0:01

Making headlines this week, a lot of people

0:03

are concerned that the military draft is coming

0:05

back. Why are they thinking this?

0:07

Well, there's a lot of moving parts of this story,

0:09

so let's dig right into it. Okay. In the United

0:11

States here, we have the Selective Service System. So all

0:13

males 18 to 26 are supposed

0:17

to enroll in this when they turn

0:19

18. And from that pool, if there's a

0:21

war, the Department of Defense can choose from

0:23

that pool to induct these

0:26

people into war, into the military

0:28

basically. So what happened over this

0:30

last week was the National Defense

0:32

Authorization Act. This is a yearly

0:34

act. It gets re-upped. All

0:36

the people put basically the legislators, the lawmakers,

0:39

put their kind of wish lists into here

0:41

what they want. You know, we've seen the

0:43

Patriot Act come from this. It's really interesting

0:45

things come from the National Defense Authorization Act

0:47

in the past, but one of the

0:50

things that we saw was an automatic

0:52

induction into the Selective Service System. This

0:54

is the headline here. Congress

0:56

moves to make Selective Service automatic. So

0:58

it wasn't really automatic before. It goes

1:00

into this in the article here. It

1:02

goes into this. It says, while it

1:04

is a felony not to register currently,

1:06

there is still a shred of voluntary

1:08

left automatically registering young men for what

1:10

is essentially a drafty list rips the

1:12

last veil away. And though there

1:14

is no act of conscription for war today, this

1:17

would make it a lot easier for Uncle Sam

1:19

to start it. So USA Today

1:21

went into this and talks about what happens

1:23

because it like it said, it is a

1:25

felony not to register if you're 18. Honestly,

1:29

did you register? I don't remember ever

1:31

registering. I mean, is that something? Was

1:33

there a box I checked? Wasn't paying

1:35

attention? You know, were

1:37

we all like, you know, up

1:39

for felonies and didn't know it?

1:41

I'm sort of confused that that

1:43

was a responsibility. If

1:46

we are for felonies, the track record is

1:48

pretty good here because this investigation by USA

1:50

Today, it says this, it says still only

1:52

20 men have been criminally charged

1:54

with refusing to register for the draft since

1:56

President Jimmy Carter reinstated it in 1980 in

1:58

respect. to

2:00

the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only 14

2:02

were convicted. The last indictment in 1986

2:04

was dismissed before it

2:06

went to trial. So now the system relies

2:08

largely on voluntary compliance and patchwork of state

2:11

laws and the risk of losing federal benefits.

2:13

So if you go to the Selective Service website,

2:15

it basically is, it's like a poster. It's like

2:17

an ad saying, hey, don't forget to fill this

2:19

out, everybody. So there's now

2:22

two versions of this National Defense

2:24

Authorization Act going. One is passed

2:26

through the House. Now this

2:28

is the one they're talking about. If you look at this

2:30

bill right now, as it's written, it says this, except

2:33

as otherwise provided in this title, every male citizen

2:35

of the United States and every other male person

2:37

residing in the United States between the ages of

2:40

18 and 26 shall

2:42

be automatically registered under this act by

2:44

the director of the Selective Service System.

2:46

Now the Senate- Wait, hold on a second.

2:49

Go back to that. I

2:51

know we've sort of looked through this

2:53

a little bit. What does it mean

2:55

by every male citizen in the United

2:58

States and every other male person residing

3:00

in the United States? Does that mean we

3:02

have the potential, we keep talking about all these

3:04

military age men that are

3:06

coming in illegally? Is it possible that

3:08

they get enrolled into

3:10

fighting in our

3:12

armed forces? The

3:15

language does seem to leave it open. And

3:17

it's September 30th is the end of this

3:19

fiscal year for this bill to

3:21

pass. So up until that time,

3:23

we're gonna see some, I think some hotly debated

3:26

and contested points on this going back and forth

3:28

before it really becomes law. The president signs it.

3:30

So that's- What's disturbing about that? Like, I mean,

3:32

just, and I know I'm off course, we've talked

3:35

about what we thought we were gonna talk about,

3:37

but that really jumps out at me, Jeffrey, because

3:40

when we look at the concern

3:42

that we have of authoritarian governments,

3:44

when we went through what we did

3:46

with the COVID pandemic, you always look

3:49

at these other nations that were way

3:51

ahead of us on authoritarianism, right? We

3:53

have this brilliant constitution that's been standing

3:55

in the way, though it got really

3:57

stepped on. The question is, does a

3:59

military ever- turn on its own

4:01

people. And many times we've seen the

4:03

military step down and not take the

4:05

orders to attack

4:08

their own people. But what if your military

4:10

is filled with people that are not citizens

4:12

here, did not grow up in this country,

4:14

have no affinity to our country. If your

4:16

military is made up of those people, it

4:19

seems like they would do just about anything they're asked.

4:21

I don't know. It's something that I

4:24

think I want to look into more.

4:26

So let's definitely look into that because

4:28

that just seems very problematic. Yeah,

4:30

we're seeing actually some foreshadowing that in Seattle,

4:33

the DACA immigrants

4:35

are allowed to apply for law enforcement

4:38

positions. That's one city. That's making headlines

4:40

as well. But let's jump back to

4:42

this really quick. The Senate Armed

4:44

Services Committee has its own version. So now there's

4:46

the House version and the Senate Armed Services Committee.

4:49

So these are two versions. These are like wish

4:51

lists. Now it did pass the Senate

4:53

Armed Services Committee by a vote of 22 to

4:55

three, I believe it was. But what's interesting there

4:57

is you look through that document, doesn't say anything

4:59

about automatic registration, but it does say this. It

5:02

amends the Military Select Service Act to require

5:04

the registration of women for selective service.

5:06

Now this has been a contested subject

5:08

since 1980 when women were not

5:12

allowed or basically not allowed to be in

5:14

the selective service system. In 2019, a district

5:18

judge ruled that the women should be allowed.

5:20

This was a lower court ruling, court ruling,

5:22

renews debate on women in the draft. But

5:24

then in 2021, the Supreme Court wrote an

5:27

opinion on it and basically kicked the matter.

5:29

This is AP. It kicked the matter back

5:31

to lawmakers. So the high court won't review

5:33

men only draft registration law. So basically said

5:36

the Supreme Court said it's going to be up

5:38

to Congress. They're going to have to figure this

5:40

out. We're not going to get involved. There's still

5:42

deliberation going in on this. So end

5:44

of fiscal year, September 30th, 2024, this

5:47

is when it's all going to go down. So there's

5:49

going to be some back and forth. They're going to

5:52

try to mesh these points together. I mean, is it

5:54

possible we come out with an automatic selective

5:57

service system for men and women? Absolutely.

6:00

and this is why people are kind of concerned

6:02

about this, but why is this happening? Well, perhaps

6:04

one of the reasons is this headline in 2022

6:06

in New York Times, with

6:09

few able and few willing, U.S.

6:11

military can't find recruits. This was at a

6:13

time when they were basically kicking people out,

6:16

servicemen and women for not getting the vaccine,

6:18

the COVID vaccine. So there are

6:20

all time record lows for recruitment. So

6:22

this is a huge issue for the

6:24

military. And they need to find- There's several

6:27

issues, Jeffrey, that I have with this

6:29

issue. First of all, you

6:31

and I both believe wholeheartedly

6:33

in this country, in standing

6:35

for our sovereignty and protecting it,

6:38

no matter what, I

6:41

would absolutely put myself in harm's

6:43

way if it meant protecting this nation

6:45

for the future of my children. So

6:48

am I against the draft? My problem

6:50

is all the wars that I've seen

6:53

in my lifetime never seem to have

6:55

done anything to protect my nation. They

6:57

seem to be for sort of corporate

6:59

and special interests. And

7:03

that bothers me. And none of it seems to

7:05

have landed in making the world

7:07

a safer place. But what's really disturbing

7:09

here, when I think fewer able,

7:11

that concept, when

7:15

we think of a draft and we think of

7:17

people going in the military, when we talk about

7:19

what we do, 60%

7:21

of our country now has a

7:23

neurological or autoimmune disease their entire

7:25

life. They are chronically ill. That

7:28

makes most of them, I think, ineligible to even

7:30

be in the military. So can you imagine? I

7:32

mean, look at what we've done to ourselves in

7:34

the 1980s, back when

7:37

we're talking about Jimmy Carter days when you might

7:39

have drafted. Only 12.8% of our population

7:41

had chronic illness. Now,

7:44

and this is the last, in 2011, 54%. We,

7:47

you know, there's a lot of signs showing that it's at

7:49

least 60%. So

7:51

when you think about how many of the people that

7:53

are raising their kids that are watching this show that

7:55

are feeding your kids right

7:58

exercise and certainly, not

8:00

injecting them with vaccines and

8:02

destroying their immune systems and getting

8:04

into all the autoimmune problems and

8:06

the myocarditis and the pericarditis that

8:08

is gonna take all these other,

8:10

now all of a sudden, that

8:12

pool ends up being my kids.

8:15

And that bothers me. That really bothers

8:17

me. And it's why it makes, I think, this issue

8:19

very important for the people watching our show right now.

8:22

An extremely valid point. And also the idea is,

8:25

like you mentioned, you touched on there, the idea

8:27

of running off to war is

8:29

not really a popular one. And we

8:31

look at this chart here. This is

8:33

the Selective Service Systems chart. Let's go

8:35

over a century since World War I.

8:38

And you can see here the

8:40

conscription, bringing these people into the

8:42

military. World War I, you're looking at

8:44

almost 250 million people. World

8:47

War II, you have almost 350 million men. And

8:50

then you see Korea, Vietnam, obviously smaller

8:53

wars, but especially when it

8:55

hits Vietnam, this was a widely unpopular

8:57

war, especially as it dragged on

8:59

politically and socially. And 1969 was

9:02

the first really draft. So

9:06

we're talking over 50 years ago for the Vietnam

9:08

War. And how was

9:10

it done? Well, that evening, all

9:13

the males in the United States who

9:15

knew what was going on, were probably huddled around their

9:17

TVs, 18 through 25, I believe it

9:19

was at that time, with apprehension.

9:21

And they watch this. Take a

9:24

look. The draft

9:26

lottery, a live report on tonight's

9:28

picking of the birth dates for

9:30

the draft. Here at Selective Service

9:33

headquarters in Washington is CBS News

9:35

correspondent Roger Mudd. Good

9:38

evening. It was 29 years ago that

9:40

the first and most famous lottery number,

9:43

158, was drawn

9:45

as the United States entered World War

9:47

II. Tonight, for the

9:49

first time in 27 years, the

9:52

United States has again started a draft

9:54

lottery. And the famous first

9:56

pick tonight is September 14th, the

9:59

first birthday. that now is designated 001, which means

10:01

for 19 year olds born on September 14th at beginning

10:09

in January, local draft boards

10:11

will induct those men born

10:14

on September 14th borrowing the

10:16

firmage. The next birthday

10:18

in order April 24th and

10:21

so on down the line this evening. Fairly

10:24

ominous lottery there. It's not like a

10:27

winning lottery, you know. Amazing.

10:30

And so the drafty whose birthdays were

10:32

called may find themselves in the Vietnam

10:35

War zone at their first

10:37

tour basically less than six months after

10:39

their basic training. So they go right

10:41

into that. And just a quick

10:43

history lesson here. I'll take a moment for the Vietnam

10:45

War. We have the famous whistleblower Daniel

10:47

Ellsberg. He was a RAM corporation whistleblower. He

10:50

leaked the Pentagon papers in 1971 to the

10:52

New York Times. And

10:55

what those showed, we actually have the copy of

10:57

the first installment. They ran several installments, issues of

10:59

this. But it traced the

11:02

decades of U.S. involvement before the war

11:04

in Vietnam, basically trying to topple the

11:06

regime there, the communist regime. And

11:08

even the Gulf of Tonkin incident that was

11:10

history told us was the reason

11:13

we entered the war turned out because these

11:15

Pentagon papers and others turned out to be

11:17

a false pretext. So as you

11:19

said earlier, basically a lot of these wars,

11:22

they're really not what they were told to

11:24

be upfront when people were drafted for this.

11:26

So it's really important we have this alternative

11:29

media, this independent media telling a story as

11:31

well because we're entering into a time again

11:33

where we're seeing these drums of war. And

11:36

we're not just seeing this in America. This

11:38

is what makes this story so interesting because

11:40

it's not just, you know, we don't have

11:42

enough recruits in America. So we're going to

11:44

make this automatic registration to the Selective Service.

11:46

This is happening everywhere. And there's

11:49

a big war happening, Ukraine, Russia. And

11:51

this is headlines in Europe. UK

11:54

and other NATO allies urged to consider

11:56

conscription as Ukraine Waranter's third year. The

12:01

first step towards conscription, Germany proposes

12:03

new selective military service. So

12:05

they're saying this, everyone has to be in

12:08

military service now. And

12:10

then we're having some more movement on this

12:12

space in July 9th, starting July

12:15

9th, Washington, D.C., we're going to have

12:17

a NATO summit. And in that NATO

12:19

summit, the U.S. and key allies, according

12:21

to AP News, are debating what commitment

12:23

to give on Ukraine joining NATO at

12:25

this upcoming summit. I'm sorry, that was

12:27

CNN. So remember, NATO

12:30

with Ukraine joining NATO, that is the red line

12:32

in the sand for Russia. Obviously, nothing's

12:34

been committed to it, but they keep kind of

12:36

beating around that bush very hard. And

12:38

it's not helping when the NATO chiefs

12:41

are touting this. NATO chief

12:43

touts nuclear move to counter Russia-China threat.

12:45

So they're putting their nuclear arms on

12:47

standby. So we're in really, really interesting

12:50

times right now. And this military draft

12:52

has a lot of people paying attention,

12:54

the potential for it. Thank

12:58

you.