Last Sunday, the Albuquerque Journal ran a rather lame-brained editorial in favor of resurrecting the draft. We've had an all-volunteer military in the United States for 26 years now -- compulsory military service ended after the debacle of the Viet Nam war. But now, the military is whining -- they're understaffed and not enough people want to enlist. They cite the robust private economy, the availability of well-paying civilian jobs as the key cause of their recruiting ails.

That says quite a bit -- no one with a good job wants to join the military. It's understandable, of course; people in the military might get killed, and they might be forced to kill others (two events I've long wanted to avoid in my own life). Military life is not free life, for military personnel live and die by the whims of politicians. Military personnel don't even decide where they want to live; they go where they're stationed. They live by a code of strict adherence to authority that would make most people snap.

What we often forget is that the military is a political organization -- largely devoted to the social ideals of the right wing. Even in the 1990s we've had to debate no-brainers like whether homosexuals should be allowed to serve or if women can be trusted in combat and leadership roles. Yet, the Albuquerque Journal ignored this and instead offered the following arguments detailing the social benefits of coerced military service:

1) It would bring civilians closer to the military. Most civilians don't understand the military, the argument goes, and thus we don't trust the military. Somehow, the Journal feels like civilians need to be more supportive of our uniformed fighters. I guess that means ignoring brutal acts on their behalf such as the use of depleted uranium weapons (which caused cancer rates to sky-rocket in Iraq) and our frequent bombings of civilian targets in Serbia. Clearly, it would be better for democracy if an informed civilian population kept close tabs on the military and held them constantly accountable to civilian morality. But the Journal doesn't see it that way.

2) The Journal's editorial then says that young people aren't patriotic enough, and that military service would set their minds straight. If the U.S. forced me into a military lifestyle I would probably learn to hate the country to the point of treason. That aside, what's so great about patriotism? Viet Nam, the war that ended the draft in the first place, taught us that "my country, right or wrong" is a narrow way of thinking. We need, rather than blind patriotism, an informed populace to act as a watchdog to make sure our government treats its citizens, and the world, with compassion.

3) The Journal then makes reference to the responsibility every citizen has to serve and defend our country, which makes me wonder - when's the last time the military defended the United States against anything? There's been no foreign attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor. Perhaps the Cold War was an act of defense, but since we started the Cold War (we created the weapons which sparked it, we created an adversarial relationship with Russia with our commiephobia) it's hard to call it defense. Korea never attacked us. Viet Nam never attacked us. Panama never attacked us. Grenada never attacked us. Iraq and Serbia never attacked us. Does the government have the right to ask a citizen to possibly die over Iraqi oil? Let's face it, there are no barbarians at our gates waiting to invade.

In the end, we can't trust our government with draft power. Our military has been consistently misused since the beginning of the Cold War and the government has no moral high ground from which they can ask our young people to become involved. Perhaps military enlistment is down not because the private sector is offering such high-paying jobs (that's another myth, by the way), but because the military isn't worth joining. The sacrifices required by the individual are too great. The morality of the mission is too questionable. Perhaps people would be willing to join a more progressive, flexible, and better utilized military. We should change the military before we change the laws governing compulsory service.

Michael Maiello is 24 years old and still draftable. If they do draft him, he'll present this column as proof that he's a subversive.