You know.............that "stuff" Texas is FULL OF!
What are the influences of that pseudo, fantasy land, twilight zone, outer limits section of Rio Linda land down there in Texas doing to your very low level of brain cells there SuperSilly??? Are you really THAT unable to grasp reality???
The U.S. economy has always been a significant factor in the success rate of military recruiters. Until about three years ago, when the economy was better and young people perceived more civilian opportunities for employment, recruiters had a difficult time, and several of the branches of the armed forces failed to meet their enlistment quotas.
This allowed recruiters to convince Congress into budgeting more money for recruiting, enlistment bonuses and military pay raises, and during the last three years, while unemployment has risen and the economy has taken a dive, all branches of the military have met their enlistment quotas.
Now that Bush is continually preaching how WELL the economy is doing (even though it IS still a "jobless" recovery without any measure of real wage growth among the few low wage jobs that have been created) if a slight improvement is soon perceived by the public, that could begin to make it difficult again for recruiters to meet their quotas, especially for first-time enlistments.
The negative news about the mess and developments in Iraq, including information about casualties and dissatisfaction among the troops, will increase the reluctance of young people to enlist.
But even more important are the effects that war and the deployments to Iraq are having on members of the military who would normally be counted upon to reenlist.
Stars and Stripes, which is funded funded by the Pentagon, conducted an informal survey in August 2003 (that's slightly over a year ago for you math challenged folks in Rio Linda!) that drew responses from 1,935 military members throughout Iraq.
Half said their unit's morale was low and that they do not plan to reenlist. The article on the survey that appeared in Stars and Stripes stated,
"In the past, enlistment rates tended to drop after conflicts, but many defense experts and noncommissioned officers have warned of the potential for a historically high exodus, particularly of reservists."
The head of the 205,000-member Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, told USA Today,
"Retention is what I am most worried about. It is my No. 1 concern." The Army National Guard, which has a significant number of troops on active duty, was expected to fall about 15% short of its recruiting goal of 62,000 soldiers for fiscal year 2004. Other military branches met their goals for 2003 and so far in 2004,
but that is in part because some military members had the end of their enlistment terms involuntarily extended under a special "stop loss" order from the Pentagon.
Based on the reported comments from troops who are still in Iraq or have just returned , the exodus is going to create some serious extra pressure on recruiters to find new enlistees during the coming fiscal year.
The remaining factor that is looming over everything else is the possibility of additional large deployments of U.S. soldiers to intervene in countries besides Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Bush administration has asserted the right to use preemptive force in any part of the world that
it believes (
regardless of any credible proof ) is a source of terrorism or other threat to the U.S., regardless of whether or not the rest of the world agrees and would be willing to help with additional troops.
And it's now becoming clear that, as many of us suspected (
and a lot of folks in Rio Linda still deny! ), claims of threats based on evidence that doesn't really exist could be used as a pretext for military action. Countries currently high on the possible target list include Syria, Iran and North Korea, and others like Colombia, the Philippines are also on the "list". As I'm sure you already know with your limited ability to "grasp" the "obvious".
All this, while so many young and unknowing Americans and immigrants ( more & more who are not even U.S. citizens) from poor and working class youth, die on the frontlines hoping to become students when their enlistments are finished and get decent jobs that will be unavailable because the Bush administration supports companys that send the good jobs overseas????.
The psychological and social costs of such dreadful contradictions cannot be overcome by patriotic zeal. My comments are NOT......repeat NOT......to be misconstrued or misrepresented as being NON-SUPPOTRIVE of our troops in service anywhere in the world! I have always, and will contnue to support their heroic and honorable efforts whenever they are sent into harms way! But, this administration has lied about virtually everything they've said since they've been in office. Military "enlistment" quotas are just one more for the "pile" of that plentiful Texas commodity.............HORSE MANURE!