As Congress prepares to debate the issue of the military draft, anti-draft activists are calling on Congress to enact legislation to end draft registration entirely.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear argument March 3, 2020, in New Orleans in a case in which a Federal District Court judge has already ruled that the current requirement for men to register with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft is unconstitutional. The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS) will release its recommendations to Congress regarding the Selective Service System on March 25, 2020.
Both this court case and the report of the NCMNPS are likely to put increased pressure on Congress to choose whether to end draft registration for men, or to extend it to women.
Numerous anti-draft organizations have endorsed H.R. 5492, a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress (and submitted to the NCMNPS for it to consider) in December 2019.
Anticipating the NCMNPS report and the debate in Congress likely to follow in 2020 or 2021, H.R. 5492 would end both draft registration and contingency planning and preparations for a military draft, and eliminate both federal and state penalties for failure to register with the Selective Service System that currently burden tens of millions of Americans ages 18-60.
According to a statement by anti-draft organizations and activists:
"The issue is not whether women should have to register for the draft, but whether the government should be planning or preparing to draft anyone.
"We don’t know yet what the courts will decide, or what the NCMNPS will recommend. But as peace and anti-draft activists and organizations including antiwar feminists, we already know what Congress should do: Congress should end draft registration for all, not try to expand it to young women as well as young men.
"H.R. 5492 would end the current contingency planning for a future draft as well as draft registration, and would end all sanctions against those who didn’t register. That’s a more comprehensive and appropriate choice for Congress and the American public than the NCMNPS is likely to recommend.
"The NCMNPS was directed by Congress to consider the ‘feasibility’ of any draft. But registering or drafting women would not be feasible in the face of the likely widespread noncompliance. Women and men will join in resistance to any attempt to expand draft registration, or plans for a draft, to women.
"Draft registration for men failed: criminal enforcement had to be abandoned decades ago in the face of pervasive noncompliance. Even the former Director of the Selective Service System testified to the NCMNPS that the current Selective Service System database is ‘less than useless’ as the basis for a draft. Trying to draft women or get them to register to be drafted would be even more of a fiasco."
"Making contingency plans for a draft that would include women would be an exercise in self-delusion by the Selective Service System and military planners. Even more women than men would resist if the government tried to draft them.
"Nonregistrants face potentially lifetime penalties including ineligibility for federal student grants and loans, federal jobs, drivers’ licenses and state jobs in some states, and naturalization as U.S. citizens. Ending Selective Service registration won’t give closure to this issue or put an end to the inevitable decades of federal and state-by-state litigation over penalties for nonregistration unless Congress repeals all federal penalties and preempts all state penalties against those who haven’t registered."
More information on the draft, draft registration, draft resistance, the Selective Service System, the current court case, the NCMNPS, and H.R. 5492 is available at https://resisters.info and from the other organizations endorsing this statement:
- Resisters.info
- CODEPINK
- War Resisters League
- Center on Conscience & War
- Truth in Recruitment
- Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft
- World BEYOND War
- Courage to Resist
- NoDraft.org
- Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild,
- On Earth Peace
- Stop Recruiting Kids Campaign
Edward Hasbrouck maintains the Resisters.info website and was one of the expert witnesses invited to testify before the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. Reprinted with permission from Edward Hasbrouck’s website.
Kind of ironic that the supposed justification for reinstatement of draft registration was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and not only are the Russians not there any more, but that we are now at war with the people they were fighting. Just goes to show you, we will use any excuse to promote aggressive militarism across the globe.
In the interest of truth and accuracy:
“The National Commission on Military, National, and Public
ServiceSlavery (NCMNPS) will release its recommendations to Congress regarding the SelectiveServiceSlavery System on March 25, 2020.Good revision. Many of the groups listed in the article opposed to the draft are strong advocates of another form of slavery:taxation,which supports the immoral welfare state.
Now only a small fraction of Americans go to war. Our forever wars will never end unless every American family has someone in the killing fields. Start the draft again and send the children of the elites off to battle.
I generally oppose capital punishment on principle.
But if we’re going to have it, it should be summarily applied to anyone who advocates conscription.
We had a draft. Did it prevent some 100,000 American men from dying in Korea and Vietnam?
Far from ending wars, access to an endless supply of bodies just encourages military adventures by lawless presidents.
To advocate conscription is to favor (1) involuntary servitude, in violation of the Constitution’s 13th Amendment; and (2) the deprival of liberty and — in many cases — life without due process of law, in violation of the 5th Amendment.