The NYT - All the News that's fit to Print - from a liberally
biased Provda angle. IOW not the whole story, just their
intentional left wing slant minus any facts that run counter
to their porpaganda.
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COMPARE AND CONTRAST
Kerry Spot
[jim geraghty reporting][12/17 09:43 AM]
The New York Times today reports on recruitment problems in the National Guard.
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In the latest signs of strains on the military from the war in Iraq, the Army National Guard announced on Thursday that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the last two months and would offer new incentives, including enlistment bonuses of up to $15,000...
General Blum said the main reason for the Army National Guard's recruiting shortfall was a sharp reduction in the number of recruits joining the Guard and Reserve when they leave active duty. In peacetime the commitment means maintaining their ties to the military with a weekend of service a month and two weeks in the summer.
Over the last 30 years, General Blum said, the Guard has counted on these soldiers with prior military service for about half of its recruits. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, many of these soldiers have been hesitant to join the Guard because of the increasing likelihood that America's citizen-soldiers will be activated and sent to Iraq or Afghanistan for up to 12 months. Indeed, many of the active-duty soldiers the Army would like to enlist in the Reserves have recently fought in Afghanistan or Iraq, and some have no inclination to do so again.
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No one would deny that this is worth reporting - or even that it doesn't deserve the front-page treatment. But the Pentagon unveiled some other interesting data recently, and the Times didn't seem to think it was newsworthy. The UPI yesterday:
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The number of annual military desertions is down to the lowest level since before 2001, according to the Pentagon.
The Army said the number of new deserters in 2004 — 2,376 — was just half the number of those who deserted prior to Sept. 11, 2001. That number was 4,597.
The numbers of deserters has dropped annually since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. The fiscal year 2004 total number of Army deserters is the lowest since before 1998, according to Army data.
Cumulatively, more than 6,000 service members from all branches have deserted the military since fiscal year 2003, when the war with Iraq began. About 3,500 military service members have deserted their jobs in the last 14 months.
"On average the number of soldiers, for example, who are classified as deserters is less than 1 percent, and the vast majority have committed some criminal act," said Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Joe Richard. "It's (generally) not for political or conscientious objector purposes. Any insinuation that large numbers of military service members have deserted in opposition to the war in Iraq when in fact desertion numbers for the Army are down since 9/11 is incredibly disingenuous."
nationalreview.com |
