Bangin’ In Iraq
In a previous post (see: How low have recruitment standards gone?), I shared how the Army is issuing a record number of “moral waivers” to allow recruits that would have never been admitted in the past. This includes overlooking criminal records and drug histories. This also meant overlooking recruits with ties to white supremacist organizations.
There’s also another type of recruit that the Army is letting in — gang members.I had heard tell of this a couple of years back in stories I read about street gang grafitti showing up in Iraq. At the time, I thought it was a bad idea just because you had thousands of gang members being given training on how to better use weapons. Today, I believe this idea to be worse due to a reason I had not considered — gangs are now recruiting their fellow soldiers and extending the reaches of their gangs worldwide.
This means we have Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings and white supremacist able to recruit from military ranks. Even more dangerous is the fact that the highly-organized Gangster Disciples, a 100,000-strong gang based in Chicago, have infiltrated the Army most thoroughly. In a study of just three Army bases, the Department of Defense identified 300 active gang members.
Here’s another number for you to chew on. Experts believe that as many as 20,000 soldiers on active duty have sworn alliegance to a gang.
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