If people agree with a war, the Army should have no trouble finding volunteers. But when the public disapproves of a war, conscription is the card left up Uncle Sam's sleeve. The Selective Service System is, essentially, a giant dog leash tethered to Americans.

DURHAM -- Our ground troops are stretched to the breaking point, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in South Korea and in many other nations. The National Guard is doing the job of the active duty military. The Army's use of "stop-loss" orders to forcibly retain soldiers who have technically ended their term of duty is a limited back-door draft. The Army Reserve is missing its enlistment targets by 30 percent, despite sweetened sign-up bonuses and tuition grant incentives. As former Reagan administration Pentagon official Lawrence Korb has warned the Bush administration, "You've got about another year -- if you don't cut back in Iraq, your all-volunteer Army and Marine Corps are going to be in big trouble."

On a crude level the draft appeals to patriotic fervor….Conscription is wrongly associated with patriotism, when it really represents collectivism and involuntary servitude.” Ronald Reagan said:  “The most fundamental objection to draft registration is moral.” In other words, conscription assumes our young people belong to the state. A state that is increasingly blood-thirsty.

As for including women in the draft, you can whine all you want about sexism and discrimination, but the government will have to fight me for my granddaughters!

As the War in Iraq continues, many young people are worried: They won’t bring the draft back, will they?

For those who are draft-age, the question has emerged: Will they have to trade their T-shirts and baggy jeans for desert camouflage-fatigues and machine guns? As classes begin at New Jersey colleges and high schools, a number of men and women are preparing themselves for that possibility.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) has introduced a House bill to reinstate the draft which is currently in the Armed Services Committee. While his bill didn't garner much support when he first introduced it last session, he feels fairly confident that with the absence of any concrete plans by the President to restock the loss forces on the ground, the reinstatement of a draft is "inevitable and only a matter of time."

MAD national chair Janine Hansen puts it this way: "The military manpower problem is real and significant. When there aren't enough volunteers, Congress is left with few choices. They can significantly raise taxes to support a mercenary force, change our foreign policy and reduce our overseas military commitments or resort to the draft or some other form of compulsory service to fill the gap."

As you may know, the Army is having trouble getting kids to join up. Recruitment is down on account of all the soldiers dying in the desert. Go figure. And you know whose fault it is? YOURS.

The possibility that the War Party would dare to embark on a program of mass kidnapping for foot soldiers again is the primary concern of my radio show guests of July 2: Debbie Hopper of Mothers Against the Draft and Scott Kohlhaas of DraftResistance.org. Hopper is a longtime advocate for limited government, and she sees the dangerous path this country is headed down. She and her colleagues are not about to let their kids become mortar bait in the Empire's next aggressive war.