Stop the Draft

Who would have known that there is a bill to reinstate the draft (to include all young men and women) waiting to be voted on? There is a bill in the House and a bill in the Senate! Have you heard about it?

Whether you support the current administration or not, this bill cannot be passed. Please take a moment, read this email and go to any and all sites you can so your voice can be heard.

I just read the bill below at http://thomas.loc.gov/
The bill number is HR 163.

There is pending legislation in the house and senate (companion bills: S89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin as early as Spring 2005, just after the 2004 presidential election.

The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately. This plan, among other things, eliminates higher education as a shelter and includes women in the draft. Also, crossing into Canada has already been made very difficult.

Actions you can take:

Please send this on to all the parents and teachers you know, and to all the aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents, etc. And let your children know - it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change now!

This legislation is called HR 163 and can be found in detail at this website:
http://thomas.loc.gov/

Just enter in "HR 163" and click search and will bring up the bill for you to read. It is less than two pages long.

If this bill passes, it will include all men and ALL WOMEN from ages 18 - 26 in a draft for military action. In addition, college will no longer be an option for avoiding the draft and they will be signing an agreement with the Canada which will no longer permit anyone attempting to dodge the draft to stay within it's borders. This bill also includes the extention of military service for all those that are currently active. If you go to the select service web site and read their 2004 FYI Goals you will see that the reasoning for this is to increase the size of the military in case of terrorism. This is a critical piece of legislation, this will effect our undergradates, our children and our grandchildren.

Please take the time to write your congressman and let them know how you feel about this legislation...
http://www.house.gov
http://www.senate.gov

Please also write to your representatives and ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills and write to newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story.

Please see...
www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html
to view the Selective Service System annual performance plan, fiscal year 2004.

The draft $28 million budget has been added to the 2004 selective service system budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. Selective service must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 so that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, can be ready for activation.

The Pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan (and permanent state of war on terrorism) proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.

http://www.hslda.org/legislation/national/2003/s89 entitled the Universal National service Act of 2003, "to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons (age 18-26) in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the committee on armed services. Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era. College and Canada will not be options. In December, 2001, Canada and the U.S. signed a "smart border declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's minister of foreign affairs, John Manley, and U.S. Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30 point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their current semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year.

Now that you have an idea of what's going on, you can ask yourself why this isn't in the news. Why haven't your elected representatives come out against this publicly as they do often times when they are opposed to a bill?

Are they so ready to send 18-year-old daughters off to Iraq with a gas mask, flak jacket and M16? By the time that the death toll in Iraq hits 2,000, will we see news stories about the local girl who just graduated from high school who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq? By then it will be too late to be angry and upset. The time to act is now.

Contact your legislators and ask them to oppose these bills. There are several websites dedicated to helping you reach your elected representatives such as http://www.firstgov.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

Otherwise, you can just type "congress" into the aol search engine and input your zip code. A list of your reps will pop up with a way to email them directly. When contacting them, tell them you are a constituent and that you are opposed to the draft. That's all you need to do. We can't just sit and pretend that by ignoring it, it will go away. We must voice our concerns and create the world we want to live in for our children and grandchildren.

If you want, you can organize a group of people to go and visit their local offices and thus make an effective public display of your feelings about the draft before it's enacted. Remember, once it's enacted, it's extremely unlikely that they will repeal it.

Remember when people marched in the streets to protest the war in Iraq and how effective that was in stopping the war from happening? It got a lot of attention but it was too little too late. Get in action now, let others know what is going on and think big.

Get creative. Wear a green ribbon to call attention to the issue. Get a bumper sticker that expresses how you feel (places like Kinkos can make you a bumper sticker inexpensively); A friend of mine is going to get a bumper sticker that says STOP THE DRAFT with a green ribbon on it or something that will draw attention to HR 163 (this will go nicely next to his Marine Corps bumper sticker).

The most important thing is to let others know. We all have children in our lives that shouldn't be burdened this way. Create a new email and copy the text and send it to everyone you care about and let them know how you feel about this issue; or you can just forward it, but spammers collect up those addresses so it's not recommended.

By the way, no one knows when Congress will vote to reinstate the draft. It really could be tomorrow. Or it could be on the heels of a new terrorist attack just the same way that the PATRIOT Act was passed... and did you hear about that before it was passed? Spread the word before it's too late!

Thanks in peace and freedom,
Seth King
Teacher - LAUSD
Director - United People 4 Peace
www.up4peace.com
unitedpeople4peace@hotmail.com