Editorial: Draft is not a policy cudgel

Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006 | 7:15 a.m.

The incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says he will introduce legislation next year that would reinstate the military draft.

Under the bill by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., Americans would have to register for the draft after they turn 18. Rangel says that President Bush and members of his administration "would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress" if they thought that their own children would be sent off to fight.

It is an interesting theory, but it is wrong to think that our teenagers should be used to cudgel government into making good decisions - such as deciding whether there is reason enough to declare war on another country.

The theory is that compulsory military enlistment guarantees that everyone will be treated equally. But that did not pan out during the Vietnam War, as demonstrated by Vice President Dick Cheney's five deferments that enabled him to avoid service.

President Bush did, indeed, launch the United States into a war based on "flimsy evidence," and he has kept U.S. troops there without the strategy or equipment to make their efforts successful. But reinstating the draft and risking the lives of even more young Americans isn't the way to prove that point. The only way to prevent this from happening again is for Congress to demand facts, rather than settling for rhetoric, when a president goes on the warpath.