Thursday, April 17, 2008
Recruiting Trends: Theirs and Ours [Steve Schippert]
Jules Crittenden, one of my long-time personal favorites, has done an excellent job of assembling and breaking down the available data on both our recruiting trends and those of the terrorists. It's worth the reader's time today to see each, cited and excerpted below.
Army of dolts and criminals, or army of opportunity? Some media and DoD articles on the expanding wartime military. We’ll start with NPR’s report on waivers for substandard recruits:
After quoting the NPR Morning Edition item, Jules states something that goes unacknowledged (unknown?) by NPR. And he is spot on.
Yeah, well there’s a long tradition of the military creating opportunities for turning people’s lives around. It would be interesting to see a comparative study of recidivism and life achievement rates for high school dropouts with criminal problems who enter the military, as opposed to those who enter the prison system or any kind of social betterment program.
There's much more, so be sure to continue down from there. As to the recruiting trends of the enemy, Jules cites an excellent item from another long-time favorite, Small Wars Journal.
Know your enemy. Small Wars Journal and DoD offer up some recent findings, with an eye to combating enemy recruitment. We’ll start at Small Wars Journal with a study of foreign jihadi recruitment trends by Clint Watts, a former US Army Infantry Officer, FBI Special Agent and Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, now a private consultant:
I think you'll find Libya's status near the head of the pack in recruitment illuminating. Be sure to read it all.
Also of interest regarding the enemy:
Concerns Over Terrorist Recruiting in W. Europe
Hayden: AQ recruiting 'Western' fighters
Selling Terror: Hizballah's Professional Marketing Campaign
The Unseen, Unmarketed 'Other Side': Holy Brothel
04/17 12:36 PM
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