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Poll

Votes: 15

A Question for Americans.

Author:

tkatchev

Topic:

Diaries

Posted:

Oct 10, 2001

Comments:

Just a simple question for you Americans -- have any of you actually realized that a war on Afghanistan means that many of you will get drafted, and possibly killed?

More diaries by tkatchev

	Fuck the geeks.
	Totalitarian America
	This just in:
	For Inden.
	Hell in your Handbasket
	Another one bites the dust...
	Another terrorist act.
	OMG, ESR is a troll!
	Kuro5hin
	Win a fabulous trip to North Korea.
	Contemporary Russian Poetry
	Contemporary Russian Poetry pt. II
	Happy Constitution Day!
	Postmodern Art, Pt. I
	Postmodernist Art, Pt. II
	Contemporary Russian Poetry, Pt. III
	Babylon Must Fall.
	Happy New Year!
	Weblog Pornography
	Discover the Russia you never knew.
	"New Chronology": As Requested.
	LOTR: Please don't kill me.
	The Satanic Nature of Kuro5hin is Revealed.
	Link Propagation.
	(Reading list)
	The Benefits of Browsing Slashdot.
	Kuro5hit Update
	Controversial Wallpaper
	Serious Inquiry about Paganism
	Liberalists celebrating Hilter's birthday.
	Happy Mayday!
	Brilliant Kuro5hin article.
	Please excuse the rudity.
	Update
	Oh ghod this is rich.
	Another mindless link.

"Yes" or "no" answers, please.

	Is the Tomahawk assembly line that desperate... (none / 0) (#1)
	by Weyland Yutani on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 05:55:20 AM PST

	...for workers? And they and Boeing really ought to pay more attention to Occupational Health and Safety guidelines, if their factory floors are so dangerous.

	No. (4.50 / 2) (#2)
	by Craig McPherson on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 05:58:28 AM PST

	George W Bush has said "no draft." George W Bush is Command in Chief of the United States Armed Forces. I believe that the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces has at least a little say in whether or not there's a draft. That could, of course, change if the war turns out to be a large one, but iet's look at the facts. May I remind you that there have only been a handful of drafts in the entire history of the United States? The US maintains a standing army large enough to eradicate most small- and mid-sized countries without enlisting additional forces. The Gulf War had no draft. The Afghanistan War is unlikely to be anwhere near the size of the gulf war, so it's ludicrous that there would be a draft. The war is going to consist mostly of air strikes (for which there is more than sufficient manpower) and convert / special-ops spy stuff like in those cool video games where you shoot the terrorists -- and draftees wouldn't be suited for that either. The United States army is already, I imagine, larger than the entire population of Afghanistan, and actually has weapons, so I can't imagine needing more manpower. Assuming (being very conservative) that each US soldier could kill 10 Afghani citizens, and only half the US army went to Afghanistan, that's still enough to wipe out the entire population of the country five times over -- and since the US will only be targetting the military, not the civilians, there'll be an even better ratio. Since the Afghani militia consists of all able-bodies males fit for combat, let's assume that the military is 33% of the population. That means that half the US army could wipe out the military 15 times over without breaking a sweat. Plus you have to factor in the fact that most of them can be killed with bombs and missiles, and that most of the rest will surrender in terror like the Iraq soldiers did. Let's figure that maybe 5% of the population will actually put up a fight -- half the US army can kill them 100 times over. Most US soldiers won't even be able to kill anybody because there won't be enough enemies for everybody to get to kill one. When there's already going to be a shortage of enemies to kill, it'd be stupid to have a draft. Even factoring in the fact that stupid things have an increased chance of actually happening, the chance of a draft is still less than 1%. Since I consider conscription to be immoral, I have a completely legal plan to avoid conscription: if there's ever a hint of a draft, I'll go sign up voluntarily so it'll be impossible for them to draft me. As long as they give me a paycheck directly proportional to the number of Communist corpses I pile up, so I can immediately retire afterwards, I'll be happy. I've always wanted a chance to kill Communists and get away with it, and this could be my chance. -- If you want to know why Lunix is so screwed up, just take a look at the people who use it. Idiocy.

	UN Flag (5.00 / 1) (#4)
	by dmg on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 06:08:23 AM PST

	Since you wipe your butt with the UN flag, I just wondered if you have ever checked out David Icke's informative site about the UN and the New World Order/Reptilian conspiracy. I am no fan of the UN, but I when I read this site, I cannot help thinking that Icke has some sort of hidden agenda, and hence I am unable to take any of the information provided at 'face value'. Any views ? time to give a Newtonian demonstration - of a bullet, its mass and its acceleration. -- MC Hawking

	An exploration of David Icke (5.00 / 2) (#7)
	by Craig McPherson on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 07:06:18 AM PST

	First impressions: When I first loaded the page, I immediately saw Mr. Icke's photograph, and concluded that he looks thoroughly unremarkable except for the facts that his lips bear a marked resemblence to those of Natalie Portman and and his eyebrows have a gentle, inquisitive quality that I know I've seen somewhere before, but I just can't place my finger on it. I realize that photographs can be faked, but the photographs shouts to me, "Trust this man! Everything he says is right!" Not content to trust a possibly doctored photograph, I scroll down. I immediately see what appears to be poetry. I am incapable of reading poetry. My eyes glaze across it. I can not force them to focus on it. I am completely unable to read poetry, or anything displayed in such a way that it APPEARS to be poetry, and even free verse gives me hives. Below what I assume to be poetry, there was an oh-so-cliche rip-off of the blue-pill/red-pill deal from the Matrix. Oh, this bodes VERY well. The fact that he even mentioned "stolen from the matrix" at the end struck me as being especially lame. So I check out the "blue pill" page first. Hmm. "Everyone who disagrees with my not-yet-stated opinions is a mindless sheep for not-yet-stated opinions." My first impressions of him, based on what I read on his "blue pill" page, is that he hates the following: the United States, Jews, mass-market entertainment, law enforcement, Africans, and the media. I look forward to finding out what he actually DOES like. Even without having looked at his essays yet, I'm starting to suspect that he may just be a troll. So I visit his "red pill" page, where I'm sure he's going to tell me "the absolute truth about what's really going on in the world." My suspicion that he's a troll is suported when I see he describes himself as "the most controversial author and speaker in the world." My "trolldar" pinged as soon as I read this: falsely describing oneself as "popular" and claiming to be "controversial" are two of the most common ways for Internet trolls to attract undue attention to themselves. As I actually began to read his ramblings, bile began to rise in my gut. I suppose I have very high standards after reading popular and controversial website Adequacy.Org: I except my news to be accurate, clear, concise, and correct. David Icke is not. After spending far too long and looking at his book covers (which I checked on Amazon to make sure they're actually books -- they are), I saw a link that chilled me to the bone: "ENTER THE MAIN SITE." "MAIN SITE"??? What the bloody hades have I just spent the last 10 minutes doing everything in my power not to read? You mean there's MORE? I can't read this stuff. After seeing several anti-Semantic scribblings (a Star Of David with each point labeled with the name of a "secret conspiracy group") and gross copyright violations (a "pyramid of manipulation" that's obviously a cheap knock-off of Gene Ray's harmonic Time Cube), I just couldn't read anymore. I'll give him another chance later, but for now, I'm going to conclude that he's merely a troll (or scamming to sell books) and deserves as such to be ignored. -- If you want to know why Lunix is so screwed up, just take a look at the people who use it. Idiocy.

	it's actually "anti-semitic", (none / 0) (#14)
	by Frithiof on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 07:41:58 AM PST

	not anti-semantic (which really makes no sense in the context that it was used) -Frith

	You're in denial. (none / 0) (#8)
	by tkatchev on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 07:12:46 AM PST

	Then how come people were drafted in Vietnam? Vietnam is child's play compared to Afghanistan. Mostly because the populace of Afghanistan has been at war for the last 25 years; it's the only thing they can do. (Well, except for growing heroin poppies, I guess.) -- Peace and much love...

	Afghanistan never repelled the Chinese (4.00 / 1) (#9)
	by Adam Rightmann on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 07:24:37 AM PST

	I think the Vietnamese are tougher, as they have repeatedly repelled Godless Chinese hordes throughout their entire history. Whereas the Afghanis only repelled drunk Russian conscripts and decadent Brits. A. Rightmann

	I didn't know that. (none / 0) (#10)
	by tkatchev on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 07:27:43 AM PST

	Do you have any info on that? (I'm not trying to argue, just genuinely interested.) -- Peace and much love...

	Info on decadent Brits, drunk Russkis or Vietnam? (none / 0) (#11)
	by Adam Rightmann on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 07:36:20 AM PST

	1 and 2 are truisms. Any Vietnamese history book should tell about their long history and frequent wars with the Chinese. Basically, the Chinese attempt to conquer Vietnam, and the Vietnamese fight them off. Karnow's Vietnam, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140265473/qid=1002724626/sr=1-25/ref=sr_1_7_25/002-6756653-3451250 , woudl be a good starting point. A. Rightmann

	Brits won the Second Afghan War (none / 0) (#12)
	by nobbystyles on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 07:36:36 AM PST

	which was a punishment type operation rather similar to what is going on now. Link is here. So to say that the Afghans have never been defeated is crap...

	Oh, bullshit. (none / 0) (#13)
	by tkatchev on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 07:41:33 AM PST

	What is going on now is indiscriminate slaughter of people the U.S. doesn't like. (Not that I'm against indiscriminate slaughter, but this is really a war that's hard to win.) -- Peace and much love...

	Look Russki (none / 0) (#16)
	by nobbystyles on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 07:59:03 AM PST

	Just because we Brits did actually win there once you're getting all arsey. Indiscriminate slaughter, don't think so. Not a big fan of what's going on but I don't think the causualty list is in the hundreds even...

	See? It's not a war. It's a slaughter. (5.00 / 2) (#19)
	by elenchos on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 08:54:49 AM PST

	And you don't need to "win" an indiscriminate slaughter the way you need to win a war. As long as some Afghans are getting killed, we are winning, and they are losing. And therefore we will never need a draft. The only thing that could go wrong is if they run out of Afghans to bomb. Fortunately, Bush is smart, and is already shopping around for other countries to bomb as well, to fill in if the Afghans can no longer serve. I do, I do, I do --Bikini Kill

	Lots of differences (none / 0) (#22)
	by egg troll on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 12:29:15 PM PST

	Well there are a lot of noticeable differences between Vietnam and Afghanastan. Your analogy would be more accurate if we were going into Afghanastan in order to conquor their country. However this is not our goal. No one (aside from bin Laden) wants to see America pour large amounts of men and money into this country. Instead we're going in to grab some murderous shit-heel and bring him back to this country, dead or alive. As a consequence, we won't need to draft large amounts of people to support half a million troops in country (as we did in Vietnam.) There are many other differences - no one is sending Afghanistan weapons, unlike Vietnam who recieved them from the USSR and possibly China; the will of the average Afghan to fight for the Taliban is pretty fucking low compared to what the average Vietnamese felt towards Ho Chi Mihn, etc etc. Posting for the love of the baby Jesus....

	Wow, the size of that army!! (5.00 / 1) (#21)
	by twodot72 on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 11:45:25 AM PST

	The United States army is already, I imagine, larger than the entire population of Afghanistan Thank you for your fine analysis, and your vivid imagination. People tell me I have a vivid imagination, but even I couldn't imagine that the US army has more than 27 million men (almost 10% of the US population)!

	Vivid imagination INDEED!! (5.00 / 2) (#23)
	by Craig McPherson on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 12:45:44 PM PST

	Twenty-seven million people, eh? Living in the middle of the bloody desert? Uh-huh. Of course. Who has the "vivid imagination" now?? I don't know what it is about foreigners (jealousy, probably) that leads them to make up outlandish and unbelievable population statistics for non-US countries. Just a few days back, someone was trying to tell me some BS about the United Kingdom (which is an island) having much more than the (at most) ten million people that I estimated. I won't even repeat the outlandish population number he made up (hint: it's about five times as much), because you'd start laughing uncontrollably like I did at the sheer lunacy of it. I just punched him in his bloody-freaking face and said "It's an island, you moron!" He tried to protest so I kicked him in the crotch while repeatedly yelling "It's an island! It's an island!" Until eventually he started crying and said "Yeah, yeah, it's an island, I admit it." What a punk. What I have to explain to people is the United States has fifty states, and even the smallest of those states is larger than most of the world's countries. It's a shame there's no real way to count the population in a country. Some governments and survey groups publish "statistics" but they're halfway between gross estimation and completely made up. Some countries try to take censuses, but those aren't the least bit accurate either. In a survey, 12% of people said that they never participated in the Census, but you also have to consider that people who don't participate in the Census aren't likely to participate in surveys about the Census either, so in truth it's probably closer to 80% (by my calculations which are too complex to reproduce here but they involve many Chi-Square tests). On one final note, the way you use the phrase "27 million men" might be considered offensive by persons of gender. You may want to consider rephrasing it to "27 million persons" to avoid being politically incorrect. -- If you want to know why Lunix is so screwed up, just take a look at the people who use it. Idiocy.

	Population (none / 0) (#24)
	by twodot72 on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 10:36:07 PM PST

	Yes, you are right. I must stop actually believing the CIA factbook. After all, it's a spy organization and wouldn't want to reveal the real figures to the world even if they have them. On the gender issue, I considered being politically correct, but decided to go for accurate instead.

	A simple mistake, tkatchev, caused by IRC'ing too (5.00 / 2) (#3)
	by Adam Rightmann on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 06:00:26 AM PST

	much, but rest assured that the adequacy demographics are skewed higher than the typical 15-20 single male demographics that you find at sites such as /. . Speaking for myself, I am a 35 yeasr old with two small children. While I ahve registered for the draft (back in 1984) I highly doubt the upcoming ground war in Afghanistan will have me drafted. A. Rightmann

	35? Hell I'm 25 and I'm not concerned about gettin (5.00 / 1) (#5)
	by TheReverand on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 06:28:21 AM PST

	g drafted. The average draft age in Nam was 19. Plus my health ain't so good. I was actually 4-f'ed a few years ago when I tried to enlist. I doubt I'm the first one they come calling.

	Third choice... (none / 0) (#18)
	by sdem on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 08:06:54 AM PST

	I'm going to college. You are forgetting that the only people in America who would be eligible to vote in your poll are most likely the only people in America who would never be able to get on the web to vote in it.

	Screw them, I ain't killing nobody (none / 0) (#20)
	by Hagbard Celine on Wed Oct 10th, 2001 at 09:27:52 AM PST

	I'm 23 and I carry my selective service card in my fucking wallet. I support the attacks going insofar as I believe it is necessary to remove the Taliban and Bin Laden (even if he wasn't behind 9/11) from Afghanistan and have the UN(wipe your butt on their flag all you want, at least they understand the word "multi-lateralism") set up peacekeeping forces and set up a democratic nation/government. However, if they try to draft me, I'll run so fast you won't even know I had been here. There's a caveat that should be added here as well: There will be no draft. Our armed forces (or at least the army, I haven't checked on the rest) have met their recruitment quotas for this year, so a draft would only happen if this evolves from a small action to a giant conflagration. Again, I wouldn't worry about getting drafted. There are enough idiots out there who will volunteer before they start drafting.

	Reply (none / 0) (#25)
	by Anonymous Reader on Fri Oct 12th, 2001 at 04:05:00 PM PST

	No

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