Counterpunch Topic: "Draft Registration Will Be Either Ended or Imposed on Women" by David Swanson

March 1, 2019

A choice must now be made. It is officially unconstitutional to discriminate against 18-year-old women by not forcing them to sign up to be forced against their will to kill and die for Venezuela’s oil or some other noble cause.

Yes, the fine U.S. judiciary has declared for-men-only Selective Service registration to be verboten.

That’s not to say there isn’t debate on the matter. One side holds that women should be treasured as the delicate witless pieces of property they are because the Bible says so, and therefore they must be kept out of war entirely. The other side says that good modern liberal progressive feminists should demand the right of every woman to be forced, on pain of prison or even death, to help murder a million Iraqis for the cause of creating ISIS or some similar high purpose. Enlightened women demand not only equal pay, but equal moral injury, PTSD, brain injury, suicide risk, lost limbs, violent tendencies, and the chance to board airplanes first while everybody thanks them for their “service.”

To comply with the Constitution, the U.S. government now must either . . .

1. Abide by the U.N. Charter and the Kellogg Briand Pact and stop launching wars.

2. Undo corporate-personhood and dollar-speech, eliminating the influence of war profits and stop launching wars.

3. Impeach and remove fascist warmongers and stop launching wars.

or . . .

Wait a minute, sorry, I saw the word “Constitution” and lost touch with normalized illegality. What I meant to say was: To comply with the Constitution, the U.S. government now must either . . .

1. Impose draft registration on men and women alike, or

2. Abolish draft registration.

Which brings us to an even crazier debate, that between the huge percentage of peace activists who favor not only draft registration but a draft, and those of us who want to see the draft abolished and war along with it. Those favoring a draft as a means to peace may tend to line up with those favoring the feminist right to be forced to kill and die. You’ll have to ask them how comfortable they are in that company. Those of us favoring the abolition of draft registration, of course, find ourselves lined up beside misogynistic warmongers.

How do I like that company? Frankly, I couldn’t care less. It’s not the point. I agree, on the topic of ending wars, with libertarians who want to end wars for the same reasons they want to end schools and parks and environmental protections. I agree on withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan with certain carefully selected and not acted upon statements made by the current occupant of the White House. “You can’t help people being right for the wrong reasons,” said Arthur Koestler. “This fear of finding oneself in bad company is not an expression of political purity. It is an expression of a lack of self-confidence.”

But how can I be so confident that ending Selective Service is the right thing to do?

The military draft has not been used in the United States since 1973. Neither has the War Powers Resolution, but that could very well change this month. The draft machinery has remained in place, costing the federal government about $25 million a year. Males over 18 have been required to register for the draft since 1940 (except between 1947 and 1948, and between 1975 and 1980) and still are today, with no option to register as conscientious objectors or to choose peaceful productive public service. The only reason for keeping Selective Service in place is because the draft might be started up again. While most states’ governments claim that making voter registration automatic would be too much trouble, they have made draft registration automatic for men. This suggests which registration is seen as a priority.

We’re all familiar with the argument behind peace activists’ demand for the draft, the argument that Congressman Charles Rangel made when proposing to start up a draft some years back. U.S. wars, while killing almost exclusively innocent foreigners, also kill and injure and traumatize thousands of U.S. troops drawn disproportionately from among those lacking viable educational and career alternatives. A fair draft, rather than a poverty draft, would send — if not modern-day Donald Trumps, Dick Cheneys, George W. Bushes, or Bill Clintons — at least some offspring of relatively powerful people to war. And that would create opposition, and that opposition would end the war. That’s the argument in a nutshell. Let me offer 10 reasons why I think this is sincere but misguided.

Read the rest at https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/01/draft-registration-will-be-either-ended-or-imposed-on-women/