First They Came For The Nurses

[donsu]

First the Back-Door Draft; Now the Foot-in-the-Door Draft

http://www.counterpunch.com/


So the cat's out of the bag. With reports today in the New York Times, AP and other media outlets that the Pentagon is contemplating a draft call-up of health professionals because of a shortage of doctors, nurses and medics in the increasingly thinly stretched U.S. military, we can see the lie in Bush's (and in Kerry's) promises not to reinstate conscription.

-snip-

Who in Congress, or the media, or even among much of the public, is going to argue if the administration next January announces that there is a critical shortage of doctors and nurses in Iraq, and that our noble soldiers are at risk of death or permanent injury because of inadequate emergency medical services near the front?

Yet to call up those medical personnel, first that draft authorization legislation would have to be passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.

Obviously, such a bill would be presented as "just" a measure so that medical personnel could be required to serve, but of course, a draft bill is a draft bill. Maybe at first the Pentagon would only ask for a certain category of skills in a limited call-up, but the bill itself would be passed into law. The decision on who to call next would be an administrative, not a political, decision, to be made by the generals and the folks at the Selective Service System.
-snip-
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there is also more info on smirk being wired, at the end of this article.

[Warpy]

1. Gee, just in time for the seriously ill flu victims

to start rolling into our hospitals, already woefully short of nursing staff, thanks to the public health cockup that gave vaccine to healthy Congressional staffers and denied it to the people who are most likely to show up needing hospital care.

Good gawd, just when you think it can't get any worse, it does.

[donsu]

2. yes, will nurses be fleeing to Canada? (probably better paid too)

nt

[shraby]

3. Yep, with the nurses in Iraq and Afghanistan

everyone is safer here. Especially if there is a large attack on our soil. Nurses? Don't need em here.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. It isn't just the military that's short of nurses

Just about everywhere in the world is.