20 YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: SHORT-TERM ENLISTMENT: Here’s an article on a new short-term enlistment plan designed to produce more enlistees without resort to the draft. I’m not sure what I think about this — I’m not encouraged by one backer’s statement that it’s just a step along the way to compulsory “national service,” which I don’t support, and I’m concerned about the creation of a two-tiered military. On the other hand, there are a lot of military specialties that don’t require the kind of extensive training or commitment that combat arms tend to, and — in fact — we’ve already got a sort of two-tier system, as Tom Ricks noted in comparing the training regimen at Parris Island and Fort Benning with the less rigorous training provided to support troops at Fort Jackson. And it’s likely that a non-trivial number of short-term enlistees will decide to stick around for longer, which should help with recruiting.

Anyway, it’s an interesting development. There’s also a paper from the Progressive Policy Institute, Citizen Soldiers and the War on Terror, endorsing the idea.

Speaking of recruiting, somebody sent me a link to an article saying that Northern California was producing military recruits at a higher rate than anywhere else except (of course) Nashville, but I’ve lost the link. If you read this, can you send it again?

UPDATE: Reader Anthony Kim sends the link, but notes that the headline, “suckers for a uniform” is rather insulting.

And also 20 years ago: ATRIOS seems to think that I write a column for the Washington Times, and derive great income thereby. If so, it’s escaped my attention. (Especially the “great income” part.) I think the only thing I ever wrote for the Wash. Times was a piece entitled “Greasing the Skids at the Start of Death Row,” condemning the Habeas Corpus provision of the 1996 antiterrorism bill, which oped I coauthored with GWU professor Bob Cottrol and which was placed there through the efforts of that noted Moonie front group, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

What you’re seeing is desperation in the face of the A.N.S.W.E.R. debacle. (Atrios’ post tries to compare writing for the Washington Times with standing alongside anti-semites and Stalinists.) And it’s well-founded desperation. Or such sloppiness that he thinks my book reviews for the Washington Post were actually in the Times. (Or maybe it’s just trolling. . . .)

And have you ever noticed how it’s okay to show religious prejudice against Moonies, but not against fanatical Muslims? Nothing political there. Jeez.

UPDATE: TalkLeft is offering me a free membership in the NACDL. Dare I accept, in this era of creeping McCarthyism?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mark Kleiman thinks I’m entitled to a retraction, but thinks that my point about religious bigotry is weak.