Favor "Wars of Choice?" Demand the Draft

By Edward Shanahan

      Here are a couple of promising ideas, one not exactly new, another very fresh.
     

The first idea: Bring back the draft. Modern U.S. Presidents continue to undertake wars of choice, not wars of necessity, relying only on those willing to fight (the volunteer army).

       Since the end of the Vietnam War, which was fought by those who were drafted, and required to fight, the US has dispatched “volunteer” troops to Somalia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan, none going against their will.

      As a consequence, the terrible burden of death—crippling injury, and intolerable emotional stress, has been carried only by those who elect to be the nation’s warriors, not the rest of us.

     As the admirable Bill Moyers editorialized in part on a recent Bill Moyers Journal program on PBS:
“ …If our governing class wants more war, let's not allow them to fight it with young men and women who sign up because they don't have jobs here at home, or can't afford college or health care for their families.

     Let's share the sacrifice. Spread the suffering. Let's bring back the draft. Yes, bring back the draft -- for as long as it takes our politicians and pundits to "fix" Afghanistan to their satisfaction.

      Bring back the draft, and then watch them dive for cover on Capitol Hill, in the watering holes and think tanks of the Beltway, and in the quiet little offices where editorial writers spin clever phrases justifying other people's sacrifice. Let's insist our governing class show the courage to make this long and dirty war our war, or the guts to end it.”

     Let PBS Pitch in for Local News

     The other idea: With the continuing decline in the viability of daily newspapers, there is much handwringing about who will have the resources to cover the news, local, regional, national and worldwide, a hugely expensive and complex challenge.

     A recent study about the future of news commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School and conducted by Leonard Downie, former editor of the Washington Post and Michael Schudson, of Columbia, offers several recommendations for a new approaches to the gathering, financing and dissemination of news.

     As reported by David Carr in his New York Times media column among the proposals offered by Downie and Schudson, two are of unusual interest.

     Writes Carr: First, the pair suggests reorienting public radio and television to provide local news, historically not a big interest of public broadcasters. The report says somewhat tartly that much of the money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is spent on broadcast facilities and television production companies, with ‘very little money spent on local news coverage by individual public radio and television stations…

     Continuing, Carr reports: The other recommendation that will kick up some dust proclaims that it’s time for government to start funding local news, much in the way it enables arts, humanities and sciences.

     The Federal Communications Commission spends $7 billion a year collected from telephone bills to underwrite telecommunications services in remote areas and help schools and libraries get wired. The report suggests that some of that money, along with fees paid for broadcast licenses or auctions of bandwidth, should go into a Fund for Local News.

     These are controversial ideas, certainly, but the importance of solid, well-reported, verifiable, in depth news and information, especially critical at the local level, in an era of shrinking private resources, requires new approaches.

      As someone whose background is rooted in local news coverage, I find these two suggestions powerfully compelling. But, alas, good ideas are not always winning ideas.