This video from the USA is called Before You Enlist! (updated).
From Aaron Belkin’s blog in the USA:
Felons, But Not Gays
The New York Times and Associated Press reported today that the number of felons allowed to serve in the military has surged since the invasion of Iraq nearly four years ago.
The data, which were obtained by the Michael D. Palm Center at UC-Santa Barbara, show that both the military is letting in more recruits with serious criminal backgrounds, records of drug abuse, inferior educational attainment and other qualities which require a so-called “moral waiver” to allow young Americans to don a military uniform and deploy to the frontlines.
It is a measure of how desperate our armed forces are to fill their ranks with bodies to fight in an increasingly unpopular war. (The data are posted at palmcenter.org) …
The problem is that the Pentagon’s current personnel policy is utterly irrational.
Under its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, it has fired over 11,000 capable troops, including nearly 1000 considered mission-critical and over 300 foreign linguists, just because they’re gay.
See also here.
Contrary to gays (see also here), not just convicts, but also nazis, middle aged people, and others who used to be not welcome, are now welcome in the armed forces due to the shortage of cannon fodder.
US General Pace against gays: here.
Iraq war and US Congress: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
*Need more recruits for Iraq? Take more criminals*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Wed Feb 14, 2007 8:50 am (PST)
I am all for giving rehabilitated criminals a second chance in life, but
I think it is beginning to look as if we are acquiring an army made up
of too many people on whom the army has compromised its former standards.
Now, people who formerly would have been excluded for having low IQs, or
criminal records, or mental problems are welcomed into the army ONLY
because the army has not been able to meet its quotas without them.
This makes me very nervous, because we are sending people into dangerous
and difficult situations in foreign lands — where they represent
America — and where soldiers have to make quick and difficult
decisions, and I question whether some of these new recruits will be
able to make good choices.
Can men with a history of criminal violence and assault be trusted —
when they are in explosive situations — to treat strangers in a foreign
land with great tact and decency, or will they revert to violent tendencies?
I find this very worrisome.
This is all occurring because many young people do not like what is
going on in Iraq and do not trust Bush and Cheney to make wise decisions
for the military — and will not enlist
So, Bush and Cheney cannot get enough enlistees using the higher
standards and, in any normal time, a president in that situation would
rely on a draft to raise an army.
But Bush and Cheney KNOW the streets would fill with hundreds of
thousands of angry young men protesting the war — as occurred during
the Vietnam war — and they cannot withstand that, since they (Bush and
Cheney) are already held in such low regard by this nation.
———————————————————-
**Need more recruits for Iraq? Take more criminals**
/by Tim Grieve
Salon.com
Feb. 14, 2007/
The U.S. Army exceeded
its recruitment goals
for
January, the eighth month in a row in which it has hit the numbers
expected of it. One reason for this newfound success? The Army is
accepting more and more recruits with criminal histories.
As the New York Times
reports, the number of criminal-background “waivers” granted to recruits
has grown by about 65 percent in the last three years. The Times says
that the “sharpest increase” has come in waivers for “serious
misdemeanors” — crimes like aggravated assault, burglary, robbery and
vehicular homicide.
The good news: As the Times explains, “soldiers with criminal histories
made up only” — only! — “11.7 percent of the Army recruits in 2006.”
Read this WITH LINKS at:
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/02/14/army/index.html
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*squandered, by this criminally incompetent president.*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:46 am (PST)
As low as my opinion of Bush had been, and was in the days leading up to
his invasion of Iraq, even I could not have imagined how CRIMINALLY
INCOMPETENT he would be in waging war.
In fact, I assumed he would “do” war well, since he lusted after it so
enthusiastically.
I assumed he got up each morning, looked in the mirror and saw General
Patton or Napoleon, or some such conquering hero of yesteryear.
I assumed that Cheney and Rumsfeld — with their years, if not decades
of national and foreign affairs experience — would wage war
intelligently and successfully.
I assumed there was a plan for holding and occupying Iraq once the
military victory was secured.
I was wrong.
But, if I was wrong in my assumptions, at least I woke up to the cold
reality that we had CRIMINALLY INCOMPETENT men leading our country What
is the excuse for the millions of Americans who saw how CRIMINALLY
INCOMPETENT Bush and his bunch were and YET re-elected that gang in 2004?
And yet, to this day, NO ONE has asked Bush to utter those magic words,
regarding his invasion and destruction of Iraq: “I made a mistake.”
Only Hillary Clinton has her toes held to the fire to utter the magic
word, mistake.
And, if she ever utters that magic word, is there a sane person left in
this country who actually believes Hillary’s detractors will let it go
with that?
Ha.
Next, they will be pounding her to say she was “stupid” to have ever
voted for the war.
Or, that she is incorrigibly dense to have voted authorizing Bush to GO
TO THE UNITED NATIONS to get authorization to invade Iraq … which is
what she thought she was authorizing. She was very specific, in casting
her vote, that diplomacy and United Nations authorization were what she
wanted — and that she hoped force would not be used, unless there was
no other way to disarm Saddam Hussein of the weapons she believed the
intelligence indicated he had.
Well, we now know the intelligence was falsified by the Bush gang, that
Bush knew his gang was hyping the intelligence, that he withheld that
knowledge from the American people and Congress, and that Bush and his
gang were determined to invade Iraq and kill Saddam Hussein.
There’s one more word we need to discuss here and that is NUANCE.
I heard the man at Hillary’s New Hampshire rally insist that she NOT
employ “nuance.”
Why?
When did “nuance” become a dirty word … a slur?
Have the “black and white,” “you’re with us or you’re against us” years
of the Bush insanity deprived us of shades of gray in our national dialogue?
Is nuance dead and all we have left is certainty, the extremes of black
and white?
Is compromise a bad thing?
Is compromise dead?
This nation was founded on compromise.
And there is one more issue we need to deal with, and that is: Do we
have some reasonable right to expect our president to be at least
minimally competent, even if not great? Do we have a right to expect
that our president and his team will NOT send men into battle — in the
fourth year of a war — without sufficient armor and weapons?
Because that is exactly what Bush is doing right now — he is sending
the “surge” troops over to the Iraq battle zones without sufficient
protective armor, and Bush will NOT have that armor until next summer.
Now, that is CRIMINAL INCOMPETENCE.
Bush is so spoiled that he treats the presidency and the wars he starts
as if it’s all one grand frat party and loads of fun for all. Well, it’s
not fun for those whose lives are on the line or for those whose lives
have been squandered, yes, squandered, by this criminally incompetent
president.
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Guardian Article
Posted by: “jackholman@juno.com” jackholman@juno.com
Sat Feb 17, 2007 8:18 am (PST)
Fissiparous evangelical Christians are now being reunited by hatred, says Giles Fraser
Saturday February 17, 2007
The Guardian
Apparently, it’s agreed by all that the current row over gay bishops is threatening to shatter the Anglican Communion. I think almost the opposite is going on. Sure, there’s a crisis at the top. And the American church may yet be expelled for its theological liberalism. But alongside all this – indeed precisely because of it – there’s emerging a new style of confident and unified global Anglicanism brought together by a shared antipathy to liberal values and gay sex. Not only has the present row raised the profile of the communion, it’s also brought about an unholy togetherness among conservatives
Evangelical Christians are always falling out with each other, splitting to form new churches and splitting again – all sides denouncing the others as having betrayed the true gospel. Monty Python got it spot-on: it’s the People’s Front of Judea versus the Judean People’s Front. The only thing that can reunite the factions is something they all hate more than they hate each other. The idea of a gay bishop in faraway New Hampshire is an enormously useful tool of unity for otherwise fractious conservatives. They purchase their togetherness with the suffering of gay Christians, especially in places such as Nigeria, where the church is egging on a violent and aggressive homophobia. It’s textbook scapegoating.
And once they have raised the threat level, they can begin to settle old scores. Again and again, evangelical bishops are popping up to declare theological martial law, insisting with glee that now is the time to prune liberals from the church. They know that neither the church nor marriage is under threat by what two Christian men or two Christian women might just happen to do with their bits in the privacy of their bedroom. No, this is all about church politics. For hard-core evangelicals, this manufactured crisis is a golden opportunity to create new rules to oust the progressive voice from the church, perhaps even to crown Archbishop Peter Akinola as, de facto, the new Anglican pope. Thus evangelicals have a vested interest in keeping an atmosphere of crisis going as long as possible. The best way to mount a coup is to get everybody panicky and confused – and then emerge as a strong leader, the only one able to impose order. Bishops and archbishops have always been keen to insist that Anglicanism doesn’t end at Dover. The former archbishop, George Carey, may have been sniggered at in England, but on trips abroad crowds of cheering Anglicans would greet him at the airport. Little wonder the higher-ups have always loved the communion, the way the Queen loves the Commonwealth. It’s no coincidence: for the communion is little more than the Commonwealth at prayer, the spiritual by-product of British imperialism. There are good theological reasons for the church to see itself as global, such as the promotion of the millennium development goals. And Rowan Williams may be right in arguing that membership of a 78-million-strong organisation gives Christians in places such as Rwanda a voice they would otherwise not have. But there are bad reasons too. For the communion allows bishops of crisis-stricken dioceses to get on a plane and reinvent themselves as players on the world stage. Many parishes see less and less of their bishops as they clock up the air miles. In the traditional Church of England, the parish is the unit that matters to most worshippers. And at the level of the parish, the crisis in global Anglicanism is irrelevant. While bishops and archbishops squabble and plot, the local church gets on with saying its prayers and caring for the needy. These faithful are now being badly let down by their leadership.
The Rev Dr Giles Fraser is the vicar of Putney
giles.fraser@btinternet.com
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41% Percent of Your 2006 Taxes Go to War
Posted by: “bigraccoon” bigraccoon@earthlink.net redwoodsaurus
Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:40 am (PST)
41% Percent of Your 2006 Taxes Go to War
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=2336&issue_id=18
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