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The Pentagon filed documents last week asking Congress to increase the maximum age for military recruits in all branches of the service. Now the limit is 35 for those seeking active duty. The Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard have all fallen far short of their recruitment goals in the last few years.

Older soldiers have also been added to the ranks through stop-loss, a policy that extends the tours of soldiers beyond their enlistment contracts. Several thousand troops in Iraq are more than 50 years old.

“Pentagon Proposes Rise in Age Limit for Recruits,” New York Times, July 22, 2005.

Feds spy on conservation, populist groups

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of conservation, populist and peace groups, the New York Times reported last week.

The Bureau collected 1,173 pages on the American Civil Liberties Union and 2,383 pages on the conservation group Greenpeace, the Justice Department disclosed in a court filing this month in a federal court in Washington. The filing came as part of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act brought by the ACLU and other groups, who said the FBI has been spying on critics of the ruling party.

“Large Volume of F.B.I. Files Alarms U.S. Activist Groups,” New York Times, July 18, 2005.

U.S. has plan to nuke Iran if another 9-11

The Pentagon is drawing up plans to launch nuclear weapons at Iran in the event of another terrorist attack like that of Sept. 11, 2001, were to happen again on American soil—whether Iran was the cause of the attack or not.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s office asked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to draw up a contingency plan for another 9-11-type terrorist attack on the United States, according to an article in the American Conservative magazine. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.

“As in the case of Iraq,” the article said, “the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.”

“Pentagon’s plan to nuke Iran,” American Conservative, August 2005.

Army divorce rate jumps 80 percent

The Army divorce rate has jumped more than 80 percent since 9-11, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. The report said that keeping marriages and finances intact over phone lines has become a serious strain for many soldiers.
The article recounts the effects of war not usually described in mainstream reports: numerous soldiers “who returned to empty houses, squandered bank accounts, divorce papers and restraining orders.”

“The courts around Ft. Hood, the Army’s largest post, may have to add another judge to handle the caseload,” the Times said. “Divorce lawyers hire extra staff whenever a division prepares to come home.”

Under the Bush administration, volunteer soldiers are seeing their longest and most recurrent deployments ever, and the number of ended marriages rose 86 percent from 2000 to 2004.

Officials said that since so many soldiers leave the country handing their money and power of attorney to people they may have only known for a few months, the Army recently instituted a program for single soldiers titled “How Not to Marry a Jerk.”

“Shrapnel From Home,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2005.

Report: War deaths underestimated

Global estimates have routinely underestimated the true number of people killed in armed conflict, including during the war in Iraq, according to a report released Monday. The survey said casualty estimates take into account deaths from major weapons and underestimate deaths from small arms.

The survey said that it was possible that as many as 39,000 Iraqis have been violently killed in the conflict in Iraq from May 2003 to October 2004, more than twice media estimates of between 10,000 and 15,000. The British medical journal Lancet recently estimated that 100,000 Iraqis had died in the war since its inception—a number that includes deaths from malnutrition, disease and other factors.

The report, from the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies, said between 80,000 and 108,000 people were killed as a direct result of conflict around the world in 2003—two to four times higher than current estimates. It said death tolls are usually based on misleading official estimates or media reports gathered despite intense efforts to keep reporters away from the fighting.

“Report: Conflict deaths underestimated,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 11, 2005.
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

Girl, 11, throws rock, gets time

An 11-year-old girl who threw a pebble at a gang of boys who were harassing her is being prosecuted on felony assault charges in California. To arrest her, police employed squad cars and a police helicopter.

Maribel Cuevas spent five days in detention, in which she was granted one 30-minute visit by her parents, and has spent a month under house arrest.

The girl, who speaks little English, has admitted throwing a stone at a group of boys she says were pestering her with water balloons as she walked down the street. Police said they read her rights in English before taking her to jail.

Her lawyer accuses the authorities of criminalizing childhood behavior.

“They’re treating her like a violent parole offender,” Richard Beshwate said. “It’s not a felony, it’s an 11-year-old acting like an 11-year-old.”

“US police pursue girl over stone,” BBC News, July 16, 2005.