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I have long chronicled the misinformation campaign being waged by the media in regards to US military recruiting and today the Associated Press has again offered another dubious article about recruiting.  To be fair this article is by far not the worst I have seen, but it is still pretty bad.  Check out how this article begins:

Need a down-payment for your home? Seed money to start a business? The Army wants to help — if you’re willing to join up. Despite spending nearly $1 billion last year on recruiting bonuses and ads, Army leaders say an even bolder approach is needed to fill wartime ranks. […]

An Associated Press review of the increasingly aggressive recruiting offerings found the Army is not only dangling more sign up rewards  – its loosening rules on age and weight limits, education, and drug and criminal records.

Click here to read the rest of this entry.

I have long chronicled the misinformation campaign being waged by the media in regards to US military recruiting and today the Associated Press has again offered another dubious article about recruiting.  To be fair this article is by far not the worst I have seen, but it is still pretty bad.  Check out how this article begins:

Need a down-payment for your home? Seed money to start a business? The Army wants to help — if you’re willing to join up. Despite spending nearly $1 billion last year on recruiting bonuses and ads, Army leaders say an even bolder approach is needed to fill wartime ranks. […]

An Associated Press review of the increasingly aggressive recruiting offerings found the Army is not only dangling more sign up rewards  – its loosening rules on age and weight limits, education, and drug and criminal records.

By just reading the opening paragraphs of this article you would think the Army is throwing a bunch of money to recruit elderly, obese, uneducated, criminals because of the war in Iraq.  Does this line of reasoning sound familiar?  Well it should because I have long demonstrated how the left and their media allies have been doing everything possible to label soldiers as uneducated, low life, criminals responsible for committing war crimes all over Iraq and are not worthy of the nation’s respect.  This AP article is clearly keeping in tune with this leftist narrative.  The only thing wrong with this narrative is that it is not true, but since when has the media been concerned about facts?  Perception is all that matters and this article is one in the long line of articles trying to create negative perceptions of the US military through dubious reporting.

Now after leading people on that there is a recruiting crisis due to the war in Iraq that is requiring the military to throw all this money at a bunch of elderly, obese, uneducated, criminals, the AP writer suddenly admits that the military is on track to meet this year’s recruiting goals:

In June, the Army failed to meet its recruitment target for the second month in a row, although it apparently met its goal to recruit 9,750 troops in July and is on target for 80,000 for the year that ends Sept. 30.

Notice the sneering “apparently met its goal”, no not “apparently”, the military did meet their recruiting goal.  Not only is the military on target to meet recruiting numbers for the year, but the numbers are actually above the needed percentage.  But once again since when has the media been concerned about facts?  Obviously not Kimberly Hefling from the AP who wrote this article.

So what exactly is this expensive program to throw money at obese, uneducated, low lives you may ask?  Well, just one of the best recruiting ideas since the GI Bill in my humble opinion:

The Army would like to start a pilot program targeting 500 people who might not otherwise considering joining. In the pilot, the takers who complete a 4-year enlistment would be eligible for up to $30,000 in incentives — including money for a home loan or business. Eventually, the Army wants to offer up to $45,000.

This is a fantastic idea and yet the AP writer from the start of the article has made this program out to be something that is intended to recruit obese criminals.  Since when have criminals been concerned about getting a down payment for a home?  This program is going to appeal to whole different class of people who maybe don’t want to go to college or maybe have already gone to college, but they know that in four years they could not save up the $45,000 for a down payment on a home that the Army is offering.

Instead of insinuating that this program is intended to recruit obese criminals, the AP writer should be highlighting the great ingenuity of this program, but that doesn’t fit the leftist narrative, thus readers are lead to believe obese criminals want a down payment for a home mortgage.  This is the type of ridiculousness that passes as journalism in the US now a days.

Believe it or not, the article actually gets better before it ultimately gets far worse.  More than half way through the article Hefling actually includes some facts that probably has more effects on recruiting than the Iraq War:

Beyond the Iraq war, the military says other factors have affected its ability to recruit. More high school graduates are going to college, and the economy is strong, providing lots of civilian jobs. At the same time, only three of 10 people between 17 and 24 fully meet the military’s standards.

Less obvious factors have also decreased the recruitment pool. They include higher obesity rates, more people diagnosed with mental health conditions such as attention-deficit disorder, more criminal citations due to the increase of the drinking age from 18 to 21.

“The numbers of people who meet our enlistment standards is astonishingly low,” said Michael Dominguez, principal deputy undersecretary of defense.

Wow, this seems like some pertinent information that should have been in the front of the article and not towards the end.  By reading this it is clear that this new recruiting program was designed to compete against a strong economy offering good jobs to potential recruits and not uneducated, low life criminals.

At least the AP writer actually allowed some facts to actually seep into the article which is why I said in the beginning of this posting that it wasn’t the worst posting on recruiting I have read; usually the journalists just leave out such facts all together.  This journalist just decided to bury the facts, but at least she included them.

However, not to far after actually offering some real facts, our AP writer has decided to delve back into the realm of fiction again:

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said her organization is concerned that low-income young people and minorities are targeted by recruiters and lured with promises into making decisions they would not otherwise have made.

The old recruiters are targeting poor helpless minorities claim again.  I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to keep shooting down this ficticious claim, but here I go again.  Let’s go back to the land of facts instead of conventional wisdom.  The facts are that recruiters are actually recruiting less blacks than in years past.  Guess who is taking the place of potential black recruits?  You guessed it, white recruits!  Is the AP going to write an article condemning the “targeting” of white recruits by the US military any time soon?  I think we all know the answer to this question.

What is even more ridiculous about this claim is that the military is offering low income and minority kids a college education and a down payment on a home is some how a bad thing.  I suppose Ms. Lieberman would prefer these kids go on government programs where for their whole lives they are dependent on people like her to ensure they keep getting their free hand outs.  How dare the US military do something like offer these kids a college education, a down payment on a home, job skills, and leadership training that would break this cycle of government dependence that many low income minorities find themselves in?

Of course Hefling wraps up her whole absurd article by going back to the narrative that their is a recruiting crisis caused by the Iraq War, which I have already pointed out in great detail there isn’t:

It’s not just the attitudes of young people that have seemingly shifted. In 2005, statistical surveys revealed that because of the Iraq war, adults who work with students were less likely to suggest joining the military.

“The willingness of coaches, teachers, counselors and parents to commend military service to America’s youth is lower than is good for our nation and our military,” said Dominguez, the Defense Department official.

The journalistic incompetence of the AP continues with no end in sight.

Just for the record, the facts clearly show that military recruits are smarter, increasingly middle class, (even the numbers of wealthy enlisting is up) and the number of poor and minority recruits are dropping with more whites joining and the overall numbers are nearing the make up of the average US population.

Facts are hard for the demagogues, the race baiters, and class warfare specialists to accept, but longer the War on Terror goes on, more the demographic make up of the US military is becoming a direct reflection of American society itself.  What is so bad about that?

The Chosun Ilbo has an article about the increasing amount of outsourcing for the Zaytun unit in Iraq.  I found this note about the unit quite interesting:

In October 2004, an advance team of the Zaytun Unit arrived in Irbil in northern Iraq, at the end of a 1,115 km trip under U.S. aerial protection. The location was a barren field, where soldiers faced huge difficulties. At one point, they had difficulty securing even tent cloth. They could not afford to roam about the downtown area to buy more: if any of them should be attacked by insurgents, public opinion back in the country would turn immediately against their presence in Iraq.

What is your army doing in Iraq when you are afraid to go to the local market to buy cloth?  Especially in the peaceful area of Kurdistan where they are stationed at.  US soldiers go to Kurdistan for R&R, while the ROK Army goes there to pretend they are at war.  The Korean government might as well as just outsource the entire Zaytun unit and bring them all home. 

Just for the record I have been against the Zaytun deployment since before the unit was ever deployed because I figured the unit would not be allowed to do much of anything meaningful which is evident by the fact they can’t go to the market to buy cloth.  Plus if there was a mass casualty attack or as we see with the Taliban, a pro-longed hostage crisis, the anti-US groups, politicians, and media would waste no time capitalizing on it.  Additionally, the Korean government would expect unrealistic political benefits from the dispatch. 

I’m not the only thinking this way either; Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki has already hinted that he would prefer 2,300 Korean businessmen instead of 2,300 Zaytun soldiers.  The Kurds are literally laughing at the Zaytun "occupation force".  Plus soldiers that have served in the Zaytun unit have voiced their frustrations with the deployment, which has been echoed by the Korean media as well. 

The Korean government should outsource the Zaytun mission to all the Korean Christian missionaries.  It would keep them out of Afghanistan, be a lot cheaper, and I bet they will be willing to go to the local marketplace to buy their own cloth. 

If you have not already done so make sure to read the latest posting from Michael Totten, which features an interview with an Iraqi interpreter working with US forces.  This posting is compelling and an absolute must read. 

Also, Bill Roggio has more on a major assault against Mahdi Army and Iranian agents in Sadr City that has left 30 of them dead and even more captured.

Things are stabilizing enough in Ninevah province enough that troops are beginning to be repositioned from the province:

The top U.S. general in northern Iraq said Wednesday he was redistributing troops and predicted any pullout from the country would take at least two years.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commanding general of the Multi-National Division – North and the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, said American forces could begin drawing down in the north by next year.

Mixon said Ninevah province would be closely monitored, as commanders in the region have said recently the area is becoming increasingly secure as compared to two years ago, when insurgents almost overran Mosul, the provincial capital.

General Mixon has already moved an entire infantry battalion out of Ninevah and it appears even more troops will be repositioned by the end of the year.  General Mixon expects that sometime next year only US air support will be required for the Iraqi forces in the province. 

The article also goes on to explain how General Mixon used his own version of the Anbar Awakening to gain the participation of local tribes in improving the security situation in Ninevah:

Some of the general’s northern commanders have begun experimenting with a new strategy of combating elements like al-Qaida in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq. They have enlisted some residents who previously fought American soldiers to provide “security contracts” to guard critical resources.

“We’ve talked with the local sheiks, who the people recognize, and said, ‘Hey, we want to conduct a security contract with you to secure this particular stretch of highway or this particular (oil) pipeline, or whatever — just like a security company,” he said.

“We’re not going to arm them, and we’re not in the business of doing that.”

He said that was up to the sheiks.

Mixon went on to say that the pact is only being conducted on a short-term, trial basis until it is determined how the groups perform under the agreements. In the meantime, they are able to gather all of the recruits’ personal data, even conducting retinal scans. The contracts, which have already gotten under way, will range from about 90 to 180 days.

“For them, it is about providing employment to them, really, at the end of the day, so they aren’t out there seeking their employment by way of placing [a roadside bomb],” Mixon said.

These contracts first of all employ people and secondly they also give the tribes a stake in improving security in their country.  The next big challenge will be integrating the tribal forces into the Iraqi security forces, but the "Awakening" movements taking place across Iraq are having an overall cumulative effect in improving the security situation in the country, that now not even the mainstream media can deny. 

I highly recommend that every read Michael Yon’s two latest postings:

Bread and a Circus Part 1
Bread and a Circus Part 2

These two postings are a perfect example of the little things that is going to win this war that the mainstream media has totally missed. 

Today is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. There is much controversy centering around whether the US should of dropped the atomic bomb on Japan to end World War II. In this series of postings I will discuss this issue along with providing the historical context that went into the decision to use nuclear weapons.

From the Trinity Site to Hiroshima

The first nuclear weapon was tested at the Trinity Site on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico at 5:29:45 a.m. Mountain Time on July 16, 1945. The 19 kiloton bomb was put on a 100 foot steel tower and exploded, causing what witnesses said, the sun to rise twice that day.

I have actually visited the Trinity Site on the White Sands Missile Range which is open to the public only twice a year. One girder of the original tower remains, the rest was evaporated, and the sand below the explosion was turned into a emerald green colored glass called Trinitite. Visitors are told not to pick it up because the glass is still radioactive.

Trinitite lying in the sand.

This is the memorial at the center of the Trinity Site.

The MacDonald Ranch house is where the nuclear bomb was assembled and also served as home to the scientists during the assembly phase of the nuclear bomb. When it came time to test the bomb the house was vacated, but some how the house survived the nuclear explosion:

The MacDonald farmhouse about 3 kilometers from the Trinity Site.

What makes the house’s survival more amazing is that structures around the farmhouse were leveled by the bomb:

But even more amazing then the house surviving is that this windmill some how survived:

This same phenomenon of singular structures remaining while others were completely obliterated by the bomb would happen again the next month in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

Hiroshima after the bombing in 1945

Hiroshima was a city of military importance. The city contained the headquarters of the Fifth Division and the 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was also a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for the Japanese military. There was military justification for the attack to go along with the perceived need of the US leadership to break the will of the Japanese people by destroying an entire city. The weather was good, and the crew and equipment of the Enola Gay B-29 aircraft piloted and commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets, took off to bomb their primary target of Hiroshima. The Enola Gay dropped the nuclear bomb called “Little Boy” over the central part of the city. It exploded about 600 meters (2,000 feet) above the city, killing initially an estimated 80,000 civilians. The radiation poisoning would claim twice as many lives as the initial bombing.

Today Hiroshima is a thriving city that has a deep memory of the tragedy of August 6, 1945. The city has erected a museum and memorial to mourn the victims of the atomic bombing. It is almost hard to believe today that Hiroshima was the site of an atomic bombing:

Hiroshima today is a thriving city.

Next Posting: Remembering Nagasaki

The last of the soldiers involved in the 2006 rape and murder of an Iraqi family has been convicted:

A military jury found a soldier guilty of rape and murder in the slayings of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family, despite testimony that cast doubt on his involvement.

Jurors deliberated much of Friday evening before convicting Army Pfc. Jesse Spielman, 22, of conspiracy to commit rape, rape, housebreaking with intent to commit rape and four counts of felony murder.

He faces a mandatory life sentence when a sentencing hearing begins Saturday. The jury will decide if he will be eligible for parole.

There actually one former soldier, Steven Green that is still waiting to go to court in Kentucky.  He is the alleged ring leader and the person that murdered the family.  He faces the death penalty and should rightfully receive it if convicted. 

The media has been splashing headlines for over a year about these disgraceful criminals while at the same time ignoring soldiers like Captain Brennan Goltry who deserve headlines:

It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot. And it wasn’t the first time he’d led his men through an ambush.

But, for the actions he took on one particular moonlit night in Samarra in February, Capt. Brennan Goltry has been marked as a hero. Goltry was awarded the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts and the Combat Infantryman Badge in a ceremony Tuesday at a small combat outpost in a city still very much in the middle of the fight.

Read the whole thing, but thank goodness for the Stars & Stripes because they regularly publish stories about American heroes that the main stream media would rather ignore and pretend does not exist.  However, great soldiers and Americans like CPT Goltry do exist and populate the ranks of the military at a vastly higher percentage than the cretins involved in the 2006 murders. 

TFM has a great update on the fall out from the fraudulent article in The New Republic.  Can TNR possibly look anymore pathetic than they do now?  Well yes because "Scott Thomas" has been revealed and just happens to be married to a TNR staffer. What a tangled web some people weave. More at TFM and Ace. 

The Army Emergency Relief (AER) program is a non-profit that basically funded by donations from soldiers.  I contribute money into it every month.  The AER program uses the money to offer money to soldiers for emergency reasons.  The most often reason in Korea is for money for soldiers to buy a plane ticket to fly back home due to death or illness in the family.  AER will then decide whether to give a soldier a loan or an outright grant depending on the income status. 

As usual one scumbag has found a way to ruin a good program:

An Army staff sergeant was sentenced to one year of confinement and a bad-conduct discharge Thursday after admitting he helped scam an Army relief program and soldiers under his command out of $6,000.

Staff Sgt. Shane R. Martin, 40, admitted in a general court-martial that since fall of 2005 he had helped three soldiers get money from Army Emergency Relief, an organization dedicated to helping soldiers in need. Then, he asked each of the three soldiers for a cut, he said under oath.

This guy was in cahoots with an AER employee to get soldiers to apply for a loan for reasons such as because a family is suffering from Hurricane Katrina related problems and then the AER official would give out the money and cut it three ways.  I have to wonder how long this scam has been going on and how many more people have been getting away with it?  There is obviously very little checks and balances in place if such a fraud could so easily take place.