Will this hurt short term , long term or is it the final nail???

I don't believe any of it. All some Iraqi has to do is accuse one of our troops and the whole world believes them and publishes stuff all over the Internet and our troops aren't even given the benefit of the doubt, they are immediately arrested. Iraqi accusations seem to be unending.

 

L.E., while I respect your reasons for troop withdrawl, I disagree with them. But I agree with you here, this kind of childish nonsense has to stop. Our soldiers deserve better. I think they would get it from someone who claims to have an inside track on their ways & means.

 

I have had enough of this occupation bring the troops home. :thumbs:

 

The constant accusations against our troops seems to be an effective tool in warfare. And the wacko left is the conduit by which it flows.

 

When you recruit from the economically disadvantaged, you get some gang members and other hoodlums, along with the honorable and the proud. Sad.

 

I dont want to derail this thread but to say that gang members and hoodlums are characteristic of poor people (that is economically disadvantaged for all you PC folks) is not only incorrect, but an inappropriate sterotype.

 

I am amazed how the left wing media has jumped all over this story. And once again they have done so before an investigation has been done. This is what they do every single time there is a charge leveled at American soilders. Yet when two American soilders were butchered "certain" media sources hardly even mentioned it.

Hypocrisy or agenda? I will let you be the judge.

As for how this event affects the mission in Iraq....it does not. If an investigation shows these soilders are guilty of war crimes then they should be and will be punished. If they are guilty it must be made clear that such animal like behavior is 100% unacceptable.

 

Do you have any proof that this is the case or is this just your opinion?

 

First of all, look at any police stats and you will see crime is higher in low income areas. Google it, it isn't hard.

As for the poor and minorities being overrepresented in recruitment, there are also stats. From http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=202&Itemid=61#summary

Also from the same site:

Another set of information about how the military purposefully targets minority youth for recruitment:

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=1948

Excerpt:

Just look into the facts. The research is not that difficult. This "poverty draft" is real.

 

Nice, but none of it proves what you implied, that the Army deliberatly targets the economically disadvantaged.

Since when is $49,000 a year considered economically disadvantaged or "poor".

 

You obviously didn't cull through the source material.

 

I culled through it enough to know that this

Quote:
The military’s drive aimed at black and Latino youth is evidence of a long-standing tradition of recruiting soldiers of color to the front lines. Both groups consistently show participation and casualty rates higher than their proportion of the population.
In the early years of the Vietnam War, black soldiers suffered 23 percent of the fatalities even though they were 11 percent of the nation’s population then, according to journalist Wallace Terry.
For Latinos, 80,000 served during Vietnam, incurring about 19 percent of all casualties. At the time, Latinos made up only 4.5 percent of the total U.S. population.


Is a gross misrepresentation of the the facts. For instance, while Terry's figures are correct as near as I can tell, by the end of the war, the casualty rates of blacks was no more than their percentage of the military age black males in the general population.

The comment about Latinos being 19% of the total casualties is an outright lie. It's too far off to be an oversight or a mistake or misrepresentation.

 

Sad the following of Moore still flows on and on....let it go.

You are apparently do not work for the Department of Defense, not in the military, not a recruiter, and have not been able to let one opportunity to go by without insulting about 2/3 of the American population.

How bout this? You stay out of my bank account, my background, and my reasons for joining the military, and I wont tell you how to do whatever it is that you do? Deal?

Bet not.

 

double post

 

And you made the mistake of using an op-ed as a factual source.

Try this on for size.

From a "news" story in the Washinton Post.

"A Department of Defense study two years ago of the armed services population concluded that "both active and reserve recruits are primarily from families in the middle and lower middle socioeconomic strata." It found that soldiers from wealthier families were "not well-represented among the backgrounds of new recruits." Neither are poor households well-represented, largely because of the military's education and skill requirements."

 

Doesn't matter . . . it will get much worse for US troops over there. No matter what the original incedent and no matter what the punishment for any guilt. It will only get worse.

 

What ridiculous tangents. I don't give a hoot about your background or your reasons for joining the military, so get off your high horse. I also don't care about your bank account.

 

The material was junk . . . I served . . .

I guess you think I have to be poor, uneducated, & black.

Maybe you should have culled the material.

 

Nowhere did I make any assertions regarding you or emerald. The fact remains that the poor and minorities carry more than their share of the burden of defending the U.S. in the military. Of course they are not the only ones, nor did I ever make such an absurd statement. I am a veteran myself.