A new format called War Report, a special half-hour counterpart to CNN,
where, of course, we'll have non-Pentagon analysis and critiques of what's coming from the Middle East.
And once again, tomorrow evening, WBAI is sponsoring a major town forum at 1199 and West 43rd Street at 6 p.m.
Call this radio station for more information.
Unfortunately, that's it.
This is Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of nuclear physics here in New York City.
Tune in next week at 8 o'clock when we once again talk about science, war, and peace.
Good evening.
WBAI, New York.
This is Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of nuclear physics and author of To Win a Nuclear War,
which deals with the use of nuclear weapons under battlefield conditions.
Join me and military analysts, Dr. Sean Gervasi and James Dingman, physician Dr. Sandra Shepard and journalists Don Rojas and Barbara Aziz,
on Thursday, January 31st, 6 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center for a town meeting on biological, psychological, technological, and covert warfare in the Middle East conflict.
Again, that's Thursday, January 31st, 6 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center on 43rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues.
For further information, call Radio WBAI, Behind the News, at 212-279-0707.
That's 212-279-0707.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It couldn't get much worse.
But if they could, they would.
Bon-diddly-bomb, for the flesh to speak the worst.
I hope that's understood.
and very good evening to one and all the program is off the hook and this is Emanuel Goldstein
a lot of people won't get my supper tonight
just listen tonight
and this is the radio program that deals with high tech from a personal perspective
and we have a war going on now so there's a lot more high tech in the air so to speak
a lot of need for information and I want to thank the folks that have been passing on information to us here at BAI
and to me personally
I'd like to say that we need especially things like shortwave frequencies
and I know some people have been sending those in
that's very important so that we can get other perspectives on the news
shortwave frequencies of radio stations in the Mideast
and throughout the world actually that may be presenting different viewpoints or facts that we might not be getting here
another thing that we could use quite a bit of are phone numbers over in the Mideast
phone numbers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Israel, those kind of places
things that perhaps you might not see in very many other places
I'm thinking particularly of computer bulletin boards
in fact the next edition of 2600 the hacker quarterly we're going to be publishing
quite a bit of computer bulletin boards from the Mideast
a lot in Saudi Arabia, I was on one the other day that had quite a bit of discussion going on
most of the people on it were
British nationals but it's still kind of interesting to hear what they have to say
so if you have any of that information
there's actually two ways you can get it to us
you can send it to me here at WBAI
that's 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York
10018 is it?
I believe so
something like that
or you can fax it if you have a fax machine
that would really be good
516-751-2608
we'll get it right over to the 2600 office
and hence onto this radio program in two weeks
where we hope to do a special on the digital age
in the Mideast
we're having a hacker meeting this Friday at the CityCorp Center
if you're interested in that's another place you can drop off information
if you have something like that
it's being held at the CityCorp Center in the main lobby area
between the hours of 5 and 8 p.m.
that's this Friday the 2600 meeting
if you have particular demonstrations, peace vigils, prayer services
support groups, anything like that
one of our sister stations out in Long Island
WUSB in Stony Brook is having a peace movement update
that's being updated all the time
and hence distributed to more and more people
so if you have particular information about demonstrations, marches, rallies
call up 516-632-6498
pass on the information there
and the information will get passed on to many, many more people
516-632-6498 for the peace movement update
spread that around
because there's a lot of information being bandied about
but the only way that the word is going to get out
the only way things are going to be changed
the only way things are going to happen
is if there's a slight bit of organization
okay, enough said about all that
tonight we're talking about the draft
about the military draft
which does not exist right now
but it could exist really, really soon
really, really soon
we're going to talk about the specifics
about the technical aspects of it
just how it's going to work
if, God forbid, that day comes
and to take us into that
a little bit of...
right, there it is
a little bit of Billy Bragg
a broken machine
hopefully the machine will last throughout the course of the song
otherwise
I guess we just won't play it then
sorry about this, folks
okay, well that's another reason to send us a pledge
maybe if I hold the button down
I really hope we get to hear this song
because it's such a pertinent song to what's happening here
let's try
here we are
seeking out the reds
trying to keep the communists in order
just remember when you're sleeping in your beds
they're only two days' drive from the Texas border
how can a country large as ours be scared of such a threat?
well, if they won't work for us
they're against us, you can bet
they may be sovereign countries
but you folks at home forget
that they all want what we've got
but they don't know it yet
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
make it a world safe
we're going to laser
here we come with our candy and our guns
and our corporate muscle marches in behind us
for freedom's just another word for nothing left to sell
and if you want narcotics
we can get you those as well
we help the multinationals when they cry out protect us
the locals scream and shout a bit
but we don't let that affect us
we're here to lend a helping hand
in case they don't elect us
how dare they buy our products
and still they don't respect us
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
we're making a world safe for casualties
if you thought the army
was here protecting people like yourself
i have some news for you
we're here to defend wealth
away with mans and bishops
the good lord will help those set out himself
i have some news for you
we're here to defend wealth
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
we're making a world safe for casualties
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la
tra-la-la-la-la
we're making a world safe for casualties
Tra-la-la-la
Tra-la-la-la-la
Close call. Live eyes are occurring left and right.
We heard from Billy Bragg and the only way we could have listened to that song was by me holding the button in for the entire length of the song, which is no problem at all.
That's all on the line of work here at WBAI.
We're talking about the military draft, and we have on the line with us from his home, I guess, somewhere in upstate New York. I don't really know where.
Dave Lindorf, who is a writer for In These Times.
I can just get the military out of here.
Okay, go away, guys. Dave, are you there?
Hi, I'm here.
Okay. Dave has written an article for In These Times called, A Draft Blows In from the White House.
And also, you may have seen a version of that article in the December 25th edition of The Voice, The Village Voice, feeling the draft.
Bush's finger is on the trigger of the Selective Service system.
Now, Dave, a lot of us are kind of, I guess, bewildered about the Selective Service, kind of uneasy about it.
You know, we know it's there. It's just sort of waiting for something.
Selective Service, of course, was abolished back in the early 70s, or the draft, actually, was abolished.
Registration was brought back by Jimmy Carter, and since then, a good many 18-year-olds have dutifully registered at the post office.
Great many haven't, too.
A great many haven't as well, yes, and that's something else that we can talk about.
So, now, this Selective Service system is sitting there waiting.
Now, what is it that you can tell us as far as how that great machine will be brought back if one day it is brought back?
Well, hopefully it'll run about as well as your record player.
Yeah. Well, actually, it was a tape machine.
You're right that the draft itself was abolished in 1973 as a political hot potato that nobody wanted to continue.
And it was, a lot of the mechanism of it was allowed to sort of fade away at that point.
But with the Reagan administration, a lot of the necessary apparatus to reinstitute it,
and I don't mean the registration, which the Carter administration started,
but all the personnel and everything that you would need to run a draft again was put back in place
as part of the remilitarization of the country that was put in place during the Reagan years.
Okay. So, just to make this clear, Carter put the mechanism back to start up or to register.
Now, you're saying that Reagan put the staff back.
Yeah. If you didn't, if all you had was the names of people,
which is basically what happened in the Carter administration
when they had people starting to register at the post office when you turned 18,
that's resulted in a list that's now, they claim, and I have no way to verify this,
13.5 million names of draft age people, which means people between 18 and 26.
What was missing from that, if all you had was that list,
the law requires that there be an appeals procedure for conscientious objector status and all of that,
and that requires a lot of people.
In fact, it requires about 11,000 people in draft boards across the country.
Local draft boards are set up, you know, county by county in most places.
I don't know how they do it in New York City, whether it's borough by borough or what,
but in most parts of the country, the county is the jurisdiction,
and you need to have five people on a board.
And so all those people had to be appointed.
It's a volunteer job.
And I guess they got, the way it works is they get appointed by the governors of the states
and then approved by the president.
So you now have, since the Reagan administration,
11,000 of these people sitting around waiting for something to do.
They meet once or twice a year, and I've talked to a few of them.
And they're all ready to go.
Now, what kind of people are these, housewives or people like you and me?
Well, for instance, the chair of the board up near where I am in Tompkins County,
where Ithaca College and Cornell University are, the chair is the town clerk.
And she's one of the much smaller number of women that are on the board.
They're mostly men.
A lot of them are military types, which should suggest the kind of results you'll get
when you apply for your CO status.
Right, yeah.
And I don't know, I remember when I was facing draft boards back in the late 60s
and early 70s myself that I found that the chair was the local,
well, the regional scout leader, boy scout leader, and just all those types.
Rather ominous sign, I guess.
Are these meetings open to the public?
Can anybody crash them?
I think the meeting would have to be public.
Their training meetings that they've been holding annually
would probably have to be public under federal and state open meeting laws.
But the draft board meetings at which they decide on people's statuses would not be
because that's a personal discussion of your beliefs and all of that stuff.
Right, but I'm trying to figure out, what do they do at these meetings if there's no selective service?
I mean, what do they have to talk about?
Go through the procedures.
They get filled in on the laws and how they'll handle them because things change all the time.
The situation with the draft now is that there is a standing bill for a draft,
which is called an off-the-shelf piece of legislation in Congress,
so that it's gone through the hearing process already,
and it could move extremely rapidly into a draft because of that.
The way it would work is that if the president asked for a draft, asked Congress for a draft,
both houses could vote on the bill with, I guess they might have a floor debate,
but they wouldn't have to go through committee hearings, so it could be done in one night.
And at that point, if the president signed it,
the selective service would kick into action and start calling people up.
Okay, now that's the angle that we're going to look at here tonight,
is what technically, to the best of your knowledge, would happen if such a thing were to occur.
Now, the mechanism is all set up and ready to go.
You're saying the mailgrams will go out tomorrow morning.
I mean, let's just say it happened tonight.
Let's just say a national emergency is declared or we just want to get more involved in this war,
and we decide or our Congress decides to bring back selective service.
What happens next?
Well, if you started seeing clear signs that the war was going to go on indefinitely
and there were going to be large casualties, one of the things that was the focus of actually,
of my two stories, it wasn't so much the draft itself as the reason for the draft,
which was that the military is spread way more thinly than the administration or the Pentagon have led on.
They really don't have the depth to be able to replace a lot of heavy casualties over a month or two in the Gulf.
And should that happen and they needed a draft,
they'd have to get guys over there as fast as they could for cannon fodder, I guess,
which is what most of the draftees would be.
And they're better equipped to do that than they were back in the Vietnam era.
I just remember myself, you know, when I got my lottery number of 81,
it was ages before they got around to calling me for a physical,
and it was just a clanking bureaucracy that they had in the 70s
to go through the paperwork of getting your letter out and getting you down for processing.
Now automation and computerization has made it possible, at least in theory,
for them to move very quickly.
And the way they explained it to me was that if that bill were passed tonight and signed tonight,
they have down in Washington two sealed drums,
just like the ones that you can watch on television when they do the lottery drawings.
And they have little capsules in them with all the dates of the year for birthdays.
And they would have a public drawing.
They've got a standing reservation in some auditorium in Washington, D.C.
to hold a public lottery of the birthdays.
And so you would see that happen.
You'd see the dates pulled up.
And as those dates would be pulled up, and this is where the big difference comes from back in the 70s,
is that the date would immediately be punched into a computer on the scene,
and the information would go via modem to a Selective Service computer mainframe in St. Louis, Missouri,
where it would spit out, it would calculate the number of people they'd need to call,
which I was told it was about, if I remember right, 10 times the number that they actually need,
because 10 or 15 times the number that they would need because of the number they would expect to be,
for some reason or other, disqualified, medical, deferment for finishing the semester,
if you're a student, and so on.
And then after it had calculated the number, it would have to go through the lottery for calling people up.
It would spit out those names on a Western Union mailgram,
which would go out immediately from the computer printing location,
along with a travel voucher to get you to the induction center.
That can all happen, they said, you know, basically the time it would take for you to get your notice
if you were a 20-year-old kid, 20 years old to go first,
would be the time it takes for you to get the mailgram, basically, which could be two to three days.
At that point, you'd have 10 days to appeal for a change of classification,
you know, CO status, deferment, what have you.
And then you'd have to get a hearing at one of those draft boards.
Now, you mentioned also that a lot of people would claim to be absolved from the draft process
because they were in school.
Now, that's one thing that I believe has changed.
No longer can you finish out your school term.
You can only finish out the semester, is that right?
That's right. If you're a senior, you can finish the year.
But this year, obviously, that won't help people much.
If you're a senior, you know, you've only got this semester, too.
It used to be, in the old days, you could just keep going to school.
You could go to grad school.
You could get your Ph.D., you know.
As long as you stayed in school, you were draft-exempt.
But now they have changed that to make it less possible for students to get out.
So you get to finish the semester.
If you're a high school student, you can't get drafted until you're 20.
If you're a college student, you get to finish the semester you're in.
If you're a senior, you get to finish the year.
But the order of draft would be 20-year-olds, and if they need more, they go 21, 22,
and they go consecutively up to 26.
And after they use up all the 26-year-olds that are eligible, they drop down to 19 and then 18.
Now, you mentioned that if you're a high school student, that they'd have to wait until you were 20 to call you.
What if you're a high school dropout?
Well, then you just go in the age brackets, 20, 21, 22, you know, and then on down after 26, down to 19 and 18.
Now, it seems that everyone from the military to the White House is taking great lengths to say,
we have no plans to reinstate the draft.
Now, do you think they're being truthful about that?
And if so or if not, why are they saying this?
Well, there's several things that are operating here.
First of all, nobody, the White House or Congress, wants to call a draft if they can avoid it,
because if you want to see all hell break loose in terms of public opposition to the war, just call a draft.
One of the reasons that Bush has been able to get away with this whole war
has been that he has only had to deal with his volunteers.
It's gotten a little dicey when he had to call up reservists, because they never expected to have to fight anything.
But there aren't a lot of reservists on the front lines yet.
That could change very quickly.
If you start seeing a lot of guys getting chewed up, they're going to have to send reserves on.
And incidentally, the thing about this draft thing that's really bizarre is that in the Korean War,
they only had to train guys for 30-some-odd days, I think 36 days, and they could send them overseas.
And when they did that, you remember, at first the Korean War went very badly for the United States,
and U.S. troops were getting mauled.
Well, a lot of the guys that were getting mauled were these 36-day trainees who were just getting chewed up.
They didn't really have the training to fight against hardened soldiers who'd fought through World War II
and against the Japanese on the Chinese and Korean side.
But since that disaster, Congress passed a law saying that a draftee had to have at least 120 days training
before they could be shipped overseas.
And so you can see the bind that's going to put the government in.
And if they need those draftees, they can't get them for, say, 125 days,
if you count the time it takes to get them through the induction process.
So we're talking about four months or so.
But considering the amount of time that the other troops have been over there
and I guess it depends on how fast they use up the troops that are there now.
That's right.
So, you know, they'll know that in the next month.
And if they go through a couple of thousand of them,
they'll know that they'll have to get some more fresh blood from somewhere.
That's right. That's right.
Well, Representative Hyde, a Republican House leader,
I don't remember what his position is in the House,
he was quoted not too long ago as saying that if the war goes on for 90 days
and continues to have, you know, significant casualties,
that Congress would have to consider a draft.
And I think that that's probably an outside projection.
My guess is, you know, nobody knows how this war is going to go at this point,
but if you took a worst-case scenario, you know, there's a British scenario,
a British military scenario that's talking about 200,000 casualties.
If anything, even remotely approaching that happened,
I think you'd see a desperation situation here where they'd call a draft right away,
even knowing that it's four months out.
Now, this is 200,000 casualties just on the Allied side, right,
because we have no idea how many casualties there are on the other side.
That's right.
I see.
Now, are there any more details that have been given out regarding the technical aspects of this,
how you mentioned that the information is transmitted by a modem from Washington, D.C. to St. Louis?
Now, any details on just how many computer files they have on this kind of thing, how it's gathered?
Well, they claim to have the, you know, 13.5 million names to deal with.
That's a questionable figure, I think,
because they've never admitted, honestly, how many people have not registered.
Right.
That's a closely guarded secret, because I think if people knew,
I've heard figures of over a million people who simply,
by refusing to go in on their own and not making an issue of it, just not going in,
that, you know, that over a million people have simply not registered.
And it may be even more than that.
It's, you know, sort of passive resistance.
If you don't register, how do they know you're there?
Well, that's, you know, that's an interesting question.
That's something I've always wondered about, because they, if you do not register for the draft,
chances are you're going to get a letter from them saying,
hey, why didn't you register for the draft, register for the draft now, and avoid any penalties.
But when you do register for the draft, what do they ask you for?
They ask you for your name, your address, all the information that they have to send you the letter
saying why didn't you register.
So what do they need you to register for?
Theoretically, they can get that information from your school or whatever.
If they know you exist, why do they need you?
It's only recently that they've started requiring parents to list children's Social Security numbers.
And my guess, you know, I was reading some IRS stuff that was saying that when they started
requiring parents to list Social Security numbers of dependents, they suddenly saw statistically
the number of dependents dropped all over the country because a lot of people had been faking it
and listing more dependents than they had and all of this stuff.
And I think that what it suggested to me is that the record-keeping in Washington
in terms of numbers of people and whose family has what is really chaotic.
And I suspect that, you know, especially if you're a 20-year-old today and you haven't been
a dependent of your family for the last two years when the Social Security listing of dependents
was first required, that they may not have you.
So if you didn't register, you know, when you turned 18, it could very well be that they
just don't have you.
But with all this cross-referencing of databases, already it's very hard to get a student loan
if you haven't registered for the draft because the student loan computer looks up the people
that have not registered.
There's a file somewhere that tells, it's kind of like a blacklist, I guess.
You sure they're doing it that way or not the other way around to see if you have registered?
How would that work?
You mean...
I mean, it's more likely that there's a list that they can check it against the people
who have registered.
And if you come in to apply for the loan, they can check and say, oh, you're not on
the list.
You haven't registered.
Right.
So if...
I don't think they've got the blacklist.
I think it's the other way around.
It's a white list, you mean?
And they call it up and see if you're on that list.
Yep.
And if you're not on that list, then you must be bad.
That's my guess.
Because, you know, where are they getting the information on, say, 20-year-olds today?
The only place they can get it, if they can't get it from your parents, because your parents
weren't listing Social Security numbers and stuff, and this is all being done by numbers,
then the place they must be getting it is from school records.
And, I mean, I've known kids in New York City who've tried to get their grades and stuff
out of the city school system.
And that system is so chaotic.
I mean, it doesn't know anything about its students.
So, I mean, it probably varies from school district to school district.
You know, the poor kids in, you know, Ames, Iowa, probably are all methodically recorded
in some, you know, gleaming computer in the school district there.
But New York City kids or Chicago kids, where the school boards are, you know, 30 years behind
in record keeping, are probably not on the records.
That's my, you know, idle speculation.
Are you familiar with the story a few years ago that the Carville ice cream chain was
actually selling or maybe even giving names to Selective Service of kids that had registered
for birthday parties or something like that?
Oh, jeez.
This was, I believe back in...
After seeing those Carville ads, nothing would surprise me.
I mean, that guy was really weird.
It was about 1984, 85, somewhere around there.
And there was a big hue and cry about it, and they eventually stopped doing it.
But it gives you an idea of, let's say, you know, TRW or some agency that collects all
kinds of names was sharing that information, you know, because there are agencies out there
that have a file on us whether we want them to or not.
And if they can supply names to either the IRS or to Selective Service or any such governmental
agency, it can be a very scary scenario.
I mean, we don't really realize the true potential of this, but Selective Service has not been
around since the early 70s.
But since the early 70s, technology has undergone a revolution.
And it's a revolution that can benefit us, but it's also a revolution that can hurt us
very deeply if used against us.
Yeah, I think the smartest thing at this point, since, in my view, I mean, there's two ways
to look at the draft.
It either is going to get called up in a hurry because of the need for bodies over there,
or another scenario that I heard from a Professor Fred LeBeau, who is a former military strategy
professor at the Army War College.
The peace studies program at Cornell University.
That is a nice thing.
He told me that he doesn't think they will probably need a draft if the war goes reasonably
well for the U.S. in the Middle East.
But he said that they will certainly need a draft after it's over because the volunteer
army, in his view, after this one is dead.
So many people had their lives ruined just by the call-up that, you know, the whole idea
that it was people were joining the volunteer army because it paid well and it didn't get
in your way.
You know, it was a good way to get trained at some job and get your education paid for
if you went through it for four years.
And that was basically what it was.
Now it's something where you realize you might die and even if you don't, you can be uprooted
out of a perfectly decent job taken away from your family and maybe not even have a job
to come back to after it's over.
So that's the end of the volunteer army, in his view.
Nobody's going to sign up anymore.
So basically what he's saying is that either way, whether the war is good or whether the
war is bad, the draft is coming back.
That's right.
And in his view, what would happen is that the draft would come back after the hostilities
are over so that it wouldn't be a real political hot potato anymore for the politicians.
And they'd just pass it and they'd probably have some high-flown rhetoric about how it's
going to equalize the burden or something on the various classes, which is true.
And they would probably get away with that.
Judging by the way things are going today with all the rhetoric and flag-waving that's
going on, I don't see that as being too difficult for them to do.
No, it also could become an enormous budget-saving item because they have to pay a lot for a
volunteer army.
And you don't pay draftees anything.
Well, considering we have budget problems, I guess...
That's another reason why it's likely.
Yeah, it's all being drawn out for us.
All right, we're speaking with Dave Lindhoff.
He's an author for In These Times, wrote an article about the draft.
And we're speaking about the possibility of the draft coming back and how exactly it would
work, what exactly is going on behind the scenes.
Now, we're going to come back and take listener phone calls at 212-279-3400 if you have any questions
or comments about this particular ominous subject.
Oh, mama, mama, look there
Your children are playing in the street again
Don't you know what happened down there
A youth of 14 got shot down there
The cocaine guns jammed downtown
The killing clowns are blood-money men
The shooting goes
Washington bullets again
As every cell in Chile will tell
The cries of the tortured men
Remember the end of the day before
Before the army came
Please remember Victor Hara
In the Santiago Stadium
Ever die
Those Washington bullets again
Castor is the color
The whole new spray of lead
For the very first time
Remember when they had a revolution in Wicoragia world
There was no interference from the metal
Humanites in the metal
For the very first time
Remember when they had a revolution in Wicoragia world
For the very first time, remember when they had a revolution in Wicara, you were,
There was no interference from America, human rights in America,
The people fought the leader and the people who, in the Washington world, what else could he do?
America!
If we can find an Afghan rebel that the Moscow bullet's missed,
Ask him what he thinks of voting communist,
Or said Dalai Lama in the hills of Tibet,
How many monks did the Chinese get in a war-torn swamp, stop any mercenary,
And check the British bullets in his armory,
Sad!
Sad!
Sad!
Sad!
Sad!
Sad!
Sad!
Sad!
Right up!
Oh, God!
, oh, God!
aka Brittany!
Thank you.
And as the sounds of war come to a grinding halt, we resume talking about what might be the future for all of us.
We heard from the clash, Sandinista, Washington bullets, and those Washington bullets are certainly flying even as we speak.
We're on the phone with Dave Lindorf of In These Times, who's been writing articles about the draft, the future of the draft, and the possible reappearance.
And Dave, let me ask you, you must be fairly familiar with all the different ways there are to avoid the draft.
Are there some ways that perhaps we haven't thought of?
Somebody was telling me tonight, in fact, that there are certain weight limitations.
And in fact, I'm going to try to print this in the magazine that I'm a part of.
There's a lower weight restriction and an upper weight restriction.
And sometimes they're not that far away from what people are, especially if you're tall and thin.
Do you know of such things like that?
Yeah, I know there are, but I couldn't tell you what the weight restrictions are.
I know, I was just reading somewhere about, you know, taking advantage of the homosexual restriction.
We just, I'm teaching up at Alfred University, which just, the faculty just voted to toss ROTC because of the requirement that they have that bars homosexuals from the ROTC program,
and in fact, the military as a whole.
And so, you know, if that's their, if that's their guidelines, you're supposed to state whether you're a homosexual.
And then, you know, if you did, I don't see how they could reasonably draft you since they have a ban on it.
So that ban is still in effect then, a ban on homosexuals?
Yeah, definitely in effect.
They're still throwing people out for that.
So I don't see how they could be throwing people out on one hand and then drafting people who have the, who are forthright enough to, or lie enough.
Well, that's, that they are.
That's my question.
How, how, how would you be expected to prove that you are, you're homosexual?
Well, that's the interesting thing.
I mean, they aren't requiring people to prove it when they throw them out.
You know, if someone, people have, have decided to come out and just say they are because they, they feel that they should be able to stay in.
And, and those people who have taken the stand that, you know, they shouldn't be thrown out, but they don't want to hide it anymore, will just say that they're gay or lesbian and then the army throws them out.
So, you know, if that's the standard of proof that you say you are, then, you know, one would assume that that would be what you could do if you were drafted.
Just go to your draft board and say, you know.
Well, it seems almost too easy, you know.
I know.
And in fact, in fact, I'm, I'm beginning to, to envision a scenario where, you know, where the army will enter the, the 20th century and say, well, as of now, all homosexuals are welcome just at the time when they reinstitute the draft.
And everyone's going to say, oh, how nice of them to do this.
Yeah, well, I wouldn't put it past them, but, but, you know, as things stand right now, they're in, so I would think they're in kind of a legal bind simply because they, they have been throwing people out on their word.
So, one would assume that they'd have to keep people out on their word, too.
Any word on a, on a female draft?
No, that's not in the cards.
Any other ways of getting out?
Mental illness, I suppose, or drug dependency?
Well, there, there were a bunch of old ways.
I remember, you know, when I was, uh, involved in the issue that, uh, I was in the resistance, uh, back to the draft back in the 60s and 70s.
And, uh, there, there were many ways that people were using at the time besides, you know, the straightforward attempt to be a CO or to resist it outright.
Uh, there were, uh, people towards the, towards the, towards the end of the Vietnam War when people, um, became abusive and obnoxious at inductions,
which is what I did personally, um, they wound up getting things as I did.
I got a 4F just sent to me because, uh, I think they just, at that point, were deciding they didn't want that kind of behavior and they didn't need it.
Uh, they were, you know, people were fragging lieutenants and stuff in Vietnam and they, they were looking for more, uh, pliable, docile recruits.
And, uh, so that was working at one point.
Uh, I know a lot of people were getting, uh, um, letters from psychiatrists and so on that were getting them out at certain points.
And, and, of course, there's all kinds of medical reasons.
Um, there, I believe, uh, Divinity School is the one, uh, guaranteed out right now.
Um, that, that's the one where you do get a deferment, as opposed to, you know, other schools where you just get the semester.
Okay, well, let's take some, uh, some phone calls here where we can talk about, uh, uh, any particular questions people have about the draft and any particular...
Oh, you're on that. Let me just make one other point.
Yeah, go ahead.
Because I, I don't want to mislead people.
I think that there are some very good sources to go to in terms of draft, uh, avoidance.
And those are the, uh, in Philadelphia, the, uh, CCCO organization.
And, uh, you can get that through information.
Uh, American Friends Service Committee and, uh, and, uh,
Uh, the War Resisters League are all, are all, uh, excellent sources of the current law and what to do.
Yeah, and it would help, uh, quite a bit to get involved at this stage because, unfortunately,
the people that decide your fate are also the same people that want you, uh, to, uh, to serve in the military.
Uh, so you have to present a pretty good case, uh, that, that you are sincere.
That's right.
The sooner you make your, uh, your position clear, particularly if it's a conscientious object or position you want to take,
but then, uh, registering that belief before you get drafted is, uh, is to your advantage in a hearing.
So people should be thinking about it now, not when it, when they get those letters.
One, one final question before we go to the phones.
Is Canada going to be any help to us?
Um, I talked with some friends in Canada, and there have been apparently some articles in Canada that, uh,
when they heard word that the draft may be coming up that, that people were thinking of how to gear up for it.
I think there's a good support network in Canada for that, uh, wave of people who come north.
And, uh, the only problem is that the Canadian government itself will not be that supportive.
It's a very conservative government.
They're in the midst of a recession there that's worse than it is in the U.S.
And, uh, so it could be a little difficult.
On the other hand, the free trade agreement makes it a little easier, I think, to move across the border than it used to be.
Okay, our phone number is 212-279-3400.
Our lines are full, so I want to ask those people that are, uh, calling in, please make it short.
If possible, listen to your answer, the answer to your question on the radio so another person can have a chance.
Here we go.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Oh, and turn down your radio.
Hello?
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Oh, this is WBAR?
That's right.
Oh, okay.
Um, I have just one question.
I'm prior service, and I'm 24 years old.
Would they draft me?
What's your prior service?
Army.
How recently?
Um, two years ago.
Um, if I'm not mistaken, you may want to check this out, because I want to preface all of this by saying that I am not a legal expert on the draft or on military law.
Um, but, uh, my understanding is that there's something called a ready reserve.
Right, I was just discharged from there.
Oh, you're out of ready reserve.
Yeah, I just finished my active, and I just finished my inactive reserve status.
But I'm 24 years old.
I'm still under, I'm in draftable age.
I'm wondering, would they call a prior service?
You would not be redrafted if you had been in the service.
There's some national emergency status that they can go back and grab people back in for up to six years after they're out.
But, uh, but, um, I don't think it's ever been used, if I'm not mistaken, the six-year, um, cutoff.
Uh, you would have to probably be an invasion of the United States.
Okay, so I was just, um, wondering, do you really think that there will be a draft?
I mean, we have over, what, a million people in the arm, yeah?
Well, the reason for that is that, uh, I mean, I was talking with military experts on this, and, uh, the key one for my story was, uh, a fellow named James Webb, who was for three years the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower Affairs in the Reagan administration.
This is a guy who knows this stuff, and, I mean, his whole thing was manpower flows for the military.
And what he told me was that, uh, the Army at this point, with the amount of people, uh, in the Gulf as of now, is stretched very thin for combat.
And, uh, the reason for that is this is a highly, uh, and I'm sure listeners to this show have already discussed this.
This is an extremely, uh, highly technological Army.
And, um, what that means is that all this equipment takes an enormous amount of support to run, uh, back, backfield support.
And, uh, maintenance, uh, specialty crews to operate them.
And these aren't the guys that get drafted.
These aren't the guys that are out on the line fighting.
The guys that actually carry the M-16s and go into battle are where the shortage is going to be.
And, uh, um, there aren't a lot of combat reserves, as you may or may not know.
And, uh, and they've pretty much called up everybody that was active-duty combat.
So that, uh, you know, for all those millions of guys, there aren't a lot of guys who are, uh, just grunts that carry a gun.
And all it's going to take is another crisis somewhere in the world at the same time.
And they're really going to be in a mess.
Uh, okay.
That's what the Soviets know.
And it's why they have been able to, uh, act fairly aggressively against secession movements now.
Because there's nothing left in Western Europe.
Okay.
Good evening.
Good evening.
I wanted to make four quick points.
Um, so far we've only activated 20% of the troops of our active reserves.
Um, there's 80% still to go.
I feel a draft would be extremely unlikely.
There, um, the assertion that your guests made or proffing off of a figure of 200,000 losses is ridiculous.
I don't think anybody would find that credible.
Uh, excuse me.
I wasn't using that figure.
I was merely telling you that, uh, and neither was Webb.
Um, I was saying that there, that figures have ranged up to that.
That he was basing it on, uh, the kinds of, of losses on the higher end that the Pentagon
has been, uh, talking about behind, you know, sort of off the record 60,000 casualties and so on.
Uh, and a, and a prolonged, remember, a lot of these guys are going to have to come off, uh,
off duty sooner or later.
If the war drags on, they can't, uh, continue to be the, uh, the same troops all the time out there doing the fighting.
Okay, make your other two points.
Bank on for a year more, uh, people have to come back.
Yep, and activated.
Um, finally, the, uh, the assertion that drafting students out of school, that is, that was done
to protect lower income strata, so people who could afford to go to school would not, um,
take advantage of that situation.
It was to protect lower income minorities or just lower income people, period.
That's right.
The assertion that the government uses birth records from Caravelle ice cream is sort of
a joke.
I mean, there are birth records available from anywhere, uh, there are birth records available,
period.
Well, that wasn't a birth, birth records.
That was a mailing list that Caravelle was maintaining, and that's, uh...
I really think you're passing off a lot of misinformation and scare tactics, uh...
Well, that's not misinformation.
It's unlikely that they're going to call out the other 80% of the, uh, active reserves.
Right, well, I mean, that actually happened, and I can, I can quote sources on that.
That was in, uh, every newspaper in the country.
They've activated 20% currently, and you're telling me they're going to activate another
80%?
The caller ought to know that, uh, what tipped me off to this story in the first place was
testimony by James Webb, uh, and this is a Reagan Republican Assistant Secretary of Defense
and former, uh, Secretary of the Navy who made this testimony before the House, uh, the Senate
Armed Services Committee in November.
Uh, he said that if Bush, uh, was, uh, being honest with the American people, he should call
up a draft immediately in November because he said that nobody can predict the duration
of the war or the number of casualties, and he said, given just the Pentagon's estimate,
that he thought it was, that it would be the prudent move to call up the draft right away
because of the four-month training requirement.
Now, you can take that or leave it.
Okay, let's go to another call.
Good evening.
Hi, um, you were, uh, discussing why they have the registration in fact, that it seems kind
of ridiculous.
Right.
Um, it seemed to me when they instigated it, or instituted it in 1979, was it, that, uh,
it was sort of, it was testing the political waters to find out how much resistance there
really would be to, uh, you know, uh, renewed militarism.
And, uh, also it seemed to me that, uh, it was perhaps a device to find, uh, to generate
a list of, of potential troublemakers.
There's people who didn't register, uh, you know, were, are on some kind of a list somewhere,
and you can be sure there's some kind of a petty bureaucrat whose sole job it is, uh,
to maintain, formulate, and, and manipulate this list of names of people who did not register.
And, uh, I think some people consider that a, uh, a resource in fighting anti-war activists.
Uh-huh.
I, I tend not to go towards a, a, uh, uh, conspiracy or paranoid theory on this.
I think that, you know, the other caller mentioned, you know, that they've got birth records.
Birth records don't do you any good if you're trying to do a call-up, because it's, I mean,
I was born in Washington, D.C. I haven't lived there since I was six months old.
Birth records don't do any good unless you can track where the person is.
The reason they wanted the registration at 18 is they're trying to get your current address
so that they can send those, uh, mailgrams out.
I mean, imagine how many of all these mailgrams that get spit out are going to come back at address unknown.
Well, that's, that's where, uh, credit records and telephone records come very handy,
and that's why a social security number, which is your real name these days,
that's why that is, uh, a very handy thing to have.
And if they know where that social security number is, then they've got you.
All right, let's take some more calls.
Good evening.
Go ahead.
Hello?
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay, my name is Anthony, and I go to City College, and, uh, I am a conscientious objector.
I'm not in the military yet, but I declare myself in advance.
I'm a conscientious objector.
I wouldn't fight for, uh, the United States or any other country, uh, for capitalist gains.
Um, I was also told by several professors at City College that anyone who, uh, applies for financial aid
and gets, uh, a grant from the federal government is, you know, automatically a draftee, no matter what.
Uh, and, uh, I can just see it now that when the draft comes, uh, the airline industry would be booming with business
because there will be so many college students going to Cuba or Mexico that, uh, it, you know,
it's just going to be a tremendous problem, uh, for, for, for the government to, to, uh, get, uh, any, any draftees.
God bless Cuba.
Okay. Thanks for calling.
You just made a number of nearly bankrupt airline executives feel very good.
That's true. Go ahead.
Hi. Um, in theory, I can understand, uh, why they changed the college deferment rule,
but I think if it came down to getting a draft, I think it would be disproportionately high among college students
just because they have to, um, register in order to get scholarships.
Just judging by my friends here in New York, those who have children, uh, sons of that age who go to college
have to have been registered.
Those of my friends who have, uh, boys who dropped out or boys who finished school and are working,
those boys never registered.
So I just like, uh, your comment because I really don't think the government has a negative list
like that other caller said that they are using just the people who did register.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks for calling.
Do you have any, uh, reply to that?
Yeah. Um, I, I just would like to say that I, you know, my own point of view on this
is 180 degrees around from what it was when I was, uh, resisting the war in Vietnam.
I think that, you know, then it was end of draft, end of draft.
Um, but, uh, you know, as one looks at it, it was the fact that this is a volunteer army
that allowed Bush to, uh, to put us in the midst of this war, uh, before anybody had any chance to stop him.
If, uh, I think it's, I, I, I pretty much believe the argument
that's been made by a number of people that if this were a drafty army, uh,
especially a drafty army under the current law where you aren't going to have a lot of college, uh,
deferments and people are going to get pulled out.
And this is the way it was, by the way, uh, before 1960, uh, when they started putting in a lot of loopholes
for the upper, upper and, uh, upper middle classes, um, during the fifties, there was a draft the whole time.
And, uh, and, uh, and it was much more equitable because there weren't these deferments that allowed you to stay out forever.
And, uh, and I think it would be harder for, uh, under those circumstances for the government to get involved
in, in these major adventures overseas without, uh, going through all the congressional procedures along the way.
It, uh, it wouldn't become a, uh, uh, fait accompli the way it has been with this, uh, Middle East.
Okay. We've been speaking with, uh, Dave Lindorf from, uh, In These Times.
And we've been speaking about the draft and the possibility of the draft, uh, coming back.
I wish we had more time, folks, if you want to see us on again, uh, I don't know, start a petition or something
so we can get more time here talking about these issues because I'd really like to, uh, do a two-, three-hour discussion
on all this. Dave, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us.
Hopefully we'll, uh, uh, we'll talk to you again soon as, as this ominous, uh, day comes closer.
Anytime. I hope it doesn't, but, uh.
All right. Well, uh, keep on.
Thanks for having me on.
Okay. Well, look forward to seeing your articles and In These Times and The Voice.
And thanks once again. The program is off the hook.
We'll be back in, uh, in two weeks with, uh, something else having to do with technology
and probably having to do with, uh, with the war
and how it affects each and every one of us.
Until then, good night.
The telephone keeps ringing
So I ripped it off the wall
I cut myself while shaving
Now I can't make a cough
It couldn't get much worse
But if they could, they would
Bum-diddly-bom
But the best, expect the worst
I hope that's understood
Bum-diddly-bom
Bum-diddly-bom
Bum-diddly-bom
Bum-diddly-bom