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To: alanrs who wrote (218727)	9/6/2007 8:16:20 AM
From: JDN	Respond to of 793759

I am not suggesting what I am going to post below, but I am posting to point out that in this country we have many school districts trying to restrict or even end military recruiting on campus while our potential advesaries are just the opposite. Is America getting TOO SOFT to survive in the future? Seems to me we have to ask that question. jdn Wednesday, September 5, 2007 12:41 PM Article Font Size Primary school students carry the Chinese national flag as they attend the opening ceremony of a youth military school on July 30, 2007 in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China. (Getty) China has greatly expanded a youth military training program and will provide compulsory training this year to 50 million children as young as 9 years of age, an exclusive USA Today investigation reveals. The training takes place at camps run by the People’s Liberation Army and is aimed at promoting teamwork and sacrifice in boys and girls from age 9 to 18, who for the most have been growing up without siblings due to China’s one-child limit for couples. The program is cloaked in secrecy. A military official confiscated a USA Today reporter’s camera when the journalist visited a training camp in the city of Wenzhou. Young people in the camps are taught self-defense and study advanced weaponry, including American Black Hawk helicopters and aircraft carriers, USA Today reports. College students began receiving mandatory military training in the mid-1980s, and state-run camps for teens and pre-teens were first established in 2001. The program was expanded dramatically this year. Because of the one-child policy, most Chinese young people have six adults – two parents and two sets of grandparents – doting on them. The training program is designed not so much to impart military know-how as to provide an experience that “will help prevent these children from being too selfish and conceited as their parents spoil them,” child psychologist Liu Zhe of the Beijing Institute of Medical Psychology told USA Today. But the expansion of the youth training program is another move that has raised concerns in the U.S. about China’s military and plans for the future: China’s military spending rose 17.8 percent this year, the largest annual increase in more than a decade. The budget for China’s 2.3 million-man army – the largest standing army in the world – is officially $45 billion. But in June, Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and the Pentagon charged that China was intentionally understating its military spending, and Skelton said the actual figure was between $85 billion and $125 billion. China only recently agreed to provide basic information about its military budget and weapons purchases to the United Nations after declining to do so for more than a decade. The Pentagon said this week that computer hackers gained access to an e-mail system in the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The report came after the Financial Times newspaper quoted officials as saying that Chinese army hackers broke into a Defense Department network in June and removed data. The German magazine Der Spiegel recently reported that Chinese hackers had also invaded computers at four German ministries, infecting them with spy programs. German officials reportedly believed the hackers could be associated with the People’s Liberation Army. A report from the Defense Intelligence Agency disclosed that the Chinese army was operating more than 2,000 front companies inside the U.S. as of early 2002. One such company, China United Airlines, is actually owned by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. A Pentagon report in 2004 cited China as a major threat to U.S. national security, and noted that China’s growing military capability and predatory economic policy is aimed directly at the U.S. According to a June report in the Washington Times, China is supplying the Taliban with advanced weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, to be used to kill Americans.

To: alanrs who wrote (218727)	9/6/2007 11:39:05 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793759

% wise i think we have less living in poverty than ever. the programs like medicaid , charities, other federal state programs.. health care for kids provided by states, food banks, i think we do a pretty good job. some people just do not want to work. some people are unemployable that do want to work but zero skills including manual labor, some people have mental disorders etc. school systems in this country is based on real estate taxes and if you got money you pay for the best qualified teachers. these kids have a better chance to get an education. However, it blocks out kids from center city, trailer parks outside the districts and with poorly rated teachers. kids that may not have grown up with any direction at home and for the first time they are expected to take orders is when they arrived at school. mostly imo it is lack of family , single parent working all day, no dad, no parents , living in the streets for the most part and no one cares. your other problem is strong teacher associations which will not dismiss unqualified teachers. i can remember back in 50's even hearing of a teacher who used to drunk just about every day,, fell asleep giving his classes.. He was never disciplined.. you could just imagine what the situations are today. no child left behind , is meeting standards so parents can at least see their child learn to read and write.. if only how to do those exams. To complain they are not exposed to civic affairs is a tragedy. we should spend all day in class teaching english and writing and math. at least the kid has a chance to support himself down the road with the ability to read, write and do basic math.