Antiwar.com Original
Running an empire isn’t easy. A large military is imperative. How else to wage multiple wars at once? To defeat powers large and small? To police an unruly world? And to garrison the globe?
Unfortunately, creating expansive armed services isn’t cheap. There are missiles to build, air wings to deploy, carriers to sail forth, and armored divisions to ready. Most important, a large infantry is needed. How else to occupy and remake the many failed states which constantly call for Washington’s attention?
Last year the military sought 155,201 new recruits and every service made its
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at DownWithTryanny!
Let’s take a trip to fantasyland, to a world in which the U.S. addresses climate change in a meaningful way.
What does a meaningful response to climate change entail? Among other things, it means enacting the following two policies energy rationing and conscription and starting to enact them now. (Both are inevitable, of course, but probably not until after it matters, and not in an orderly way.)
Energy Rationing
Let’s look at rationing first, then turn to conscription. To paraphrase something I wrote in 2019 (“The Elephant In the Room: Addressing Climate Change Means Rationing), it’s very simple. We’ve dithered so long in addressing climate change that to address it effectively means not just a radical restructuring of the entire economy, it also means energy rationing.
Former NSA director, retired top officers ask Supreme Court to declare military draft unconstitutional February 12 First Lt. Elyse Ping Medvigy, a native of Sebastopol, Calif., fire support officer with Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Inf. Brigade Combat Team, 4th Inf. Division, conducts a call-for-fire during an artillery shoot south of Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, Aug. 22, 2014. (Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston/Army) The former National Security Agency director and nine prominent retired general and flag officers have signed on to legal brief asking that the U.S. Supreme Court rule that the military draft is unconstitutional. Their filing is in support of a petition that argues the Selective Service System is unconstitutional because it applies only to men ages 18 to 26 and not women.