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Automatic draft registration bill passes the House: ‘A clear sign that we are getting ready for war’

June 15, 2024 | | Print Article

U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan’s automatic draft registration bill has passed the House, shocking critics who believe America is preparing for war.

The bill was included in this year’s annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

As previously reported, Houlahan, a Democrat, proposed requiring all men who turn 18 to automatically be registered into the draft. This would differ from the current system in which 18 to 25-year-old men are required to “voluntarily” register with Selective Service.

While debating the proposal last month, she argued that an automatic draft sign-up would free up money to spend on “readiness and towards mobilization” versus “education and advertising campaigns driven to register people” for the draft, according to Task & Purpose.

In fairness to her, only 84 percent of qualified men signed up for Selective Service in 2022. Moreover, Selective Service was slated to spend $33 million this year alone “to improve registration compliance rates.”

“We really sort of saw this as a chance to both save government resources, save taxpayer dollars, and to help young men avoid the special challenges later in life that can come from not having registered,” a congressional aide for Houlahan told Task & Purpose.

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Fair enough, but it’s also true that most U.S. states, the four territories, and Washington, D.C. already automatically register eligible men for Selective Service whenever they obtain a driver’s license, driver’s permit, or other motor vehicle-related piece of identification.

Moreover, eligible men who fail to sign up already face a whole host of draconian repercussions, including ineligibility for federal student aid and jobs at federal agencies, not to mention security clearances.

“They can also face five years in prison or thousands of dollars in fines,” according to Task & Purpose.

With Houlahan’s bill now passed, critics are crying foul, with former Rep. Dennis Kucinich leading the charge.

“There is no other conceivable reason to require more than 16 million American males to be automatically registered for the draft, other than to prepare for a large-scale war,” he wrote in a Substack post.

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One, he added, that appears to be looming on the horizon.

“We know that America is fomenting wars around the world,” he wrote. “We know that the military industrial complex controls our government. We know that we are on the precipice of a global war, provoking aggression rather than resolution with Russia, China and in the Middle East.”

“The only winners in these wars are the war profiteers. They’re now going to take our children to fight in unnecessary, destabilizing, dangerous, debt-creating wars,” he added.

He’s not the only one who sees the writing on the wall:

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Dovetailing back to Kucinich, he’s vowed to repeal the automatic draft registration if he’s reelected to Congress next November.

“For my part, as a former member of Congress who is seeking re-election to the House of Representatives in November – – upon my return to Congress, I will bring forth legislation which will abolish automatic registration for the draft,” he wrote in his Substack.

“I believe it is honorable, a sacred obligation, to serve in defense of one’s country. But our leaders have a deeper obligation, a solemn duty to explain why. They have not done so,” he added.

Vivek Saxena
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