This is part of email from Rick Janow, of Project YANO (Project on Youth and Non Military Opportunities)

RE: A Few Specifics

The more serious issue right now is the underreported story of the military's invasion of k-12 schools over the last two decades and the extremely dangerous long-term effects it is having (including planting the psychological seeds for a future draft). That's a BIG censored story that I hope your project will someday illuminate.

1. The Annual Performance Plan for FY 2004 cited in these stories is submitted every year by SSS to justify it's funding. The 2004 plan was submitted almost a year ago and lists activities and goals that were a continuation of similar past goals and activities.

There is NO qualitative or quantitative change with the 2004 plan that justifies the conclusions about preparations for a draft that some people have drawn from it.

The budget request was not for an increase of $28 million, it was for the total budget for SSS. The usual SSS budget has hovered at around $26 million for many years, and apparently they didn't the full $28 million requested last year (CCW told me that SSS got only a modest increase).

2. This business about the recruiting of draft board members being a sign that the system is gearing up for a draft is bizarre.

Because if it were true, then we should have had a draft for over 20 years, which is how long SSS has been recruiting and training draft board members. One so-called academic "expert" was quoted in one article as saying that draft board recruiting signified an "unprecedented" development since Vietnam.

One wonders where that person has been hiding all these years if he didn't know that draft boards have been in a state of standby readiness since 1982.

Readiness means periodically testing the system, training people, revising regulations, increasing performance goals, etc.

3. About every two years, a member of Congress introduces a bill to bring back the draft. Usually, these proposals contain "innovations" that really aren't workable.

The bill you've cited (Rangel/Hollings), would institute a form of national service and include women. It would require conscientious objectors to be subjected to military training. All of these are departures from previous drafts and make the Rangel/Hollings proposal less viable.

Those of us who are watching the legislative scene believe that as long as the Bush administration is publicly saying it opposes a draft, Republican members of Congress will oppose things like the Rangel/Hollings bill.

Effectively, this means it won't happen unless Bush decides that pursuing new wars is more important than the major political risk he'd be taking with a draft (he'd have to bring the Pentagon on board as well, and they are currently NOT willing to take that risk).

It's possible Bush could reverse his opposition to a draft, but it's not a certainty, and clearly the administration is working hard to manipulate the military force structure so that current military commitments can be met without a draft. Another war or a recruiting crisis in the next 12 months would undermine this, but Bush still has the option of changing direction.

A true sign that the SSS is gearing up for a draft would be something like a campaign to verify addresses of men who have already registered (a large percentage of which are probably no good because people in the 18-26 age group move a lot and don't notify SSS).

Another sign would be movement toward using prosecutions again to enforcement the registration requirement, or a request for a large budget increase (which, as I noted, has not happened).

Another would be if SSS changed its policy of accepting late registrations up to age 26. I do believe that there are factors that will come into play this year and next that will increase the pressure to bring back the draft.

Check the articles I referred you to on our Web site (www.comdsd.org).

But it's important to present a true picture, not one based on false facts and misinterpretations of what is going on.

-Rick Janow