Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Apr 17, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, The information you provide is so straightforward forward and it is clear you do not sell advertising on your site because you do not want any outside influence. That is really admirable when I realize you do not even require people to register or send them endless emails pitching some investment.

You said the draft will be up to 50 this time and include women. Will they wait until after the 2024 election?

Respectfully;

Jeb

ANSWER: As far as the Draft is concerned, even when we look at when the Vietnam War Draft ended was several months after President Richard M. Nixon had easily won reelection, running against Democratic Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, an outspoken opponent of the war. That led to the old saying the Democrats always get us into wars, and it takes Republication to end them. I am not sure that will apply this time. Ideally, we are looking at a draft at least being discussed or approved perhaps quietly on September 29th, 2024. This will be 51.6 years from the day Nixon directed the draft to end – January 27th, 1973.

People need to understand that military drafts or “Conscription” dates back to ancient times in Mesopotamia. In more modern times, it resurfaced during the French Revolution in the 1790s. The United States instituted draft or conscription during the Civil War, which led to a series of bloody draft riots. Resistance to the draft, as managed by the Selective Service in the United States, reached a historic peak during the Vietnam War. Here is a draft document from 1863 and you can see they drafted family men.

As the war entered its third season, Congress, in need of more manpower for the Union Army, passed the Civil War Military Draft Act of 1863.

The act called for the registration of all males between the ages of 20 and 45, yet the obligation fell mostly on the poor. Wealthier men could afford to hire a substitute to take their place in the draft or pay $300 for a draft exemption—an enormous sum of money at the time. This controversial provision sparked civil unrest and draft riots.

The most destructive draft riot was the New York Draft Riots that occurred during July 1863. People were not in favor of the war. The New York working class during the Civil War erupted into violence for five days. This was one of the top ten American riots insofar as the death toll was concerned. Hundreds of people were killed and many were far more seriously injured. Many of the rioters were poor Irish immigrants who had fled here due to British oppression. Some of the rioters retaliated against New York’s African American residents who became the scapegoats for long-standing grievances, including wartime inflation, and competition for jobs. The rioters burned down an orphanage for black children—all 223 children narrowly escaped. Men were being taken from their families and were left to fend for themselves, which is understandable as to why it turned to violence.

What they committed from the history books was that when the Civil War broke out in 1861, there was even talk of New York seceding from the Union itself. The business center was deeply involved in business transactions with the Confederate States. The Civil War was a major upheaval. President Lincoln even attacked the New York trading in gold which would rally and decline based on the latest battle news.

The US Congress had passed a conscription act that became the first wartime draft of US citizens in American history and that covered ages of 20 and 45, including aliens with the intention of becoming citizens, by April 1. There have been whispers that they are allowing these illegal aliens to pour into the United States and they will then all be drafted for World War III.

What threw salt into the wound was that the rich could buy their freedom from the draft by paying someone else to take their place. Exemptions from the draft could be bought for $300 or by finding a substitute draftee. This clause was one of the major reasons for the New York City draft riots where protesters were outraged that exemptions were effectively granted only to the wealthiest people. Likewise, the government of the Confederate States also enacted a compulsory military draft. The South, in response to Lincoln’s Emancipation Act, passed their “Twenty Negro Law” whereby a white citizen was exempt if he had 20 or more slaves to take care of.

There were drafts BEFORE the Civil War/ During 1792 an act by Congress required that all able-bodied male citizens purchase a gun and join their local state militia. There was no penalty for noncompliance. Congress also passed a conscription act during the War of 1812. However, that war ended before it was actually enforced. Congress also enacted a military draft during World War I, and in 1940, Congress enacted a military draft under Roosevelt before it entered World War II.

Why these NEOCONS always want war is a question that really needs to be investigated. Not a single war since World War II has ever been to protect the United States. We are fed the story that it is our “national security” but not a single one of these wars has ever threatened an invasion of the United States or threatened to terminate our personal freedoms. War to these people is like playing with toy soldiers. They never think about those who die on the battlefield or the broken families left behind no less all of those who they have killed in opposition who will forever remember Americans as the aggressor who killed their father. Such resentment lasts generations.

The NEOCONS are running scared. they have the perfect president who allows them to control COMPLETE foreign policy and Biden just reads the cue cards. They will rig the next election and the word is that they intend to start a war before the election counting on no president will lose an election in the middle of a war.