I know what you're thinking... something along the lines of "What the hell is she thinking? Reinstituting the draft is a terrible idea!!! America is a FREE country!!!!" I grant you that it's not a popular viewpoint--hell, I would have agreed with you a couple of weeks ago. Then a coworker of mine brought to my attention that if we had a draft, maybe we'd be more reluctant to engage in meaningless warfare?
While on the one hand, I agree that drafting our teenagers to fight wars for us is terrible, and I don't support war in general, isn't there a fairly obvious link between our lust for endless oil wars, our imperialist military presence around the world, and our lack of an across-the-board draft? I know we've had bases in other countries since WWII, but I can't help but wonder if it would change the equation somewhat if rich people's kids had the same probability of being drafted as a factory worker's kids in the midwest (not that there are many factories left in America, but you get the idea). If the wealthiest among us had to risk their own children's lives to fight to maintain their oil monopolies, maybe they'd think twice before shipping everyone else's children off to war?
Our current system exploits the underpriveledged. That's a fact. If you have other opportunities, like, oh I don't know, let's say education, then it's unlikely that you'll choose dying in a foreign desert over a bachelor's degree in engineering. But "equal access" to education, if in fact it ever existed, is a thing of the past. The reality is that education costs and the cost-of-living have skyrocketed while wages have stagnated. The choice kids are faced with nowadays is to pay out the ass for an education (in the hope of landing a decent enough job to pay off ridiculous student loans) or enlist in the army and take their chances. I guess kids could theoretically find something else, but personally I never aspired to be the manager of my local Burger King.
Our actual military hardly even fights our wars anymore anyway. With corporate, war-profiteering, mercenary companies like Blackwater (or whatever they're calling themselves these days), you can make a lot more money as a contractor than a soldier. Apparently we believe so little in our own causes that we hire mercenaries to fight our wars for us. I wonder if I were to ask Joe Sixpack (or our stereotype du jour) why we're fighting this war, whether he'd reply, "For FREEDOM!!!" while simultaneously arguing that we're free to make the CHOICE to fight for that freedom. As if that makes any sense.
Regardless of the stupidity of the war itself, exploiting other people's children to fight corporate wars is a terrible way to support our "way of life." If our way of life is anything worth fighting for then let's fight it at home by turning off the fucking Fox News channel and educating ourselves about what's really going on in America. Ignorance is our number one enemy, folks, and she ain't overseas.
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