In an overall excellent article on the new FRG military reforms comes this shocker:
But this is a classic example of that old rule that when a committee starts out to draw a horse, it produces a camel. The hands of committees of politicians are all over this. Struck had initially spoken of scrapping the German draft, but this plan retains it, pleading that the next election of 2006 should precede such a decision. The reality is that the Health minister, whose hospitals depend on the 90,000 young Germans who choose voluntary welfare service rather than a military uniform for the conscription term, blanched at the thought of the costs of replacing them.
Martin Walker, the Washington Bureau Chief of the UPI has a great story there. Essentially the draft is a specialized form of indentured servitude. It is required to gather people for the highly dangerous job of risking life and limb for your country. General western opinion is that even this dangerous task is better done via a committed staff of volunteers. To maintain a system of conscription in order to fill personnel slots in the health care system reveals a deep economic and moral bankruptcy. It says, we can't fund our own health care without enslaving people to serve as involuntary workers and we don't care what the moral implications of this involuntary servitude is.
Posted by TMLutas at January 26, 2004 04:05 PM