Election update: possibility of a military draft

responsibility and pay some price?” He believes that by reinstating the draft, citizens will begin to understand the intensity and challenges we face.

Sen. Hagel argues that this would help spread the responsibility of military service in Iraq economic groups, not just volunteers. is trying to get students to take notice of the issues going on around the country. This past Friday, Sept. 17 the Office of Student Activities sponsored a showing of the Michael Moore film, “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Neither club had anything to do with the planning of the movie, but made sure they were both present in order to represent where they stood concerning the topics discussed in the controversial documentary.

Over 80 students and several faculty and staff showed up to watch the film. Cabrini was just one of a handful of schools that had the opportunity to see the film before it is released on VHS and DVD.

Democrats see the film as an accurate representation of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 and the events that followed. Republicans feel it is an attempt to try and sway the minds of those who will be heading to the polls on election day. In order to make sure the students received both sides of the argument about

Freshman Mary Burgess, an education major, agrees with Rogers, “Kids today are lazy and they’d rather go along with something that someone else said than do the research themselves,” Burgess said.

Republicans and even some democrats see Moore’s movie as one sided. Throughout the film Moore goes in-depth concerning the ties between the Bush family and Al-Qaeda and the reasons America went to war. “I just didn’t want to have those pictures drudged up again,” Sophomore Stephanie Lozowski, a liberal arts major, said.

The question still remains concerning the affect these kinds of organizations and films have on the minds and actions of college students. Any large group of individuals can make a difference if they turn out and vote. Which way will young voters vote? Only the results on Nov. 2 will tell which group had more of an impact on young voters.

MICHAEL A. SITIRICHE PERSPECTIVE EDITOR MAS723@CABRINI EDU

The United States military is everywhere. The Armed Forces are on active duty not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in the former Soviet Union, South Korea and in scattered parts of Europe.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, stressed the issue on how the United States must reinstitute the draft. Saying how there’s not an American that doesn’t understand what’s we are engaging in today and what our future has to hold.

Sen. Hagel therefore raises the question, “Why shouldn’t we ask all of our citizens to bear some

“We went to Iraq with too few troops to prevent looting and crime, to maintain security, fundamental order, to secure nearly a million tons of conventional weapons now being used against our troops, these have complicated our mission: a stable Iraq with a representative government secure in its borders, which is our goal,”

-John Kerry

among all Americans, not just the lower and middle class, which seems to be the majority of soldiers fighting in Iraq.

This is not soley a Republican idea; it has support from both Republicans and Democrats. Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel of New York, a veteran of war, thinks that fighting for this country should be equally disbursed amongst all Americans, despite racial and

The Bush administration is in favor of reinstating the draft. It is currently on the table in both the House and the Senate, in the form of two bills S 89 and HR 163. Draft dodging will not be as easy as it was during the Vietnam War since attending college, being a female or fleeing to Canada are no longer a valid means for avoiding the draft.

John Kerry believes that if he is elected, the answer to the issue is not to reinstitute the draft, but to formulate a better foreign policy program. “We went to Iraq with too few troops to prevent looting and crime, to maintain security, fundamental order, to secure nearly a million tons of conventional weapons now being used against our troops, these have complicated our mission: a stable Iraq with a representative government secure in its borders, which is our goal,” Kerry said.

Apoint that Kerry makes about soldiers now compared to those in the past is that the burden has increased because more than half of the soldiers are married.