1115.org

As the war in Iraq drags on, and the death toll mounts, the challenge faced by military recruiters becomes increasingly difficult.

In our Memorial Day post, we took a look at “green card soldiers” who enlisted in the military in exchange for citizenship:

The most heartbreaking sight at the rally was Fernando Suarez del Solar stoically holding a photograph and a handwritten poster memorializing his son Jesus, a U.S. Marine who died in the first week of the war in Iraq. He and other parents of fallen soldiers patiently answered questions from reporters for much of the day, but apparently there was bigger news the next day because there was no mention of Suarez del Solar or Veterans For Peace. In fact, it was only recently that I learned about how Jesus came to be a Marine in a story about his father’s activism against the creation of ‘green card Marines:’

Three years ago, President Bush offered accelerated citizenship to any green card holder who has served in the military since Sept. 11, 2001.
[…]
“Immigrants are generally the first on the front lines,” Suarez said. “They should know where they’ll end up.”

Then, a month later, it was MTV’s True Life “I’m Dead Broke” following 19-year-old DeMarlon trying to pass a basic literacy test in order to escape the abject poverty in which he and his family lived. He wasn’t able to pass.

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a feature focusing on the search for recruits in the poverty-stricken U.S. Pacific territories:

From Pago Pago in American Samoa to Yap in Micronesia, 4,000 miles to the west, Army recruiters are scouring the Pacific, looking for high school graduates to enlist at a time when the Iraq war is turning off many candidates in the States.

The Army has found fertile ground in the poverty pockets of the Pacific. The per capita income is $8,000 in American Samoa, $12,500 in the Northern Marianas and $21,000 in Guam, all United States territories. In the Marshalls and Micronesia, former trust territories, per capita incomes are about $2,000.

Since the United States went to an all-volunteer Army in 1973, no one can say that they’ve been forced to join the military (though soldiers subject to stop-loss orders and post-discharge call-ups have a case). But with the jobs situation barely back to pre-recession levels after four years, and employee compensation stagnant, Americans at the low end of the workforce who have few options available may see little difference between “volunteering” and being drafted. That the poor are choosing the Army is not necessarily a new phenomenon, but the combination of an adverse economy and a Commander-in-Chief whose motto is “Bring it On” is unique. There’s a reason why Congressman Charlie Rangel introduced a bill reinstating the draft: He was sick of seeing poor young black men coming home in boxes while the children of his fellow Congressmen sat out the fighting.

But it was the dateline of the Times feature that really drove home the problem: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands. In the continuing investigation into lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s criminal activities, it was revealed that the government of the Northern Mariana Islands paid Abramoff millions of dollars to lobby Tom DeLay. The purpose of such an intense lobbying effort? Fighting off labor laws in an effort to keep the Northern Marianas a haven for sweatshops, and not subject to a minimum wage, humane conditions or union activity.

DeLay fully approved of the working and living conditions…”You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system”

Later, DeLay would tell the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin that the low-wage, anti-union conditions of the Marianas constituted “a perfect petri dish of capitalism. It’s like my Galapagos Island.”

DeLay’s disgusting words and deeds mock the reality faced by young people in the Northern Mariana Islands. There’s nothing “perfect” about their situation, and capitalism has failed them to the point that the possibility of becoming one of the 1800-and-counting dead has become an attractive option. The United States isn’t doing right by our soldiers or our poor. The fact that it’s the same elected officials that misuse the military and mistreat the least fortunate among us isn’t a coincidence. It’s just how they do.