Here is an Anti-draft page that is so amazing that I have signed up for a personal page on it. Thank you, Gentle Breezes, for this one!

Heidi’s page at No Iraq Draft will help track how people got to the site to place their pin on a map of the USA. I love the graphic. When the map is full, it will be sent to Bush.

Here are some of the points that the site makes:

18 months after George Bush said we had accomplished our mission in Iraq, we are still there, and still dying. 7,250 American soldiers are maimed and disfigured, and 1,051 American soldiers are dead.

The U.S. Army is stretched passed its limits, and having trouble recruiting. They have recently placed 300 new recruiters in the field. Bonuses for new recruits to the Army have risen by 67 percent.

To meet this year’s quota for enlistees, the Army has sped up the induction of “delayed entry” recruits, meaning they are already borrowing from next year’s quotas in order to meet this year’s numbers.

Reservists are spending more an longer tours, often up to a year.
(USA Today)

The armed forces are now in the process of calling up members of the Individual Ready Reserves – these older reservists are only supposed to be called up during national emergencies.
(USA Today)

As Paul Bremer has admitted, the Bush administration never provided enough troops in Iraq.
(AP)

Local draft board volunteers report that at training sessions last summer, they were unexpectedly asked to recommend people to fill some of the estimated 16 percent of board seats that are vacant nationwide.
(Salon)

The military started recruiting for draft boards on this official military webpage — which is now cached because the pentagon had it removed.
(archive.org)

The Selective Service System recently began advertising for people to serve on local draft boards, which would help administer a draft — the South Carolina State
(MSNBC)

The chief of the Selective Service System has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about whether they have training in niche specialties needed in the armed services.

The proposal, which the agency’s acting Director Lewis Brodsky presented to senior Pentagon officials just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, also seeks to extend the age of draft registration to 34 years old, up from 25.
(Post-Intelligencer)

“Every military expert agrees that the Army is already badly overstretched (the Air Force and Navy are fine). The National Guard and Reserves are in trouble. Guard recruitment is down 12 percent, and Reservists as old as their late 40s are being mobilized.

If we need to occupy another country that threatens us, we will either do it with the help of our allies or the conscription of our kids.”
(Jonathan Alter, Newsweek)

Despite some in the Bush administration’s preference for private firms doing our military work, there is not enough money to outsource this work to mercenaries.