Illegal draft: According to Congress Daily, the General Accounting Office has issued a report highly critical of the Department of Defense’s recruiting practices, citing numerous irregularities as the armed services strive to maintain the flow of fresh meat to the Iraq and Afghanistan fronts.
“Some recruiters, reportedly, have resorted to overly aggressive tactics, which can adversely affect [the Defense Department’s] ability to recruit and erode public confidence in the recruiting process,” GAO said.
Cases of wrongdoing vary widely, ranging from paperwork errors to serious allegations, such as sexual harassment, falsifying documents and concealing serious medical conditions. In May, for instance, The Oregonian reported that the Army had accepted an autistic recruit and signed him up to become a cavalry scout. The recruit has since been discharged.
Last year, allegations of wrongdoing among the military’s 22,000 recruiters grew by 50 percent over fiscal 2004 claims, while substantiated cases increased by more than 50 percent. Criminal violations, meanwhile, jumped by more than 100 percent, the GAO reported.
But perhaps more alarming, the GAO says the DoD probably doesn’t even have an accurate idea of the actual number of abuses because it has no effective way to record and track allegations and complaints. This is the third report — following two negative reports in 1997 and 1998 — that called on the DoD to clean up its act.
Perhaps the solution is for people to stop volunteering for the all-volunteer army. If George Bush had no soldiers, he could not play War. Of course, there’s always the 7th Autistic Cavalry Division to fall back on ….
Next up—some form of PRESS GANGS “legalized by “subvert er-of-the-law” Gonzalass so that “recruiters” can legally grab folks right off the street. Not to worry though: the sons and daughters of the republican party will still be granted EXEMPTIONS ala BUSH, CHENEY & Company, as well as those of the “fundamentalist Xian churches”, etc.