Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 10. december 2004 / Time Line December 10, 2004
Version 3.59. December 2004, 11. December 2004
12/10/2004
Over 5,000 US Servicemen Have Deserted Iraqi War
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={85A38B02-BB25-4F9D-8EE9-5A959B4F00F4}&language=EN
Washington, (Prensa Latina) More than 5,000 US troops have
deserted the US armed forces since the US invasion of Iraq started
in March 2003, some of them afraid of being sent to the Arab nation
and others reluctant to commit a second mission in the Iraqi war
stage, the CBS news service reported Friday.
According to the CBS, quoting a Defense Department report, several
deserters left the Army or Marine Corps rather than going to
Iraq.
Like a generation of deserters before them, they have sought
political refugee in Canada, afraid of returning to the US
territory and being a target of Pentagon"s reprisals.
During the war in Vietnam, about 55,000 American soldiers Americans
deserted to Canada. Ottawa simply welcomed them.
However, Canadian law has changed since the Vietnam era. Today"s
American deserters will need to convince a Canadian immigration
board that they are political refugees.
12/10/2004
Recruiting At Any Cost : How The Pentagon Keeps The New Recruits
Coming
by Natasha Saulnier
- http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1210-20.htm
With the number of American casualties in Iraq increasing daily for
a war that now even Sec. of State Colin Powell believes is lost, it
may come as a surprise that recruitment rates are still up. The
Pentagon reports that for the year 2004, its 15,000 recruiters have
already recruited over 212,000 people, surpassing its goal of
210,000, at a cost of $ 14,000 per recruit, and Marine Staff
Sergeant Mark Ayalin at Quantico Recruiting Command confirms,
“Recruitment figures haven't been affected by the situation
in Iraq at all.”
This triumphant stance conceals a more grim reality. In its 2003
Government Accounting Office (GAO) Report, the Pentagon stated that
“convincing young adults to join the military has become more
difficult.” At the same time, the Department of
Defense’s budget for recruiting reached a record $4 billion
for the fiscal year 2003 according to a Government Accounting
Office report, and the portion of that budget devoted to
advertising nearly doubled in the past five years, from $299
million in 1998 to $592 million in 2003. In the same period, the
Army alone increased its advertising spending by 73 percent to $197
million, and the Air Force the same budget by 395 percent to $90.5
million. The advertising cost per new enlisted recruit has nearly
tripled from $640 in 1990 to almost $1,900 last year...
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