The Army's wartime recruiting challenge is aggravated by a sharp drop in black enlistments in the last four years, which internal Army and Defense Department polls trace to an unpopular war in Iraq and concerns among blacks with Bush administration policies. The Army strains to meet recruiting goals in part because black volunteers have fallen 41 percent ---- from 23.5 percent of recruits in fiscal 2000 down steadily to 13.9 percent in the first four months of fiscal 2005.  Tom Philpott 03-04-05 North County Times
    œA study of recruiting trends prepared for the Army last August found that ˜more African Americans identify having to fight for a cause they don't support™ as a reason they are not interested in enlisting, while, for all groups, "fear of death or injury is the major barrier to joining the military today.™ ˜I suspect that one major factor is the war in Iraq, which is regarded differently in the black community than in the white community,™ said Edwin Dorn, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and former undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. ˜Whites strongly supported the invasion; blacks did not. It follows that the number of young whites enlisting would go up, while the numbers of young blacks enlisting would go down.™- Steady Drop In Black Army Recruits Washington Post 03-09-05

    A Gallup poll taken at the start of the Invasion of Iraq revealed only 29% of African-Americans supported a preemptive invasion of Iraq, a country that posed no immanent threat to AmeriKKKa nor which was not involved in 9-11. African-Americans viewed George W Bush with suspicion anyway following the 2000 election, but in the aftermath of 9-11 Bush™s rush to war against impoverished and defenseless nations have soured African-Americans in particular and young folks in general against signing up for Uncle Sam™s latest imperialist crusade. Once black folk™s suspicions were confirmed and it was proven Iraq had no WMDs, and hostilities escalated despite Bush™s claim the fighting was over and when the fighting went off the chart following this draft dodger who proclaims himself œThe War Presidenttaunt to the Iraqis to œbring ˜em on!; Bush lost even  more credibility in the eyes of black folks.  The heavy handed assault on Fallujah, the normal US arrogance and cultural insensitivity, the suppressed prisoner abuse scandal and the determination of the Iraqis to kick the AmeriKKKan invaders out have made the war even less attractive to African-Americans.

    Since the all volunteer military was established in 1973, African-Americans have readily taken advantage of the employment, training and post service benefits offered by the armed services; opportunities that for the most part are non-existent in the mainstream culture. African-Americans who make up about 14% of the total population have at times comprised as much as 30% of the total all volunteer military. This happened  because the military offered options to recruits not available to them in a race, color and class biased  non-military culture.  As the Iraq invasion and occupation rages on, as the casualty and fatalities mount and the ugly side of this war the US government tries to suppress comes to light, black folks are losing their taste for the military. A recent article in the North County Times a San Diego California newspaper chronicled the impact of the drop in African-American recruits in the Army and Marines. œResults of the Defense Department's own Youth and Influencer Polls, conducted last May, affirm that administration policies and the Iraq war have lowered the propensity of black youth to enlist, particularly in the Army and Marine Corps, the ground forces taking most of the casualties. Black youth unemployment remains above 10 percent, higher than for Latinos and double that of whites. Blacks also tend to view military pay as more attractive than do other racial groups. In years past, such factors enticed a disproportionate number of black youth to see opportunity in the Army. In some years since the draft ended in 1973, the percentage of blacks among Army volunteers approached 30 percent. In fiscal 2000, blacks still represented almost a quarter of Army recruits. That percentage fell to 22.7 in 2001, 19.9 in 2002, 16.4 in 2003, 15.9 in 2004, and now to 13.9 percent through four months of fiscal 2005. No such decline has been seen among Latino or white recruits. Indeed their percentages among Army recruits grew during the first Bush administration. 

    African-Americans are't less patriotic than their white or Latino counterparts nor are we more cowardly. Perhaps we are just more pragmatic and practical. Most reasonable black people see getting killed, crippled or maimed for a lie as too great a risk to take just to get a higher enlistment bonus, earn future money for college or get training and skills they may not be able to use once they leave the military. The killing of innocent Iraqi civilians, the obvious lies surrounding the  run up to the invasion and the humongous costs of the occupation don™t sit well with black folks either.

    The North County Times article was interesting because the writer Tom Philpott chose to single out African-Americans when in fact the military, both active and reserve, is having increasing difficulty meeting their enlistment quotas across the board. The fact of the matter is more and more AmeriKKKans are becoming turned off by the war. A recent Zogby International poll showed fewer AmeriKKKans  now think launching military action against Iraq was a sound position. (Feb. 25-27 2005 Zogby International Poll). Obviously this sentiment is now being reflected in a sharp decrease in enlistments across the board. Things are getting so precarious a senior Army Reserve official in a recent Pentagon memo lamenting the declining recruitment, pointed out the strain the Iraq deployment was putting on reservists said, unless things improve the reserves will become, in his words, œa broken force. Now we are seeing more and more articles calling for increased military personnel. Some are even uttering the D word (draft). An article by Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris called The Case For the Draft appears in the March issue of the Washington Monthly. In it they candidly review the how and why of the current predicament and offer several solutions, one of which is universal conscription. As the occupation in Iraq drags on and gets worse and more and more horrors of this misguided foray into imperial hubris become known, fewer blacks will sign up to take part in Bush's war for oil and Empire. That makes perfect sense to me.  It reminds me of the old joke about The Lone Ranger and his trusty œIndian sidekick Tonto. They get caught in a life or death situation with a band of  Native Americans, The Lone Ranger turns to Tonto and says, œWe're in a hell of a fix here Tonto. Tonto answers, What do you mean we, white  man?