The Remix

The Department of Defense has nothing on R. Kelly.

From: Pentagon details mishandling of Quran
AP

The Pentagon on Friday released new details about mishandling of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects, confirming that a soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book and that an interrogator stepped on a Quran and was later fired for “a pattern of unacceptable behavior.”

In other confirmed incidents, water balloons thrown by prison guards caused an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; a guard’s urine came through an air vent and splashed on a detainee and his Quran; and in a confirmed but ambiguous case, a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran.

Water balloons? What kind of prison is this?

This is just plain not cool. These incidents have enraged and helped to recruit members in the "rebel" or the word of the day "insurgent" groups we are trying to vanquish. They also endanger our soldiers lives in a multitude of other ways. When we don't follow; or are percieved to ignore the specific rules and rights laid out in the Geneva Conventions there is no way we can hold other groups or nations to them.

If we ourselves do not uphold these conventions, all of this [Iraq] is for nothing. The likelyhood of our own soldiers being captured and remaining protected under the conventions, is even lower.

So what do we do about it?

Blame it on the reporters.

And if that doesn't work infer that the groups reporting abuses "hate America" and that the reports they release are "absurd".

From: Rights Group Defends Chastising of U.S.
The New York Times

Amnesty has fired right back, pointing out that the administration often cites its reports when that suits its purposes. "If our reports are so 'absurd,' why did the administration repeatedly cite our findings about Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war?" wrote William F. Schultz, executive director of the group's United States branch, in a letter to the editor being published Saturday in The New York Times. "Why does it welcome our criticisms of Cuba, China and North Korea? And why does it cite our research in its own annual human rights reports?"

Admitting however that we "screwed up" and that those who "screwed up" are now being punished for their crimes is to much to ask.

Replacing these "bad eggs" who were improperly supervised, with top notch soldiers would be a great way to fix the problem. Increasing our standards so that our troops won't "act on their own" is a logical solution right?

Wrong!

Quick to the mall! Recruiters away!

From: US lowers standards in army numbers crisis
The Guardian

Asked what the new policy meant, John Pike from the thinktank Globalsecurity.org said: "It means there is a war on. They need all the soldiers they can get. But it is a dilemma. You need good soldiers more in wartime than peacetime."

The latest controversy comes amid a growing recruitment and retention crisis in the US military. Last month the army announced that it was 6,659 soldiers short of its recruitment targets for the year so far. On Wednesday, the department of defence withheld the latest figures, a move seen by most commentators as heralding more bad news.

The military's target is 80,000 new recruits this year, but the army only managed 73% of its target in February, 68% in March and 57% in April, forcing the expansion of a pilot programme offering 15-month active duty enlistments, rather than the usual four years.

So less time in, less training, lower standards -- I like where this is going.

Recruiters have even been putting adds in help wanted sections of newspapers with ambiguous listings. Rumor has it a woman answered an add for her daughter that was listed as "Postal Worker - Government job, benefits." the address she was given when calling the number on the add was that of a Navy Recruiting office.

Gotcha!

"Recruiters have been given greater leeway," said Mr Pike. "By doing things to increase quantity you are also doing things to decrease quality, but they have made the judgment that that is the way to go."