All volunteer army not suited for protracted ground war says Pentagon official, calls for draft.

The Senate Armed Services Committee heard testimony Tuesday that increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps may not resolve severe and growing personnel problems. There was even talk of returning to the draft to fill the ranks.

“It is better to take a smaller force than to lower your standards,” said Lawrence Korb, a former senior Pentagon personnel official now affiliated with the Center for Defense Information and the Center for American Progress.

“The current use of ground forces in Iraq represents a complete misuse of the all-volunteer military,” he said.

The all-volunteer force was never designed for a protracted ground war, but that is exactly what it faces, he said.

“If the United States is going to have a significant component of its ground forces in Iraq over the next five, 10, 15 or 30 years, then the responsible course is for the president and those supporting this open-ended and escalated presence in Iraq to call for reinstating the draft.”

And that boys and girls is how the Iraq war finally came to a close.

There is no doubt that as soon as there is any serious talk of returning to a draft in this country that every single ounce of support for the Iraq war will dry up virtually overnight. George Bush will not be able to start a fist fight in a night club and expect anybody to have his back. He will be done sending our young people to die overseas.

And it is well past time for that to happen.