Army Reserve troops put on hot alert!

Yikes!

As I said elsewhere, conscription here we come...

These escalations are horrifying but not only Dems will be horrified. If the troops really are intended entirely for Iraq, some will say, Okay, they messed up but now they're trying to fix things -- good (as long as it is over in reasonably quick order). If there is the slightest hint that the territory will be expanded, I think there will be a bad reaction unrelated to party affiliation. Administration shooting self in both feet, all feet.

Even with president Dean in office post 2004 (fingers and toes crossed) there is just no way to continue a US commitment without conscription. Simply pulling out and leaving would be an even greater disaster. I worry that there is just enough time left before the election for one more adventure. The administration has been talking tough about Syria again. That would open up a major nest'o'rattlers in the ME, but it would go a long way toward providing the river of Israely blood that the fundys want/need for their apocolypse to happen.

But there needs to be a guarantee that we mean Iraq and only Iraq, and that we're cleaning up a Bush mess, not continuing a policy of unilateralism and imperialism.

But look how well congress has managed to safeguard this in the last two years. THey didn't want to appear "weak," so they gave him carte blanche in Iraq. I'm not sure if his "authorization" allows him to expand to wherever he desires, but I have a sneaking suspicion it does. If I recall correctly he was empowered to "fight terrorism in the Middle East in whatever way he feels will most benefit the American People."

I got the clear impression that he'd been given carte blanche.

And , sadly, I've no doubt he will (mis)use it.

From yesterday:Newsday
Published on Monday, September 15, 2003 by the Long Island (NY) Newsday
Letting the Troops Through the School Door
by Bob Keeler


For sharp-eyed parents eager to monitor everything that could hurt their kids in high school, here are two things to watch closely right now: In Iraq, young Americans are dying daily. In America, parents face a life-or-death decision about exposing their kids to military service. If parents don't act, quota-driven recruiters will soon be calling.

The recruitment situation is the result of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which promises better education - without adequate funding. As the bill evolved, a Republican member of Congress from Louisiana, David Vitter, fought to include this provision: If a school refuses to give Uncle Sam the addresses and phone numbers of its students, it can lose federal aid.

"We had heard through various sources that there were an alarming number of instances where high schools banned military recruiters from contact with their students," Vitter said. That vexed him.

Was Vitter upset because he remembers fondly his own military service? Well, no. Like many Republicans eager to send someone else's kids off to war, he did not serve in the military. He was miffed because schools shut out the military, but not colleges or businesses. He wanted a level playing field.

In his patriotic zeal, Vitter suffered some logical lapses: One, how can the military, which has a $400 billion budget and very big guns, be disadvantaged? Two, unlike the military, colleges and businesses aren't asking kids to join an organization whose primary products are killing and dying.

Ultimately, Vitter got his way, and the No Child Left Behind law contains Section 9528, which I call the No Child Left Alone provision.

To be sporting, Vitter left a loophole: If parents sign an "opt-out" form, saying they do not want their kids' names on the list, the school does not have to send the names to recruiters. But this form sometimes arrives home in a blizzard of paperwork or buried in a student handbook. If parents don't see it or neglect to sign it, they are deemed to have consented to the inclusion of their kids on the list.

An "opt-in" approach would be better. That means if parents don't sign the form, they are considered to have refused permission. But Vitter insists the law allows only the opt-out.

In Fairport, a suburb of Rochester, Superintendent William Cala used a form with two choices: to opt in or to opt out. Some recruiters complained - one of them rather menacingly. But some wrote Cala letters of thanks. Why? Well, he has 1,200 juniors and seniors, and only 43 families chose to let their names go to recruiters. Cala explained to recruiters a basic sales principle: You're better off with a list of people who really want your product than with a larger list of "cold calls" to make. So they were grateful.

On Long Island and in New York City, parents have no choice but to pay attention. Find out the deadline for signing the form. Urge school officials to adopt a notification policy that makes the consequences of this form starkly clear.

Once recruiters have this information, they won't be shy or subtle. The military is stretched thin, there's no draft, and recruiters have quotas. So they will emphasize the best points of their product (job training) and mumble inaudibly about its pitfalls (grisly death).

They'll say the military offers money for college, but they won't emphasize that only a narrow band of enlistees ever get the maximum college benefit. They'll offer assignments that teach skills useful in civilian life, but they won't give a lecture on Paragraph 9 (b) of the enlistment agreement, which makes clear that the military can change its mind at will. In fact, some former recruiters have told journalists that lying to enlistees is common.

So students should be skeptical of recruiters. To nourish that healthy skepticism, parents and students should read the book "What Every Person Should Know About War," by Chris Hedges. In flat, neutral language that relies on military field manuals, it tells the truth about war.

If someone wants to enlist out of patriotism, fine. But no one should join the military thinking it is a jobs program. It's a killing machine. So parents should keep recruiters out of the lives of their kids until they're old enough to decide wisely.

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

It has gotten so bad that the military isn't letting homosexuals out of the service, even when they "come out" to their commanding officers.

"In explaining the decision to retain Hill, Lt. Col. T.L. Miller said that homosexual conduct is grounds for separation only if the commanding officer has received 'credible evidence of such conduct.' Hill's lawyer, SLDN's Paula Neira, was informed that naval policy allowed for retaining an openly gay service member 'for the good of the service.'"

You know that things are grim when the Rumsfeldian Pentagon is holding onto gays "for the good of the service."

So much for the oft repeated phrase:
"I want out of the Army so bad I could kiss the First Sergeant!"

Anybody know Clark's stance on gays in the military?