From the Guardian

[queen_fire]

US army increases use of moral waivers to meet demand for troops The US army doubled its use of "moral waivers" for enlisted soldiers last year to cope with the stress of the Iraq war, allowing convicted sex offenders, people convicted of making terrorist threats and child abusers into the military, according to new records released today

Comments

[fabianwhig]

I am posting this to americanfabians

[queen_fire]

Sure mostly just being snarky and sarcastic. Do you want me to unfriendlock it?

[ndkid]

A disaster waiting to happen? Exporting our felons to foreign countries? This is the best thing since Australia! :-)

[queen_fire]

True, I suppose. More of a PR disaster then anything else but so much is public relations these days in foreign entanglements.

[ndkid]

I think it's spinnable. "We're sending offenders overseas where they can no longer be a harm to our population." I mean, really, if the government suggested forming a military unit of violent offenders and shipping them overseas as a suicide squad, a la Dirty Dozen, do you really think most people would be sad to see the prison population go down without putting them on "the streets"?

[jjjiii]

Well, two, anyway.

[jjjiii]

I'd be more worried about the killers. There's like 150,000 of them at large in Iraq.

[queen_fire]

Oh well that one is more obvious, if you allow traditional criminals into an area with guns, they'll go do damage. I'm sure its a statistical probability, I suppose it depends on how well under wraps they are. Wasn't that the subject of a murder trial a few years ago? A kid with a troubled past organized the killing of an Iraqi family because he wanted to rape the daughters and he got his squad to go along with it because they were young and dumb?

[jjjiii]

I like how the organizer does it because he has a troubled past, and the rest go along with it because they're young and dumb. As opposed to say, all of them doing it because they have no moral foundation worthy of the name human, and are all evil monsters.

[queen_fire]

Yeah they really seem to be pretty low on common sense. Its kind of painful.