Extreme left (or The Onion-like comedy) website Common Dreams News Center and the Toronto Star think that they have discovered a nefarious and secret scheme by the Bush Administration to bring back the draft after the 2004 elections. Someone at sf.indybay.org got so rattled by the Bush draft that HTML started spewing directly on to the page.
shouts Common Dreams. And the Toronto Star frets:
A call from the U.S. Defense Department for volunteers to sit on local draft boards has sparked debate here about whether a nationwide military draft could ultimately be needed to complete Washington's Iraq mission.Unfortunately for those looking for some conspiracy to ship off non-volunteers to Iraq, this is nothing new, it is not Bush's plan and it wouldn't have "sparked" anything suddenly in 2003. A simple check of the Internet Archive reveals that the plan has been in place since at least the Clinton Administration. Here's the October 2000 version of the Selective Service's web page on Draft Boards and how to apply. There may have been an even earlier version at a different URL, but this information appears at the same URL as the current page. No big deal. Common Dreams and the Toronto Star can remove their tinfoil hats, for now.. . . The draft was abolished here three decades ago as the Vietnam War wound down, and the Defense department notice about draft boards is on an obscure link on its Web site.
