Bush Brings Back the Back Door Draft

Instead of being honest and drafting people through the front door, Bush is drafting people through the back door after they have served their country; Lolita C. Baldor of The Washington Post has the story:

The Marine Corps will soon begin ordering thousands of its troops back to active duty because of a shortage of volunteers for Iraq and Afghanistan —the first involuntary recall since the early days of the war.

Up to 2,500 Marines will be brought back at a time, and there is no cap on the total number who may be forced back into service as the military helps fight the war on terror.

It seems to me the Marines aren't being called back into duty to 'fight the war on terror.' They're being brought back to clean up Bush's mess in Iraq. It would be useful to remind people that the war in Iraq was first of all an optional war and secondly, that Bush failed to send enough troops in the first place, and failed to put together a large enough multinational force to have a reasonably chance of winning the peace. If we stop and think about it a moment, the failure to finish the job in Afghanistan has also cost Bush needed troops.

If, by chance, the Bush administration drags us into a larger war, will Bush be honest enough to demand a real draft? Remember, if Bush's incompetence drags us into a larger war and he suddenly realizes we need far more troops, a draft might mean it would take a year to get our troops fully up to speed. The danger is that Bush might use an extended bombing campaign to make up for his shortsightedness but then if a bombing campaign only makes things worse we're back to the next problem which Bush has never been very good at managing: what then?

War is a last resort; it is not a short cut or a substitute for the hard work of diplomacy. Bush has still not learned that lesson. Bush is not a war president. He's a what then? president.