Stu, there is absolutely and categorically NOT going to be a draft.

http://www.simondodd.org/personal/articles/20040928-1.asp

In precis: the draft bills were introduced by Demcorats in Congress, most of whom either lost their seats last week, or were damned lucky to keep them. The GOP leadership has never wanted a draft, and indeed, many of those in power (Rumsfeld and Cheney in particular, but also many of the neocons, most notably Perle) were among those who fought to abolish the draft in the first place. It is impractical, unnecessary, and electoral suicide - and the only reason anyone brought it up was in desparation to try and get out the youth vote against Bush, a plan which spectacularly failed, given that the youth vote remained stuck at the same 17% who voted in 2000.

Furthermore, in ground not covered in my article linked above, all indications are that the main reason Kerry lost was that the youth vote, despite being split 65-35 in Kerry's favour, failed dismally to show up for him. After our experience in student politics together, Stu, I don't think we can be entirely surprised at the dismal failure of youth to step up to the plate. Be that as it may, however, if the GOP was now to introduce a draft, the net effect would be to unleash a huge number of voters who are already inclined to side with the Democrats into the electoral pool, bu giving them an inescapable reason to vote against the party introducing the draft.

For all these reasons - unnecessary, electoral suicide, logistically impossible, militarily impractical - if there was ever but the slimmest chance of a draft being re-instated, those chances died on November 2nd.

And, incidentally, permanent residents of the US have to register with selective services, so I wouldn't be exempt if they did have one. :p