Imperial overstretch

As it becomes clear that the US could be stuck in Iraq for decades, I’d been wondering why the issue of conscription hasn’t come up. The answer I guess is that there’s an election on. (But then why isn’t the Kerry campaign talking about it?) After all, one of the things that made Vietnam so traumatic for the US was that most of the soldiers out there (excluding, of course, the two most recent US presidents) were conscripts. The news that continuation of current US policy in Iraq will require conscription would surely be political dynamite. It turns out, though, that there IS a universal conscription Bill before the US Congress. It’s HR163, and it was introduced well over a year ago. To read it, go to the Congressional website and enter HR163 in the search box. Or get the pdf from here. One interesting thing about it is that, next time round, women will have to do military service too. Now there’s sexual equality for you.

The big puzzle (for me, anyway) is why there has been no media or political discussion of this. Is it because the Bill has no chance of becoming law? (I don’t know enough about Congressional procedure to be able to judge; the Congressional website says that HR163 has been referred to the Armed Services Committee — I am not sure what that implies.) It seems unlikely that there’s a media conspiracy to keep quiet about this. And it seems inconceivable that it has just been overlooked. Hmmm…