US Military Replete With Criminals?

[JSJ]

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/657439281.html?did=657439281&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=Jul+1%2C+2004&author=Ken+Silverstein&desc=THE+NATION%3B+Pentagon+Alerted+to+Trouble+in+Ranks%3B+Reports+over+a+decade+have+warned+of+recruits+with+criminal+pasts+and+of+the+violent+behavior+of+some+active-duty+service+members.

It costs to download the full article from the Times'archive, so I included the salient facts from the article reposted at another site.

THE NATION; Pentagon Alerted to Trouble in Ranks; Reports over a decade have warned of recruits with criminal pasts and of the violent behavior of some active-duty service members.;
Ken Silverstein. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Jul 1, 2004. pg. A.1

Subjects: Studies, Violence, Prisoner treatment, Torture, Iraq War-2003, Military policy, Military recruitment, Criminals
Locations: United States, US, Iraq
Companies: Department of Defense (NAICS: 928110 )
Article types: News
Dateline: WASHINGTON
Section: Main News; Part A; National Desk
ISSN/ISBN: 04583035
Text Word Count 1502

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon was warned repeatedly going back a decade that it was accepting military recruits with criminal histories and was too lenient with those already in uniform who exhibited violent or other troubling behavior.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[fishface]

1. I'd be forced to say no. Like any other organization, they have

a small number of certified wackjobs that manage to get in but for the most part they're good kids trying to do a dirty job that the Texas Turd sent them to do.The problem is when you take 18-19 year old kids and give them the power of like and death. Like they said back in Nam..there's nothing more deadly than an 18 year old kids with an M-16 that's scared and pissed iff.

[JSJ]

2. Times' Reportage Shows 30% Have Criminal Backgrounds

That's not exactly a 'small number of certified wackjobs'.

[fishface]

4. Perhaps I should have said normally..

Bush has stretched the military so far that they're taking anyone that can walk and chew gum these days. It was like that back in the early 70's. Judges were giving guys the option of prison or the military and the military was more than happy to take any warm bodies they could get thier hands on. We had some real winners in the Navy back then. Guys that could barely write their name and lots of criminals and useless dreck.

[JSJ]

6. yeah, judges do that... it's called an adjudicated referral...

...and it happens quite often. The military, doing it's part, offers moral waivers to it's recruits with criminal backgrounds or other questionable histories.

[izzie]

10. I tend to think like you.

In all groups of people this age you find the ones that will not do as told. I would think it better now because their is no draft but then it could be the same percent that do bad things. I just do not know how that has worked out. Between childhood and adults, where so many of these young people are, you get some wild actions. They are really not sure what they wish to do with their lives yet and we are saying you are to kill people.Yet I would say all through history the young has fought the wars.

[Radical Activist]

3. You've got a lot of nerve

asking me if I'm mentally fit to burn villages and kill women and babies because I was arrested for being a litter bug.

[JSJ]

5. i get your point...

...but I think the Times' piece was talking about criminal offenses rather than misdemeanors.

I'm guessing here, but a conviction for demonstrating or protesting (outside a free speech zone) would probably render the 'miscreant' unfit for military duty in the eyes of the military.

[JSJ]

7. "I enjoy killing Iraqis," says Staff Sgt. William Deaton...

"These guys grew up with video games," says Maj. John Hamilton, 50, an Army chaplain stationed in southern Iraq, where he counsels troops. "They've seen thousands of people die on TV. They're already numb. It scares me that some take delight in combat".

"It did not bother me at all to see those bodies up close," McBride says later. "I'm a warrior. You're either born to this or you're not.

"My soldiers, they are all warriors. They have no problems. I don't let them have problems. There is no place in this Army for men who aren't warriors."

"I'm a Christian. I feel I'm saving my soldiers' lives by destroying as many enemy as I can. But at the end of each day, I pray to God. I worry about my soul," he says.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=12&u=/latimests/20040718/ts_latimes/enemycontactkillemkillem

Does the government deliberately recruit from a criminal underclass?

[JSJ]

8. "So, once again, we've exported the troubled American underbelly,...

...our scary, marginal, unsocialized, backwoods economic refugees, to another country. Once again, a war has exposed America's character flaw- we are a nation of casual degradations... Once again, a war is turning American innocents and crypto-criminals alike into 'Apocoplypse Now' creatures". -Michael Wolff, writing in the July, 2004 Vanity Fair

[JSJ]

9. a 'we need to face the facts kick'

[neebob]

11. The military is a haven for sociopaths

but then the world is full of them. They're just attracted to certain jobs. It's a no-brainer, like if you were a pedophile, where would you go ... or if you were a necrophiliac, where would you work. If you were a person who enjoyed violence and danger and had a penchant for violating others' rights, where would you look for a job? If you have a record, they're probably not going to let you be a cop or a corrections officer. That leaves the military and the spook agencies. Or you could be a bounty hunter. Or a repo man, but they don't give you a gun for that.

[JSJ]

14. you said it, neebob- and i do agree n/t

[Moderator]

12. JSJ

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.

DU Moderator

[gratuitous]

13. Don't get out the broad brush

I know, startling coming from me. But the military in all countries and in all times has been a place for troubled young men to go to try to get their act together. Some of them actually do improve in the structured environment of the military. Some of them quietly go nucking futs; some not so quietly.

But the combination of increased poverty, cracking down on crime, and cutting off funding for advanced education has left a lot of young men and women with no alternatives but the military. Gulled by recruiters with rosy promises of easy duty, advanced training, and eventual money to attend college, these people sign up. They find out the duty is not so easy, the training somewhat less than advanced, and once their obligation is fulfilled (or nearly fulfilled), that the money for college is suddenly unavailable: they lied on their application, or had a bogus disciplinary write-up at the last moment, or the rug is pulled from under them in some other fashion.

Perhaps instead of pouring over a billion dollars out of the Treasury every single day on defense, we could invest that money in scholarships, youth centers, schools, infrastructure development and repair, health care, and about a thousand other uses that benefit society more, and give us more of a return on our invested dollar?

[JSJ]

15. thanks, gratuituous- so, should we continue to give tacit approval...

...to an organization that welcomes, nay, encourages the recruitment of troubled young men into it's ranks- and by doing so, are we not, ourselves, giving encouragement, not only to young men dead set on killing 'enemies', but to the whole stinking system that takes pre-service criminals and plops them down with personal weapon systems in tow into the hearts of vulnerable and basically defenseless nations such as Iraq and Afhanistan? Instead, shouldn't we be withholding from those who join any sort of praise that might encourage future troubled young men from joining up?