A recent editorial in the Houston Chronicle raised concerns about how the standards for enlistment in the U.S. armed forces have seemed to erode in recent years as the all-volunteer military has sought to keep up with the demands foisted upon them by the Bush war machine:
As casualties rise and the Bush administration moves to place more American soldiers in harm’s way in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the overextended military is lowering its standards to recruit more service members from the dwindling pool of volunteers. Since the beginning of the Iraq war, the military has offered larger cash bonuses at enlistment, loosened age and weight restrictions and allowed more low-testing applicants and high-school dropouts to enlist.
But a new study, using data obtained from the Pentagon through Freedom of Information requests, reveals that the military is now granting waivers that allow more recruits with criminal records, including felony convictions, to join the services, particularly the Army and Marine Corps. [full text]
Not to be outdone, the Navy has broadened its standards for enlistment to include—are you ready for this?—other species! The Washington Post has the story:
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. — If they are allowed to police parts of Puget Sound, this is how Navy-trained dolphins and sea lions are expected to nab terrorists in wetsuits:
Using its sonar, a dolphin locates a swimmer approaching Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, where Trident submarines with long-range nuclear missiles are based. Swimming through the water in spurts of up to 30 mph, the dolphin seeks out and bumps the swimmer with a “nose cup.” The device releases a strobe that rises to the surface. An armed Navy security team speeds toward the flashing light.
Alternatively, a sea lion collars swimmers around the piers of the naval base. Sea lions have excellent underwater hearing and, with their large eyes, can see underwater five times as well as people. Carrying a C-shaped leg cuff in its mouth, a sea lion dives, approaches the swimmer from behind and snaps the cuff around one ankle.
Swimmers participating in the training exercises often do not know where the cuff came from and almost never see the sea lion, the Navy says. After the cuffing, the sea lion darts away and a security officer uses a rope to haul in the swimmer.
“This is a mature technology and has been used on a bunch of occasions,” said Tom LaPuzza, a spokesman in San Diego for the Navy’s Marine Mammal Program, which announced last week that it wants to deploy dolphins and sea lions in Puget Sound.
To bring its technology north, however, the Navy must finesse its way around climatological, legal and political obstacles.
The water in Puget Sound is at least 10 degrees cooler than Atlantic bottlenose dolphins are used to in San Diego or in their native Gulf waters. So when the Navy tried to bring the dolphins north in 1989 and 1993, judges in Seattle agreed with animal rights groups that the dolphins might be harmed. One judge ordered the Navy not to move the dolphins until it studied the health consequences.
And public attitudes in the area toward the use of marine mammals for military purposes are downright icy. [full text]
Kmareka.com 