thin, of course, but if increased to even as little as 5 million it will certainly be tremendously more powerful than today in terms of manpower. If I remember it correctly about 10 million Americans were in uniform at the height of World War II.
Providing the national defense at home is important but it is still unclear how this many people could fit into the picture. While it is clear that it is unlikely they will all be drafted all at the same time, even a fraction of this layer of population - let us say, a quarter - is likely more than what can be reasonably accomodated.
To sum it all up, barring a catastrophic natural or man-made disaster such as a massive epidemic, nuclear war, etc I can see only one situation in which this sort of mass mobilization would be needed - multiple wars of conquest akin to that in Iraq with a simultaneous militarization of the society domestically.
My apologies for a hastily written text but I think this is important and urgent. I called my Congressman today - first time I ever did it - and you might want to consider also doing something to stop this legislation. Here for your convenience is a link to your Representative's contact info.
