Pentagon finds it harder & harder to recruit

Across the nation, from city to country, from urban to rural areas, the U.S. Imperial Army is finding it harder and harder to meet its recruitment targets.

While the corporate media like to call it “a volunteer army,� in truth, many young people opt for the Army out of sheer economic necessity. They also often do so because they've been promised the moon by Army recruiters, who tell them things like, “We'll give you up to $70,000 for college!� or, “You won't have to go to Iraq!�

Like high-pressure salesmen, recruiters must get the old John Henry on a contract, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In 2004, the National Guard fell short of its quota by 13 percent. The Reserve is down 10 percent, and the Army fell behind some 27 percent in February.

Parents are quietly steering their children away from an increasingly unpopular war, where they may be killed or maimed. There is also the undeniable factor of the raging Iraqi resistance.

People know, now by the millions, that the U.S. isn't in Iraq to “bring freedom,� as King George so blithely states.

While largely ignored by the corporate press, demonstrations are happening all across the country, in high schools and on college campuses, against military recruitment.

It’s also true that much of this recruiting is among young people of color; Black and Latino, working-class kids; those with the least economic prospects are targeted with promises of money for college and vocational training. The promise of four years for a livelihood seems quite attractive.

But, in fact, many young people will be bound for eight years--not four--if the administration declares such a necessity. Many of the people who lost their eyesight, their limbs, their very lives in Iraq were actually past their due dates.

Remember the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002? A little-known section of the law required “all� public high schools to deliver personal contact data on juniors and seniors to military recruitment officers.

It kinda gives a whole new meaning to “No Child Left Behind�--doesn't it?

Interestingly, the nation's private schools, where the economic elite are educated, are not subject to that law.

Hundreds of students at San Francisco State and University of California-Santa Cruz marched against Army, Navy and Marine recruiters, kicking them out of their annual job fair.

The protests that opened this war may have dissipated when it came to later mass demonstrations. But that obviously doesn't mean that people are not deeply opposed to this mad adventure in Iraq.

Even the corporate media's polls show a majority of respondents feel Iraq simply wasn't worth it. That number will only grow.

In times of war, governments try to advance their most noxious brand of

repression; yet people always find ways to resist.

That resistance must grow until it gives voice to a true, solid anti-imperialism that washes away the corporate political elites that use ruinous wars for private profits.

This war isn't a war against terrorism; it's a war for Halliburton, for Bechtel, for Lockheed-Martin and the oil giants.

It's not a war for freedom, but for un-freedom; for more government control, and less freedom for every American.

It seems that this simple truth is getting through.