Really Bad Idea: Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right

Charlie Rangel is angry about the Iraq war, the one that Henry Kissinger has told us we can't win. Thanks, Henry, but most Americans figured that out before you did. Rangel saw combat in Korea. Kissinger has only seen combat on TV. That might have something to do with why Kissinger thinks our troops should stay in Iraq even though we can't win. Kissinger says that if we leave now, all hell will break loose and Iraq will never achieve stability. Never mind that all hell has already broken loose. Never mind that Kissinger said the same thing would happen if we left Vietnam--all hell would break loose and Vietnam would never achieve stability. Vietnam has become so stable that Presidents Clinton and Bush, both combat cowards during the Vietnam war, have made well publicized, utterly safe visits to the country Kissinger used to think didn't have a chance without us.

In my one conversation with Kissinger, which occurred on TV, I asked him if he knew anyone who got killed in Vietnam. He was completely thrown. He doesn't go on TV to be asked such small-minded questions, he goes on TV to pontificate and TV interviewers are happy to let him do it. Kissinger sputtered and ran away from the question, leaving the distinct impression that he did not know anyone who was killed in the war he managed. His memoir of the period does not mention a single casualty. If you have ever stood at the Vietnam Memorial and run your hand over the name of a relative on the wall, as my mother and I did last month, you can get as angry as Charlie Rangel does about people like Kissinger deciding how long our soldiers should be exposed to enemy fire in a war we know we can't win.

Rangel announced on Sunday that he wants to reinstate the draft. He said the same thing a few years ago but quickly let on that he wasn't serious. He's playing it straight this time and has already introduced a bill. Local New York TV news has given Rangel saturation coverage. You can see his anger and frustration building each time he answers another reporter's question about the draft. The point he keeps repeating is: "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..."

Here's the deal, Charlie, from someone who's as pissed about this war as you are.

The kids of Congress, the kids of their campaign donors, aren't going to be drafted even if you make all kinds of legistlation to force it, and ensure its equality.

Why not? Because the $ystem is rigged, Charlie. Poor people, middle class, or even not-so-rich people will fill the ranks of any draft force, or any forced national service, but the likes of Jenna and Babs Bu$h won't.

The kids of the wealthy won't.

And any legistlation you write will be shot full of loopholes to ensure they won't.

A fair, equitable draft is not going to happen. Ever. Drafts create slave armies, and you know who the wanna-be Masters wanna cast in the role of slaves? Here's a hint: they make less than a million dollars a year, baby.

However, a draft will create the kind of civil unrest and class warfare this nation hasn't seen since the 1960s. Which will play right into the hands of John Negroponte and the Cheneyburton Corporation's Homeland Security anti-terra'ist goons. Civil unrest will allow them to invoke the martial law they've been waiting for.

Let's end this war. Let's start pulling out troops today. That's the only way it's going to end. By ending involvement, not by creating the tools that would divide the children of the haves and the have-nots even deeper.