From The Ramparts

US Army Recruiters In Dire Straights

US Army Recruiters In Dire Straights

“Army recruiters have failed to meet their targets for four straight months, beginning in February, and have just four months before their fiscal year ends Sept. 30 to sign up almost half of their annual goal. Many recruiters privately question whether they can succeed. The recruiting shortfalls for the Army Reserve and National Guard - which have been called to active duty at a pace unseen since World War II and now make up more than 40 percent of American forces in Iraq - are as bad as or worse than those for the active Army. If the shortfalls continue, the government could be forced eventually to consider abandoning the nation's 32-year experiment with the all-volunteer military, which came into being as the United States withdrew from an unpopular war in Vietnam and ended an unpopular draft. The shortfall in recruits also is making it harder for the Army to raise its total strength from 480,000 to 510,000 soldiers so it can man the new modular brigades that are at the heart of the plans for a lighter, more flexible force.”- Knight Ridder Newspaper 06-13-5 By Line Joseph L Galloway

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Chicken-hawk NeoConmen find themselves in a quandary of humongous proportions: how to glamorize and make the US all volunteer military more attractive to a decreasing number of suckers willing to go for their okey-doke and lies. The US Army has missed its monthly quota for four months in a row and the National Guard and Army Reserve are in a similar situation The Marines made their quota last month but seem to be in danger of missing their numbers in months to come. Why? Because things are not going well in Iraq or Afghanistan. Why? Because like the Downing Street memo stated the numbskulls in the Bush administration did not plan for post regime change pacification. What this really means; and few AmeriKKKans are willing to admit this is, the Bush and Blair administrations have no intention of withdrawing troops from Iraq or Afghanistan anytime soon. Think about this for a moment, the US has had permanent bases in Germany and Japan since the close of WWII, neither country sits over massive reserves of crude oil, what makes you think these psychopathic leeches were planning to evacuate Iraq even if they succeeded in establishing a pliant puppet regime to take Saddam Hussein’s place? Which, by the way, thus far they have not been able to accomplish. Welcome to the New World Order, neocolonialism 21st Century style. The problem for the plutocrats is Bush and Co. botched the deal and in the process are sapping AmeriKKKa of both its’ human and economic resources. The Army, in desperation raised the age limit two months ago and, by their own admission, lowered their standards to the point they are counseling potential recruits how to pass drug screens. For May the Army lowered its’ monthly quota and still missed it by 25%! Things are so bad Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is set to reintroduce his bill to reinstate the draft!
If Congress does vote to reinstate the draft, an idea Bush and Co. supposedly oppose, all hell will break loose despite provisions in the controversial PATRIOT ACT that defines anyone who opposes the US government as a terrorist! This is Bush’s conundrum, does he sit pat and allow the Army and Marines to become what the head of the Army Reserve called a “broken force” or does he bite the bullet and sign draft legislation if it is passed? A new draft would tear this country apart worse than it did during the Vietnam era. Every day more and more information comes out verifying Bush lied to start the war with Iraq. More and more AmeriKKKans are aware of the administration’s lies, obfuscation and spin and the bottom dwellers in the corporate media who shill for them. While there have been no collective actions what we are seeing is individual families opting to resist in their own way. An article in the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau dated 06-13-05 stated, “Although the summer months traditionally provide recruiters with a target-rich environment, they concede that this could be a different and difficult summer. During May, even though the Army cut that month's goal from 8,050 to 6,700, recruiters shipped just 5,039 new recruits to basic training, 25 percent short of the more modest target. Without lowering the target, the shortfall would have been 37 percent.
One Army recruiting official, who asked that his name be withheld because he isn't authorized to talk to reporters, said the May recruiting numbers would have been even worse had the Army not offered to boost enlistment bonuses to the maximum of $20,000 for delayed-entry recruits who volunteered to report a month or two early for training, by a deadline of May 30. ‘That is just robbing Peter to pay Paul. There will be a hole somewhere down the line this summer,’ he said. ‘The bottom line, in my view, is we are going to need some sort of national service, a draft, to get the people we need,’ the official said. ‘I don't see what else we can do.’ The official also told Knight Ridder that the recruiting shortfalls are having an impact on basic training schools. ‘Since March, they have canceled 15 basic training classes for the infantry at Fort Benning,’ the official said. ‘They did not have the soldiers, 220 to 230 of them, for each of those classes. Now they will begin processing smaller classes of 180 to 190.’ He said basic training schools also were beginning to receive recruits who wouldn't have been allowed to enlist a year ago because they didn't meet Army standards.” Parents are discouraging their sons and daughters from signing up. Many high school graduates no longer view the military as a viable or sane option given all the bad news coming out of Iraq. If Bush reinstates the draft (as many believe he will be forced to do) it may be the catalyst for a massive resistance which galvanizes the public to derail the fascist NeoCon agenda.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 2:31 PM