On October 8, 2004 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, Incumbent and Presidential Candidate George W. Bush uttered those words to his opponent John Kerry, ABC’s Charles Gibson, and the entire world during the second Presidential Debate when reporter Daniel Farley asked him this question: “Since we continue to police the world, how do you intend to maintain our military presence without reinstituting a draft?”

And today, just 70 days into his second term – America’s Selective Service System will report to President George W. Bush that they will be ready to begin the initial steps to implementing a military draft within 75 days.

Read my lips – he lied again.

Did you know that according to Federal Public Law 107-110, Section 9528 of the ESEA, “No Child Left Behind Act” – school districts must release student’s names, addresses, and phone numbers to military recruiters upon their request? And that those students are then called at home by recruiters and pressured to join the military?

Did you also know that Government officials can secretly obtain records of what materials students check out from the library? Did you know that military recruiters have a quota they must meet? Did you know that, according to a front page story in The New York Times on March 26th, “The Army’s recruiters are being challenged with one of the hardest selling jobs the military has asked of them in American history?” Did you know that as a result of this, many have become ill? Suffered from bouts of depression? Considered suicide? Volunteered to go to Iraq to fight on the frontlines rather than recruit unsuccessfully here at home and face ridicule, rejection and the Army’s wrath? Have consulted Army chaplains to help them cope with marital troubles and job-related stress? Have gone AWOL? And have signed up and given bonuses or other enlistment benefits to unqualified people just to meet their quotas? They have – and for what? To join the army to try and convince our young men and women to go to Iraq and put their lives on the line for George W. Bush’s personal gain? To be pressured harder than a salesman who is not selling enough of his product to generate a livable income? To have to become personally responsible for sending new recruits to Iraq – so they can be sent home in body bags? To tell youngsters how great it is to join the Armed Forces and make them believe that, if they actually survive in Iraq – that they will have a better life?

These poor men and women in our military’s recruiting division are nothing but meaningless pawns in George W. Bush’s chess game that he is playing with our country, our freedom, our people, our money, our reputation, our safety and our future. He is snowing half of us and using all of us to fund his private war against his competition in the oil industry. He is killing thousands of our troops and putting tens of thousands more in daily, constant danger so he and his “base” can make money hand over fist. And he has constantly lied to our faces, gone back on his “word” – and used the events of September 11th and the tyranny of Saddam Hussein to make us believe that his blatant invasion of Iraq was to our benefit – while all it has done is isolated us, brought us further into debt than we have been since Bush’s father was President – and pushed us closer toward the threat of terrorism than Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden combined.

And now, for the first time since 1973 – the next generation of our country will have to register to join the army whether they want to or not. Our nation will be forced to send their children and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, and friends and neighbors to a country that wants nothing more than for us to leave their country. We will have to witness unwilling children become soldiers in a war they do not wish to fight in – and we will all witness these innocent kids go to Iraq on foot wearing combat boots – and come home in coffins wearing toe tags.

I wish that this country as a whole saw George W. Bush for what he really is and what he is really doing. I hope to God that one day, those who support him wake up and see the position he is putting our country in. If his war-mongering and money laundering continues, we will be hated by the world, poor, broke and have a devalued dollar that is impossible to spend. This man is dragging us as fast as he can into disaster and will not stop until his bottomless pockets have been filled with Iraq’s oil and our military’s flesh and blood. And since the current amount of active troops and reservists won’t meet the demand of needed soldiers – the leader of our country is going to do exactly what he promised he would not do – implement the draft.

From the father of our country, George Washington, to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who brought this country back to life after the Great Depression, to Abraham Lincoln, who ushered in a new era of equality by freeing the slaves – our country has had some amazing leaders. Never will I place George W. Bush in that category. From day one, he has lied to us, used us, stolen from us, betrayed us, killed many of us – and will soon draft our nation’s children against their will and trade their lives for his blood money.

When the draft is implemented and the military begins knocking on the doors of America’s families to transport their children to boot camp – I hope that those who voted George W. Bush back into office realize what they have done as they wave goodbye to their son or daughter – perhaps for the last time.