Pay no attention to the upcoming presidential election if you are 18 to 25 years old, and don’t mind being drafted into the military. The rhetoric between the two presidential candidates is heating up as we draw closer to November, and the stakes are high for young voters.

Last week, John Kerry said George Bush might reinstate the draft after he is re-elected. Apparently, Kerry thinks Bush is going to need more troops to stabilize Iraq, and replace those soldiers whose tours of duty are almost up. This has gotten political groups like Mothers United and Stop the Draft to mobilize against Bush. These groups are making the rounds on college campuses to get their message out.

Bush said he will not reinstate the draft, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called it nonsense that anyone in the administration was thinking of reinstating the draft while testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. Rumsfeld said there were plenty of forces available for an emergency call-up of the reserves and guardsmen if they needed them in Iraq.

Rumsfeld also said that the realignment of 70,000 troops in Western European countries is currently taking place, with most of those troops coming back to the United States. This troop realignment should be finished in the next six to eight years.

If anyone will reinstate the draft, I believe it would be Kerry and the Democratic Party. At the Democratic National Convention, Kerry said Iraq is a mess that will need more troops. Even he says that we cannot leave Iraq until the job is done, regardless of whether he would have invaded in the first place. He criticized the troop realignments in Europe and the call up of military reservists, which leaves questions about how he would manage troop strength.

Representative Charles Rangel of New York and Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina introduced bills in Congress in January 2003 calling for another draft. They believe Bush will need more troops to accomplish his “go it alone” strategy for the war on terror. Those bills are in the committee process, and they will probably die there if the Republican Party remains the majority.

The Military Select Service Act has been in place for decades and allows the president and Congress to reinstate the draft anytime they deem it necessary. The draft authority expired in 1973, but the government kept a registration process for adults 18 to 25. The Selective Service System is an agency within the executive branch of the federal government, and whoever is president will decide the necessity of a draft. It even has a Web site, www.sss.gov, which is just waiting for registrants.

The current draft law says, “A college student can have his induction postponed only until the end of the current semester. A senior can be postponed until the end of the academic year.” Even conscientious objectors would be forced to work for the military in some capacity. Most draftees would be men whose 20th birthday falls during that year of induction, or older. Anyone 18 or 19 years old would probably not be drafted, unless an all out invasion of another country or continent is necessary.

Nevertheless, all this draft talk is just political posturing. We do not need more troops when we have hydrogen bombs and mini-nukes, which would happen to North Korea or Iran if they use any of their weapons. Iraq may need more troops, but an emergency call-up of reserves or troop realignments from Western Europe would satisfy those requirements.

What scare tactics are the politicians going to use next to try to get your vote?