Bills have been presented.... plans have been made..... now comes the rhetoric about a draft.
Republican Guest Suggests Implementing "Universal Service" to "Put Us On a War Footing"
William Cohen, a Republican and former Secretary of Defense under Clinton, appeared on this morning's FOX & Friends First. They gave him two segments ostensibly to speak about the Middle East and to plug his new novel. However, at the end of the second segment, host Brian Kilmeade asked a question and got an answer that made me wonder about the Bush administration's next steps in its ongoing fear mongering campaign.WILLIAM COHEN: "... What we need in this war against terror - which I would prefer to call it (sic) 'a long twilight struggle' to use John Kennedy's phrase - a long twilight struggle against terrorism - you need better intelligence, better police work, covert activity, special forces, if necessary, ultimately military. But it's going to be through police work and the sharing of intelligence, that we'll be able to help defend us against attacks which are inevitably going to come."
BRIAN KILMEADE: "Hey, Mr. Secretary, finally, do you think in the next ten years we're going to be looking at some type of draft because we seem to need - have so many conflicts to cover?"
WILLIAM COHEN: "I'm not sure there'll be a draft. I think there should be a commitment to universal service. I think that only a few people are really committed to this war against terrorism and called. I think the American people have to be - understand - that we're all in this together. We ought to have a real call to national service to commit ourselves to some form of public service ...."
STEVE DOOCY (off screen): "Got ya'."
COHEN: "... helping out at homes, health care, nurses, etc. But something has to be done ..."
KILMEADE: "Something's got to be done."
COHEN: "... to put us on a war footing mentality. We're not there."
DOOCY: "Alright."
COMMENTWas FOX News acting as a White House surrogate, floating a trial balloon in an attempt to get feedback from FOX viewers on how the Republican base would react to the idea of a draft?
Or were the F&F co-hosts expecting a different response from Cohen and caught off guard by his answer?
Whatever the correct interpretation, the
draft - oops! - "universal service" - has certainly been moved to
the foreground by this exchange.
Rep. Rangel Will Seek to Reinstate Draft
Top Neo-Con LA
Times Editorial: We Must Bomb Iran
Diplomacy is doing
nothing to stop the Iranian nuclear threat; a show of force is the only
answer.
Joshua Muravchik -
LA Times
Military judge: objector can't raise questions about war legality
US 'Iran attack plans' revealed - BBC, 20 February 2007
US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.
The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment. The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions. But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran. That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say. Two triggers BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies. Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran. Long range B2 stealth bombers would drop so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which is buried some 25m (27 yards) underground. The BBC's Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians. Authorities insist there is no cause for alarm but ordinary people are now becoming a little worried, she says. Deadline Earlier this month US officers in Iraq said they had evidence Iran was providing weapons to Iraqi Shia militias. However the most senior US military officer later cast doubt on this, saying that they only had proof that weapons "made in Iran" were being used in Iraq. Gen Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he did not know that the Iranian government "clearly knows or is complicit" in this. At the time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the accusations were "excuses to prolong the stay" of US forces in Iraq. Middle East analysts have recently voiced their fears of catastrophic consequences for any such US attack on Iran. Britain's previous ambassador to Tehran, Sir Richard Dalton, told the BBC it would backfire badly by probably encouraging the Iranian government to develop a nuclear weapon in the long term. Last year Iran resumed uranium enrichment - a process that can make fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb. Tehran insists its programme is for civil use only, but Western countries suspect Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. The UN Security Council has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February. If it does not, and if the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms this, the resolution says that further economic sanctions will be considered.
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