Wow. You know your war is going poorly when Henry Kissinger loses faith. But not everyone is ready to give up on Iraq. Several public officials are pushing for one last influx of troops to try stymieing the violence in Baghdad. But the numbers being thrown around -- 20,000 or so -- seem so pathetically small that the military analysts who dubbed it the "Go Big" option must still be giggling at their Pentagon desks. How tragic, then, that Iraq's answer to Jon Stewart, who will surely mock this plan, died in an apparent execution-style murder.

Is the answer a reinstatement of the draft? Charles Rangel, D-NY, seems to think so. Even though Democrats will leave the draft off the legislative agenda next year, pulling off the kind of massive reinforcements necessary to make a final push actually, you know, work would require more troops than we have available in our current all-volunteer force (AVF). Several studies have argued that the military is better off under AVF. That's plausible as far as it goes. But a temporary use of the draft to change the momentum of the conflict in Iraq would likely deliver geo-political dividends many times over, to say nothing of saving American and Iraqi lives in the long run. It also makes strategic sense, in that a draft frees up the military's specialized, professional resources from running routine patrols so that they may be redeployed to the areas where the insurgency is most active.

There's also a convincing liberal case for conscription, best made by Mickey Kaus, that sees the draft as key in engendering civic equality between Americans of different socio-economic backgrounds. He approvingly retells the story of PT109 -- John F. Kennedy's naval command in World War II -- whose crew ran the gambit from blue collar workers to Ivy League students. Today's military, he argues, bears no resemblance to that of the time when all strata of society felt called to sacrifice. If liberalism is concerned with equal human dignity, Kaus argues that the country needs common civic institutions that thread through class divisions. The military, under the draft, would be the backbone of this vision.

Of course, Kaus' idea is not politically feasible in the slightest. But since Americans are clearly so torn between keeping our troops in harm's way and conceding defeat in Iraq, I wonder how much slack they'd cut a public official bold enough to back the draft. Though I imagine a serious politician would have to place limits on the logistics (say, let it run for a maximum of three years), I'm not sure that it would be the career killer it's been before in the post-Vietnam era.

Most communities actively seek out programs to engage their youth, keep them out of trouble, and entice them to stay in school. However, many communities run into two problems when designing these programs. One, communities face difficulty in finding funding for youth programs. Two, communities have difficulty engaging youth in the programs, so that the programs even have a chance of achieving some of the positive goals they’re intended to produce.

The JROTC program has reportedly had the effect of engaging youth, keeping them out of trouble, and enticing them to stay in school. On top of that, the program is partially funded by the federal government. In other words, high school age teenagers voluntarily sign up for for a program that requires them to wear a military uniform at least once a week, work in teams, respect authority, and march in formations. On top of that, most participants show enthusiasm for the program. What could possibly be the downside of it?

Well, according to the San Francisco Board of Education, JROTC’s connection to the military makes the program incompatible with the public education system. Tuesday night, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to remove the JROTC program from San Francisco’s public high schools.

I can’t help but see some disturbing parallels between San Francisco giving JROTC the boot and the attempts to remove evolution from science textbooks in some other parts of the country. In both instances, we have a group of people deciding to remove a program from the schools based on their own moral beliefs, rather than on the actual merits or demerits of the programs.

While your mother never made good on her threat to send your unfinished dinner to starving children in Africa, I recently heard about a local non-profit that just about will.

About two weeks ago I caught an episode of Frontline on PBS. Mohammed Yunus had just won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work developing microcredit and this episode focused on how the microlending was affecting Uganda. Much of the episode dealt with a non-profit in San Francisco called Kiva.org, that finds donors around the world to contribute to existing microfinance organizations through the internet. Potential lenders can view entrepreneurs in need and make targeted donations as low as $25 using PayPal.

The borrowers reside mostly in Africa or Latin America. Requested loans are usually less than $1,000 and fund simple businesses like selling fish or tailoring. Kiva provides a short biographical sketch of each entrepreneur and includes an expected schedule of repayment, usually 6 – 12 months. Donations go local partners that distribute the loans and collect repayments over time. Once repaid the lender can withdraw the loan or re-loan. Since these are loans, not donations, there is an expectation of repayment With that comes an element of risk. Amazingly Kiva’s repayment rate is 100%, just slightly above the 97% rate for microloans wordwide.

The day this episode of Frontline aired the number of people visiting Kiva’s website overwhelmed the servers and shut down the site. Kiva quickly had to ask for donations to pay for a new server to handle the newfound attention. Happily, Kiva is now back online an in need of contributions.

I just came across this FAQ on election day law written by Stanford Law students. It addresses some interesting questions and laws I had never heard of before. I know the Boalt Law School, here at Berkeley has a similar group but I can't find a website.

Please let me know if you find any links worth posting. Happy Election Day.