A bipartisan idea: exit strategy for Iraq is needed!

Imagine my surprise when I read my townhall.com digest today:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dougbandow/printdb20050815.shtml

All-volunteer military imperiled by call for a draft

Doug Bandow

August 15, 2005
WASHINGTON - "Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is again pushing legislation to reintroduce a draft. He first did so in 2003 to slow the Bush administration's rush to war. Now he says conscription is necessary to provide the bodies necessary for Iraq's occupation.

Returning to a draft would ruin the world's dominant armed forces, filling its ranks with people who don't want to serve and turning military service into a divisive political issue. Yet Rangel's proposal reflects an ugly reality: The Bush administration's disastrous intervention in Iraq is weakening the U.S. military.

Both the Army and Marines are failing to meet their recruiting goals. Reservists are being treated as regular substitutes rather than emergency complements for the active forces. Only Pentagon "stop-loss" orders, which bar personnel from leaving when their terms expire, are holding some servicemen and women in uniform.

It's one thing to ask patriotic young people to die pre-empting a dangerous state seeking nuclear weapons. It's quite another thing for them to die occupying, in the name of democracy, a nation that has not yet developed the civil and social institutions so important for the emergence of a genuine liberal society.

Of course, the mere fact that attacking Iraq was a mistake - a war based on lamentably false claims about Baghdad's possession of weapons of mass destruction and criminally optimistic promises as to the ease of occupation - does not mean that America should quickly leave. But when few military leaders share the president's optimism of freedom marching forward, policies no longer can be based on more simplistic rhetoric from those who sold the war with simplistic rhetoric.
[...]
The United States can't leave tomorrow. It must begin planning to leave, however, and sooner rather than later.

First, Washington must define "success" in Iraq as a political regime that respects vital American interests, not one that represents a utopia seen only in political science textbooks. The United States should encourage development of a liberal political order in Iraq, but not make such a system an essential foreign policy goal.

Second, the United States must realistically weigh both costs and benefits. The primary benefit of the war with Iraq has been achieved: eliminating Saddam Hussein's regime.

The costs, in contrast, continue to mount. Iraq is an important recruiting tool for terrorists abroad. U.S. officials talk about the "bleed out" of terrorists back to their home countries and the West. Scores of jihadist Iraq veterans already have returned to Europe.

Patriotic young Americans are being killed, maimed, and wounded daily. The United States is spending a billion dollars a week on the war. Resources are being diverted from planning to meet future challenges."

Interestingly enough, some of the best "time to leave Iraq" writing is coming from the right!!!
Of course, this article takes the angle that our occupation of Iraq will require so many troops that we'll have to start drafting them and aruges that a draft hurts our military.

I do see one upside to a draft though: it will make chickenhawks think twice before supporting some ill concieved war.

Cross posted at: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/16/8349/95040