[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 171 (Saturday, November 22, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2419]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    SAY NO TO INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 21, 2003

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the ultimate cost of war is almost always the 
loss of liberty. True defensive wars and revolutionary wars against 
tyrants may preserve or establish a free society, as did our war 
against the British. But these wars are rare. Most wars are 
unnecessary, dangerous and cause senseless suffering with little being 
gained. Loss of liberty and life on both sides has been the result of 
most of the conflicts throughout the ages. The current war, in which we 
find ourselves, clearly qualifies as one of those unnecessary and 
dangerous wars. To get the people to support ill-conceived wars the 
nation's leaders employ grand schemes of deception.
  Woodrow Wilson orchestrated our entry into World War I by first 
promising in the election of 1916 to keep us out of the European 
conflict, then a few months later pressured and maneuvered the Congress 
into declaring war against Germany. Whether it was the Spanish-American 
War before that or all the wars since, U.S. presidents have deceived 
the people to gain popular support for ill-conceived military ventures. 
Wilson wanted the war and immediately demanded conscription to fight 
it. He didn't have the guts to even name the program a military draft 
and instead in a speech before Congress calling for war advised the 
army should be ``chosen upon the principle of universal liability to 
service.'' Most Americans at the time of the declaration didn't believe 
actual combat troops would be sent. What a dramatic change from this 
early perception when the people endorsed the war to the carnage that 
followed and the later disillusionment with Wilson and his grand scheme 
for world government under the League of Nations. The American people 
rejected this gross new entanglement reflecting a somewhat healthier 
age than the one in which we find ourselves today.
  But when it comes to war, the principle of deception lives on and the 
plan for ``universal liability to serve'' once again is raising its 
ugly head. The dollar cost of the current war is already staggering yet 
plans are being made to drastically expand the human cost by forcing 
conscription on the young men (and maybe women) who have no ax to grind 
with the Iraqi people and want no part of this fight.
  Hundreds of Americans have already been killed and thousands more 
wounded and crippled while thousands of others will suffer from new and 
deadly war-related illnesses not yet identified.
  We were told we had to support this pre-emptive war against Iraq 
because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and to confront 
the al Qaeda. It was said our national security depended on it. But all 
these dangers were found not to exist in Iraq. It was implied that 
those who did not support this Iraqi invasion were un-American and 
unpatriotic.
  Since the original reasons for the war never existed, it is now 
claimed that we're there to make Iraq a western-style democracy and to 
spread western values. And besides, it's argued, that it's nice that 
Saddam Hussein has been removed from power. But does the mere existence 
of evil somewhere in the world justify preemptive war at the expense of 
the American people? Utopian dreams, fulfilled by autocratic means, 
hardly qualifies as being morally justifiable.

  These after-the-fact excuses for invasion and occupation of a 
sovereign nation directs attention away from the charge that this war 
was encouraged by the military industrial complex, war profiteering, 
control of natural resources (oil) and a neo-con agenda of American 
hegemony with a desire to redraw the borders of the countries of Middle 
East.
  The inevitable failure of such a seriously flawed foreign policy 
cannot be contemplated by those who have put so much energy into this 
occupation. The current quagmire prompts calls from many for escalation 
with more troops being sent to Iraq. Many of our reservists and 
National Guardsmen cannot wait to get out and have no plans to re-
enlist. The odds of our policy of foreign intervention, which has been 
with us for many decades, are not likely to soon change. The dilemma of 
how to win an unwinnable war is the issue begging for an answer.
  To get more troops, the draft will likely be re-instituted. The 
implicit prohibition of ``involuntary servitude'' by the 13th Amendment 
to the Constitution has already been ignored many times so few will 
challenge the constitutionality of the coming draft.
  Unpopular wars invite conscription. Volunteers disappear, as well 
they should. A truly defensive just war prompts popular support.
  A conscripted, unhappy soldier is better off on the long run than the 
slaves of old since the ``enslavement'' is only temporary. But on the 
short run, the draft may well turn out to be more deadly and degrading 
as one is forced to commit life and limb to a less than worthy cause--
like teaching democracy to unwilling and angry Arabs. Slaves were safer 
in that their owners had an economic interest in protecting their 
lives. Life endangerment for a soldier is acceptable policy and that's 
why they are needed. Too often though, our men and women who are 
exposed to the hostilities of war and welcomed initially are easily 
forgotten after the fighting ends.
  It is said we go about the world waging war to promote peace and yet 
the price paid is rarely weighed against the failed efforts to make the 
world a better place. But justifying conscription to promote the cause 
of liberty is one of the most bizarre notions ever conceived by man. 
Forced servitude with risk of death and serious injury as a price to 
live free makes no sense. By what right does anyone have to sacrifice 
the lives of others for some cause of questionable value? Even if well 
motivated it cannot justify using force on uninterested persons.
  It's said that the 18-year-old owes it to his country. Hogwash. It 
could just as easily be argued that a 50-year-old chicken-hawk who 
promotes war and places the danger on the innocent young, owe a heck of 
a lot more to the country than the 18-year-old being denied his liberty 
for a cause that has no justification.
  All drafts are unfair. All 18- and 19-year-olds are never needed. By 
its very nature, a draft must be discriminatory. All drafts hit the 
most vulnerable as the elitists learn quickly how to avoid the risks of 
combat.
  The dollar cost of war and the economic hardship is great in all wars 
and cannot be minimized. War is never economically beneficial except 
for those in position to profit from war expenditures. But the great 
tragedy of war is the careless disregard for civil liberties of our own 
people. Abuse of German and Japanese Americans in World War I and World 
War II is well known.
  But the real sacrifice comes with conscription--forcing a small 
number of young vulnerable citizens to fight the wars that old men and 
women, who seek glory in military victory without themselves being 
exposed to danger, promote. These are wars with neither purpose nor 
moral justification and too often are not even declared by the 
Congress.
  Without conscription, unpopular wars are much more difficult to 
fight. Once the draft was undermined in the 1960s and early 1970s, the 
Vietnam War came to an end.
  But most importantly--liberty cannot be preserved by tyranny. A free 
society must always resort to volunteers. Tyrants think nothing of 
forcing men to fight and die in wrongheaded wars; a true fight for 
survival and defense of one's homeland I'm sure would elicit, the 
assistance of every able-bodied man and woman. This is not the case for 
wars of mischief far away from home in which we so often have found 
ourselves in the past century.
  One of the worst votes that an elected official could ever cast would 
be to institute a military draft to fight an illegal war, if that 
individual himself maneuvered to avoid military service. But avoiding 
the draft on principle qualifies oneself to work hard to avoid all 
unnecessary war and oppose the draft for all others.
  A government that's willing to enslave a portion of its people to 
fight an unjust war can never be trusted to protect the liberties of 
its own citizens. The end can never justify the means no matter what 
the Neo-cons say.

                          ____________________