20061119 Representative Charlie Rangel Is an Idiot

Fox News

I have no love for Charlie Rangel. In fact, I believe that the man is a power hungry bigot, and now I also believe, based on his recent assertion that the solution to the problems with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea is to reinstate the draft, that he is also an idiot.

I do not resort to name-calling lightly, but in this case such an inane, illogical, and unnecessary call as to reinstate the draft must be countered with as much vigor and vehemence as possible. I understand that Rangel’s legislation has little chance of success, however I also understand that if Americans hear something enough they will come to believe it is true.

Let me state clearly that the United States Military will in no way benefit from the resumption of an involuntary service commitment requirement for its young people some thirty years after that commitment was abolished. The modern, all-volunteer military is now the most dedicated, best trained, best equipped, and most effective fighting force the world has ever know in great part because all of its members, from the newest enlistee to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a volunteer who is in the military because he or she chose to be there.

Make no mistake that the modern US Military has problems that need to be addressed, and the current level of manning is one of those problems. The problem of manning, however, has nothing to do with the absence or presence of a draft and everything to do with a Congress and an electorate that has successively cut the US Military over the past decade-and-a-half, expecting more and more out of less and less, thereby playing Russian Roulette with America’s ability to defend herself.

Unfortunately, representatives like Charlie Rangel are among the leaders of the very kinds of cuts that have led to the US Military being arguably too small, under funded, and spread too thin. How will his legislation to reenact the draft help that fact? Where will the money to train, equip, deploy, and sustain these draftees come from? But of course, having more troops for the US Military is not really the point that Charlie is driving at, is it?

In fact, the real point of Charlie Rangel’s call for a reinstated draft comes from his own lips: “There’s no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm’s way.”

So, what Charlie Rangel really wants is to find another way to limit the effectiveness of the US Military by saddling it with the emotional difficulty of it being manned with people who do not want to be there. What Charlie Rangel really wants to do with the draft is further diminish the US Military’s ability to defend Americans and America, and it is that objective that makes him an idiot.

It is ironic that the same kinds of people who demand to know who knew what and when about 9-11 and demand that the Executive Branch ensure America’s safety and security work so hard to ensure that branch of the government cannot do that job. Instead, they work directly against success by cutting funding and changing the rules in ways that make the job harder to do. Then, when disaster strikes as a result, these very same people are the first ones to demand accountability for why the job was not done. In doing so, they prove themselves to be incapable and incompetent- that is, an idiot.

The only hope that America has in the face of representatives like Charlie Rangel is the fact that there are still enough representatives in Congress who are not as much of idiots as Charlie Rangel is. Hopefully, those representatives will see how dangerous the thinking of people like Charlie Rangel really is and act against that thinking by enabling the US Military to do its job through legitimate manpower and funding increases that a draft will never achieve.

DLH