Posted on 12/10/2004 2:53:30 PM PST by Trippin
WHILE insurgents draw on deep wells of fury to expand their ranks in Iraq, the US military is fighting desertion, recruitment shortfalls and legal challenges from its own troops.
The irritation among the rank and file became all too clear this week when a soldier stood up in a televised session with Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, to ask why the world’s richest army was having to hunt for scrap metal to protect its vehicles.
The same night, interviews with three soldiers who are seeking refugee status in Canada, where they have become minor celebrities, dominated prime time television. They are among more the than 5,000 troops that CBS’s 60 Minutes reported on Wednesday had deserted since the war began.
Many experts say that America’s 1.4 million active-duty troops and 865,000 part-timers are stretched to the point where President Bush may see other foreign policy goals blunted.
The bleed from the US military is heaviest among parttimers, who have been dragged en masse out of civilian life to serve their country with unprecedented sacrifice. For the first time in a decade, the Army National Guard missed its recruitment target this year. Instead of signing up 56,000 people, it found 51,000.
“This is something that the President and the country should be worried about,” said Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defence under Ronald Reagan and now a military analyst who opposes the war.
A further sign of strain can be seen in the Army’s decision this year to mobilise 5,600 members of a pool of former soldiers that can be mobilised only in a national emergency.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Read the whole thing. You won't believe the assanine conclusions being jumped to here. This is the type of stupid crap you'll find on DU. The fact that someone actualy paid this woman for this retarded drivel makes me angry. You simply cannot expect a military the size if the US's to be 100% perfect. It's completely irrational.
I wonder how many discontented soldiers there were during WWII as they sloughed through Europe for 4 years.
My husband was a soldier in Japan in '64. They were all discontented and not even fighting a war.
Another phony story.
I stopped reading right there, because we are fighting terrorists! and not friggin patriots or insurgents.
These scum are killing their own citizens at will.
It does not even fit a rational description of a insurgency.
As far as the military, the morale has never been better and recruiting number has fallen off in the reserve components because active duty people are not now rotating out to join the reserve as scheduled.
This crap is really irritating.
There has been reports of guys who lost an arm, or an eye ready to go back and fight along side their friends in Iraq.
Exactly!
I read yesterday this is the fifth year in a row the Army has surpassed their recruiting goals.
5,000 deserters????? I absolutely don't believe that for a minute.
Here are the WWII deserter's statistics:
As of 31 Dec 1941, the Army's strength was 1,686,403. From 1942
through 1945, Army accessions of enlisted men, warrant officers and
commissioned officers totaled 9,468,311. Of these 11 million plus
men, 21,000 were apprehended and convicted of desertion. Rate: 0.22%
Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell....
I was thinking about this 5000 number myself. I have seen some extreme America haters even quote this number slightly higher at 5,500. Where do they draw this data from?
I wish these media outlets would be made accountable for what they report.
The Army said the number of new deserters in 2004 — 2,376 — was just half the number of those who deserted prior to Sept. 11, 2001. That number was 4,597.
The numbers of deserters has dropped annually since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. The fiscal year 2004 total number of Army deserters is the lowest since before 1998, according to Army data.
Cumulatively, more than 6,000 service members from all branches have deserted the military since fiscal year 2003, when the war with Iraq began. About 3,500 military service members have deserted their jobs in the last 14 months.
"On average the number of soldiers, for example, who are classified as deserters is less than 1 percent, and the vast majority have committed some criminal act," said Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Joe Richard. "It's (generally) not for political or conscientious objector purposes. Any insinuation that large numbers of military service members have deserted in opposition to the war in Iraq when in fact desertion numbers for the Army are down since 9/11 is incredibly disingenuous."
Military desertion rates down since 2001
As usual, the British press doesn't let the facts interfere with writing a story.
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