82nd Airborne on its way to Lebanon?

With no takers on a peace keeping force it will be up to the US to save Israel's bacon. The 82nd Airborne is on tap to be sent.

However, that won't work since Hezbollah won't comply. Their guerrillas will fight the effort and missiles will continue to fly. The result will be a widening of the war to include Syria and Iran to get at the "real sources" of the conflict (how little they understand about the situation...).

As Bill Lind said, this is 1914 all over again. I keep getting the gut feeling that at the end of the day we are going to be at war from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush (the Shiite crescent and beyond). If the history of 4GW serves as a guide: we will lose this conflict (and badly).

Things have spun way out of control. Can anyone say draft?

Comments

[Robert Cassidy]

Source on this?

I understand that the 82nd is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq later this summer, so this would assume stepping up that timetable, but I've seen nothing about it in the news.

[Marcello]

A draft would be a political suicide.In addition to that it would take too much time to set up.

[John Robb]

Inside source.

[jamie]

Also reported at Harper's

http://www.harpers.org/sb-source-bush-admin-lebanon-1153936109.html

[John Robb]

Marcello, normally I would agree. However, like I said, the gut is telling me that it is going to spin out of control.

Given the length of the potential conflict. We will have all the time in the world to set up the draft.

[Robert Paterson]

Feels like August 1914 to me - events are getting out of the control of the controllers - I agree John, WWIII is looming and political suicide or not the US Military is already overstretched. I can visualize a Pearl harbour like event that will give the draft its greenlight. Sadly I too can see the whole thing end in tragedy.

Like WWI, the world order will be very different when this is all over. Not sure what that means but my bet is that our society will not longer be based on cheap oil and that will change everything

[Marcello]

"Marcello, normally I would agree. However, like I said, the gut is telling me that it is going to spin out of control.
Given the length of the potential conflict. We will have all the time in the world to set up the draft."

The only reason that the current war is still semimanageable from a politcal point of view is that is being waged by a volounteer forces (regular and mercenary) on borrowed money.
Thrown in the draft and you can bet that a lot of people who now don't give a damn because they are not directly involved would start to ask questions.That is not godd for who is in charge.

The sencond half of the problem is organizational.The US military has been a volounteer force for over thirty years and equipment, training and tactics would reflect this.How would you integrate conscripts into this? Hastily trained cannon fodder infantry units with second hand equipment while you mantain a well trained high tech volounteer force in parallel like the iraqi republican guard (rather ironic I would say)? Or would you keep the concripts for long enough to train them to volounteer standard and get something out of them? How long would the term last? Three years maybe?
Neither option is particularly attractive and I have not even begun to scrape the paint off the issue.
Further it would take time to set up and at least the current administration thrives on short term fixes.Frankly I would rather expect more of the same: more contractors, more airpower, more incentives for enlistment, more robbing Peter to give Paul, some redeployments and more bullshit.Especially more bullshit.
Did I mention more bullshit?
But a draft? I do not see it.Save maybe in case of a nuke attack on america that would have everyone dancing at the government tunes.

[Don McArthur]

A draft that excluded any non-medical deferments is the only thing that will save us from GOP military adventurism. They won't sacrifice their own.

[jamie]

Wasn't there a system of purchasing replacements for combat duty during the US civil war?

[The Hook]

There was such a system and I think it cost $300 in 1863 dollars. Which today would be $20,000 or something like that.