Also posted to MetaFilter, where a discussion may or may not ensue.

Tipped off by an American student, Sutherland reveals that two bills to resurrect the draft in the US are currently en route to becoming law:

There is pending legislation in the American House of Representatives and Senate in the form of twin bills - S89 and HR163. These measures (currently approved and sitting in the committee for armed services) project legislation for spring 2005, with the draft to become operational as early as June 15.

The Pentagon is discreetly recruiting for 10,350 draft board officers and 11,070 appeals board members nationwide.

And, before American readers reach for the ‘phone to book their one-way ticket to lovely Canada:

Draft-dodging will be harder than in the 1960s. In December 2001, Canada and the US signed a “smart border declaration”, which, among other things, will prevent conscientious objectors (and cowards) from finding sanctuary across the northern border.

Unsurprisingly, despite the fact that a press release on the subject has been available at Congress.org for some time, the news that the draft is to return next year hasn’t made it to the front pages and television screens of the US news media.

Presumably, they are much too busy self-flagellating over their failures in the run up to the invasion of Iraq (see the New York Times), or carrying on their fine tradition of unquestioning support for government (see Fox, et al).

I hope to goodness that this news does break, and soon; not only because I know a fair few Americans of drafting age, but also because it might just be the kick up the arse the US electorate needs to oust Bush.

(An aside: Many weblogs have picked up the story - whatever happened to the much-touted power of independent publishing on the web to prod the traditional media into action?)

Not, of course, that the draft story will have a fighting chance to influence the US electorate: the word, from reliable, national newspaper sources, is that an ‘October Surprise’ is in the offing. We’ve already seen the opening salvo - that scaremongering warning of imminent terrorist action on US soil - to soften folk up in advance of Bush using a terrorist attack (foiled or successful) as an excuse to declare a state of emergency prior to the forthcoming Presidential election, delaying the poll indefinitely.

George W. Bush’s response was to say, ‘That’s not the way we do things in America.’

Come on. That’s exactly how they do things in America, whether mistreating prisoners of war in shadowy outposts like Guantanamo Bay, or in terms of police brutality and human rights abuses, or the fact that Bush himself has long had an unhealthy enthusiasm for executing his own citizens.

Of course, I’m not one of the daft lefties who see the US as analagous to a regime like Saddam Hussein’s, but pointing out the irony of these war crimes taking place in a facility used by Hussein to carry out similar atrocities is unavoidable, and one more example of regime change making life worse for the Iraqi people. Not that it’s much of a regime change, what with former Ba’athist generals being brought in to control Fallujah.

Update:

Mistreatment of Prisoners Is Called Routine in U.S.:

Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates.

The corrections experts say that some of the worst abuses have occurred in Texas, whose prisons were under a federal consent decree during much of the time President Bush was governor because of crowding and violence by guards against inmates. Judge William Wayne Justice of Federal District Court imposed the decree after finding that guards were allowing inmate gang leaders to buy and sell other inmates as slaves for sex.

See also: Rape Rooms: A Chronology - What Bush said as the Iraq prison scandal unfolded.