FOIA request uncovers Selective Service messaging for the  commission tasked with recommending fate of mandatory draft registration.

By Edward Hasbrouck

“A modern-day draft, if marketed carefully and cleverly, could foster patriotism via the investment of every family in the nation. A greater involvement of the population to include National (nonmilitary) Service could reach every social demographic within the U.S.”

The comments above were included in the recommendations from the Selective Service System made to the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. This report was sent to the NCMNPS in December 2017, but wasn’t made public until this week, in response to my FOIA requests.

There’s some, but only minimal, acknowledgement in the Selective Service System report of opposition to conscription. But dissent is conceptualized as “protest” (complaint) rather than as resistance (direct action) — a political, religious, or moral, rather than a practical, impediment to the draft:

“Historically, involuntary induction into the Armed Forces has been controversial, has initiated public dissent and protest…. Low registration compliance rates may reflect elements of society that do not have a incentive to serve, or exposure to the value of National or public service. Although many young men fail to register because they are unaware of the requirement (high school dropouts, immigrants, isolated communities), some populations and communities may be averse to service by religious conviction, moral perspective, or social pressures.” ...

The NCMNPS will hold two days of public hearings on the future of the Selective Service System, military conscription, and compulsory national “service”, including whether draft registration should be ended, extended to women, or modified in other ways, at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, on Wednesday and Thursday, April 24th and 25th, 2019. ...

I’ve been invited to testify at the hearings, and I hope to see some of you there. The Commission needs to hear from those who will resist and from those who will defend and support resisters in court, in the court of public opinion, and in and out of prison.

Read Edward Hasbrouck's compete report couragetoresist.org