Here’s a contrary perspective on whether the draft is imminent. One item in this story that seems uncontroversial, from what I’ve learned, is that the military professionals do not want a draft. The difficulty, alas, is that the judgment of military professionals is often overriden for political reasons (witness the Iraq fiasco, to take a recent example!). Note how the article starts:

“Despite the U.S. military’s desperate need for more troops, there’s no chance that the Bush administration or Congress will resurrect the draft, short of a new Pearl Harbor.”

So we have two facts conceded at the start: the military “desperately” needs more troops; and “a new Pearl Harbor” would likely spark a military draft. Of course, 9/11 is often compared to Pearl Harbor….

That presidential candidates are “opposed” to the draft is, needless to say, an a priori truth, for which we didn’t need this article. To assauge the worry, what one would really need to hear is that the military can meet the demands of the Bushite global jihad with the current “volunteer” army. All the indications are that it can not.