BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Bill Moyers Essay: Restoring Accountability for Washington's Wars| PBS

[jacopman]

Rich men always send poor men off to war.........

[Licmycat]

This was posted TWO YEARS ago. I haven't seen NO citizens or CHURChES doing a dadgum THING!!! Westboro at least got out there and went crazy on the WRONG PEOPLE!!! Why didn't they do Washington and the president that way?????? PUt them in mental institution!

[hrmIwonder]

I kinda agree with Mr. Moyers. We just need to make sure that rich white kids can't get out of the draft. Let kids of haliburton and lockhead martin execs get drafted first. We might then get some reason and sanity in America. But that won't happen, the poor will get drafted first and and the rich kids will find a way out of it.

[bowenriley]

Hey, I'm a twenty one year old healthy american male. I'm lower middle class and struggle to take care of my family every day. I'm a non college graduate, I'm not attending school, and I don't have any legal dependents. I'd be drafted immediately. My choices are from that point: Prison, flee the country, or consent to kill whoever I'm told to. It's a forced, sanctioned form of modern slavery. And the threat of it has loomed over my life since the sixth grade.

And now they're calling for it.

[DonkeyofHeaven]

Bill Moyersraises the stakes in the Washington DC military-industrial-complex harvest of war proits. I agree that we should reinstate the draft with one proviso, that there should be a non-military option such as a conservation or civilian hospital corps as an option.Then we sill see who supports national service in the military or in health care or conservation with the youth of the nation voting with their bodies.

[StanleyKin]

He was OK until his assumptions & summarions. Where does this guy get off assuming our patriotic young men and women are serving our country because of (Fed Gov-created) unemployment and (Fed Gov-created) unaffordability of healthcare? I take EXTREME offense with his cavalier diminishment of the monumental patriotism of those serving. I served in the Marine Corps for 29 years and Ican assure you that when we lower our recruitment standards & draft, we receive sub-standard performance.

[tordurbar]

Stanley, his assumption is based on the fact that now, for the first time, our armed forces are meeting their recruiting targets. Only the economy has changed -- that's why more are enlisting. Not to diminish patriotism as a motivation. Many are doing it strictly to get a paycheck.

[tordurbar]

Brilliant Commentary. Time for the Unions to mount a general strike if we don't get out of Afghanistan and spend the money right here on jobs. Let's roll.

[stewbycr]

Why don't you morons listen to what Moyers is saying instead of going off on some jihadist rant about the government. You are the gov. you bozos. Send the senators kids over there and all the smart ass policy makers of draft age and see how long it last.

[neimpeach]

Draft is already in place and ready to go. It's called Selective Service. Who registers for Selective Service? Anyone who needs a Pell Grant. Who needs Pell Grants? Poor kids. So it will miss the rich. They'll say everyone has to register, but not enforce it too hard or it will lose political support. They'll take who's registered first. They're just poor kids anyway. Time to call your congressman and say Out of Afghanistan, because if we get stuck there, the draft is coming. 202-224-3121

[ralphlopez]

Afghans aren't Arabs. They are Indo-European.

[ralphlopez]

It's already in place and ready to go. It's called Selective Service. Who registers for Selective Service? The majority is anyone who gets a Pell Grant. Who gets Pell Grants? Poor kids. The draft will miss the rich kids because they don't need nor qualify for Pell and didn't register. They'll go after registered first and say everyone has to register, but won't enforce it too hard, else it will lose political support. Better call your rep. now 202-224-312 say no to wars. Its your a--

[flyyspit]

YES Mr Moyers bring back the draft and get the majority of the Americans up close and personal with the occupation then see how fast they become involved when THEIR family members will be sent off to die...oh yeah and ZERO deferments and see how fast they rethink occupying another country

And anyone who thinks that the occupations are just the GOP's fault is a mental midget

[Larzabeth]

je5752 Bill Moyers wants to stop the war too. If the people think there will be a draft they might just wake up and speak out against this atrocity that has been going on for all of these years. As it is now, nobody cares. If they feel they have nothing to lose personally they just do not care. Even though it is costing hundreds of billions of tax dollars. People are stupid.

[GodBlesstheGrass]

One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. —George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 1938

[myleftwing]

Duncan, the fact that you're celebrating this grotesque and untenable situation is sickening. It's more important to you to be "right" in a partisan manner than that your fellow human beings are suffering and dying. The fact that a couple of sociopathic Republicans STARTED these endless, unwinnable wars seems to have escaped your memory, too. But the GLEE with which you and your pals now hang this around Obama's neck... truly appalling.

[Larzabeth]

myleftwing it is so convenient for them that they now have Obama to hang this mess on. Those republicans have very short memories. So many of them have already forgotten that 9-11 happened under the watch of george bush.

[flyinggeng]

Please institute slavery and/or condone kidnapping.

And who is Bill kidding. The draft will disproportionately fall on the lower class. Who else could game the system and get their kids deferments.

[Larzabeth]

flyinggeng I think that his point is that they would never install a draft again because it would be political suicide for them. Also that it would get the attention of Americans who at this time seem to have forgotten the war is still going on. Especially if they believe that their children might have to serve.

[xdir]

Bill Moyers is truly the conscience of America, in 4.31mins he exposed the hypocrisy of a nation demanding security without paying the price.

The cost in blood is paid largely by those at the lower rungs of the social ladder, the cost in $ is borrowed and will be passed on to future generations.

[sensuousvanilla124]

I agree with Moyers. NOTHING will wake the sheep up quicker than the thought that their precious Jimmy or Mary might get killed fighting another Vietnam.

[duncanhunter2008]

The fact that Obama won the election absolutely proves that you're either right about that, otr that people don't really care about unjust war as much as they do about getting free stuff from government.

[SLEEPy2k16]

I will be Dodging the Draft!!!

[Namaimo]

Al Quaeda was a C eye A creation to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, to provide an enemy where none existed. This has metastasized into a very expensive and hugely lucrative operation for US military-industrial complex corporations. It has the added benefit of starving the beast of social programs (health care one of them, public transportation another) when the country desperately need the funds.

Is this machiavellian or what?

[caterliz]

Thanks Bill -

i appreciate your honest investigative reports every friday night!!

[njvetforpeacekd]

If there was a draft, there wouldn't be a war. Mr & Mrs Joe Sixpack Republican would not stand to have their little pride and joy drafted in order to fight Wall Street's wars of imperialism.

[duncanhunter2008]

This has nothing to do with the GOP. The Democrats have the House, the Senate and the White House. If you can't end it now, you don't really want to.

You voted for this. I didn't.

[BunnyandAl]

Bill is a national treasure.

[JixMa]

Yup, they sure have effectively sanitized war for American sheeple consumption. Big Brother is alive and well!

[jaberaljundi]

Hello Americans, Yes you need to draft, to prepare for the next war, next massacres, another millions of evils to kill...etc, just 1 simple question to any sane american, what is the longest period that america was not invloved in war since the last 200 years?

guess? 6,7, or years?

[nubbs]

its a volonteer army. dont sign up if you dont want to fight.

looking for a pay check or a scholarship for school? look elsewhere if you dont want to fight.

[JeffreyRodriguez]

A draft is slavery. I'd kill my enslaver, not the guy my enslaver wants dead.

How's about we just end the god damned war.

[nubbs]

cause the only people who can end the god damned war are the people who started it -- al qaeda.

[zoxovox]

Long live Bill Moyer!

[russellcusick]

thank you Bill Moyers....I thank God for truly good journalists like yourself....You are so rare...THANK YOU.

[rickbar123]

its over, we are done

[p34c3th1nk3r]

Bill Moyers ... He's fantastic ... I love listening to him... brilliant.

[Athenaikos]

So where is the political courage to call a spade a spade?

[PaulLeary]

Bravo. It's time for the Draft. Special note to Bill Moyers: The younger generations do not have a voice in a world obsessed with American Idol. Many young people with great intelligence must step up to speak as you do, Bill, to be able take the reigns. And speak intelligently and clearly as you do.

[JonO387]

We don't need a draft. Seems like you're willing to go. There must be lots of people that think the way you do. I say, send the people who think there should be a draft, and don't enslave people who don't want to go.

[MonisticWonder]

You're completely missing the point. He's saying we need a draft because it'd mean that the politicians who are all for the war would have to risk losing their children, not just sacrificing the lower classes, and they wouldn't stand for that, so they'd do whatever they could to get us out instead of letting this travesty drag on for the sake of money.

[rltmlt]

Excellent assessment, but your responding to a self-obsessed individual who would rather do nothing and remain a slave to the status quo than stand up and take control of his life. The bill will eventually come due, it always does !

[duncanhunter2008]

When has that ever worked?

[rltmlt]

The price of freedom, doing nothing leads to enslavement. At some point in your life you will have to stand up and be counted or learn to be content living the remainder of your life complying to somebody else's rules.

[sheepwshotguns]

hell, you dont even have to call for a draft to end this war. simply impose a war tax on everyone, and the war will be over before the tax is even implemented.

[Luinreg]

Thank you Mr.Moyers. As a gamer and as a republican and as a history major our nation has just forgotten the actual feeling of war since WW2. The act of total war which we have not had since WW2 has always been important to a nation to show the actual impact war actually has on a nation and not just a select few families.

There are a lot more thoughts I have but we have to understand that war is bloody(but not Saving private ryan bloody) and not a game(like any call of duty game).

[allgoo19]

Great commentary.

I go a step further on top of the draft.

The family member or relative of the war supporting politicians and the defense industry lobbyists should be drafted first.

[kd1s]

I love your addendum! I'll go further - stop spending trillions of dollars fighting for oil. Peel off say $2 trillion over five years and sink it into energy independence. It means replacing every car, truck, and vehicle that burns oil or gas with hybrid or electric vehicles. Use money to implement electric recharge stations across the U.S. Look at the MIT electric car project. That is the RIGHT direction for the U.S and the world.

[voyeurdug]

An enormously creative statement of strategy for ending our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in a way acceptable to the international community, SHOULD BE the outcome of Obama's sessions with DoD, State, NATO, et al.

[duncanhunter2008]

How delicious. The 2009 Peace Prize winner forcing people into slavery to the state by forcing them to kill the damned dirty Arabs.