Irregular Army: The rise of assorted criminals and felons in the US military
Since the War on Terror the number of “moral waivers” given to individuals with a criminal record has skyrocketed. In 2007, the Army admitted about 25% more recruits who had a history of legal problems, which ranged from felony convictions to drugs offences. From 2006 to 2007 the number of “moral waivers” granted to the Army went up from 8,129 to 10,258; the Marine Corp in the same period saw an increase from 16,969 to 17,413.
By Matt Kennard on Friday, May 15th, 2009 - 732 words.
Since the War on Terror the number of “moral waivers” given to individuals with a criminal record has skyrocketed. In 2007, the Army admitted about 25% more recruits who had a history of legal problems, which ranged from felony convictions to drugs offences. From 2006 to 2007 the number of “moral waivers” granted to the Army went up from 8,129 to 10,258; the Marine Corp in the same period saw an increase from 16,969 to 17,413.
Being a felon used to be a bar to enlistment in the US military but in 2007, even 511 felons were granted waivers, which more than doubled the number from 2006, 249. Waivers granted for legal reasons now constitute the majority of all waivers – 60% for the Army, and 75% for the Marine Corps. And the number of waivers being granted is continuing to increase: in 2008, 13% of all the Army’s new recruits (more than 10,000) received “moral waivers”. The number of waivers granted to Army recruits with criminal backgrounds grew 65% from 2003 to 2006.
The crimes that have been waived mostly involved theft but there was a smattering of cases with egregious offences that ranged from sexual assault to threats of terrorism. Last year the Pentagon released data for the first time which detailed the specific felonies that had been waived. Army waivers for aggravated assaults with a dangerous weapons went from 33 to 43 from 2006 to 2007. And in the same period burglary waivers went from 36 to 106. For narcotics possession it from 71 to 130, and for forgery from 26 to 56.
The New York Times profiled Osvaldo Hernandez who served a one-year sentence for a felon conviction for possessing an unregistered pistol. The day after he came out he walked into an Army recruiting office in New York City and four years later, in 2007, he was Specialist Hernandez, a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan.
It’s effect has been largely negative. Some within the military establishment say its consequence is a lack of “trust and cohesion” within the ranks. Studies also show that those with waivers are “quite a bit more likely” than other recruits to be separated from the service for misconduct within two years, and “recruits with felony waivers have the highest chance of misconduct separation”.
The new policy on criminals has piqued the interest of lawmakers. “The signification in crease in the recruitment of persons with criminal records is a result of strain put on the military by the Iraq war,” explains Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman goes on the warn that this progression “may be undermining our military readiness.”
Contrariwise, some in the Army reason that the waivers are a more democratic way of getting recruits. “The thing is, you’ve got to give people an opportunity to service,” said Lt. Gen. James D Thurman, the Army’s operations chief. “We are growing the Army fast, there are some waivers… it hasn’t alarmed us yet.” In a way, he is right, there is a case to be made that one-time criminals should not be made criminals for life, and therefore blocked from any public position. Douglas Smith of Army Recruiting Command also puts forward the thesis that there “are more and more young people getting caught up in the criminal justice system than in the past,” which means that the US military has had to become more lenient to compensate.
Waivers are meant to be used in special cases when prospective soldiers were juveniles or when their crimes appear less serious in hindsight. Waivers thus are a vital part of military recruitment as they accept that not all cases are ironclad. Now though, the waivers have been used to plug gaps in general recruiting, a new progression.
This seems to be a problem mostly in the Army and Marines, however. Felony waivers in the Navy fell from 48 to 42 from 2006 to 2007, and the Air Force admitted no-one in the same period.
But many people are expecting this to come back and bite the Army and Marines on its ass. “The fact that the use of waivers has increased dramatically is something that should be of concern and should be watched over,” said Michele Flournoy, the former president and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security, a think tank that focuses on national security and defense policies.
(+3 rating, 3 votes)
Loading ...One Comment
Leave a Reply
Matt Kennard
26London
Matt Kennard graduated from the Journalism School at Columbia University as a Toni Stabile Investigative scholar in 2008. He now works for the Financial Times in London. He has written for the Guardian, Salon, The Comment Factory and the Chicago Tribune, amongst others. In 2006 he won the Guardian Student Feature Writer of the Year Award
mattkennard@thecommentfactory.com
Articles by this author
-
Chavez, Morales and Correa must speak out on Iran
As I said some months ago, when I get depressed about the state of the world I’m always cheered to think of the movements in Latin America that are genuinely empowering the hitherto marginalised sections of those societies. This movement has the power to make itself felt throughout the world – but it needs to apply itself consistently. That can even take the approach of Lula who stopped short of denunciation and just put forward an offer of sanctuary in an effort to shame the Iranian regime
-
The Observer's Chomsky fetish
Chomsky is big enough to put up with this kind of rubbish, but can the Guardian or Observer, the most influential left-wing journal in the English-speaking world, really not find one journalist who doesn’t have a visceral dislike of Noam Chomsky? Sadly, but maybe predictably, for a newspaper made up of liberals pickled in the self-righteous playfields of Oxbridge liberalism, I guess they don’t
-
The fight to preserve Latin America's democratic revolution
For Prof Anderson the template of Spain after Franco’s destruction of civil society “has become the general formula of freedom: no longer making the world safe for democracy, but democracy safe for this world.” Through a confluence of historical factors, Latin America is the crucible where the last chance to make a world safe for democracy is being fought. The importance of this battle shouldn’t be underestimated: if it fails, we might not get another chance
-
Jan Nederveen Pieterse on Globalization and Empire
The fundamentals of American weakness are its shrinking share of world manufacturing, its gargantuan consumption, low savings rate, faulty policies (massive military spending, massive war spending, deep tax cuts) and gigantic financial deficits. Some problems are structural (high American health care costs are a function of lack of restraint on pharmaceutical industries and reflect the large influence of business interests); this prompts outsourcing, which further weakens the American economy. The military interventions are destabilizing (increase risks for others) and costly (adding to American economic problems) and erode American legitimacy. So the problems are not merely overstretch
-
Massive Attack on influences, war and the cult of fame
I think a lot of it is damaging and I feel there has to be at some point a change in the way we deal with different peoples situations and development. I hate double standards more than anything – I hate the current row over Iran’s nuclear ambitions and whether they should be allowed to have nuclear technology or even nuclear energy. It seems to me that our history is littered with hypocrisy and I find that quite hard to live with being a British citizen
-
Matt Kennard on Russia Today extended: 'US Army sent 'hardcore' neo-Nazi troops to Iraq and Afghanistan'
Under the Bush administration, the U.S. military allegedly started to recruit neo-Nazis and gang members to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Investigative journalist Matt Kennard talks to RT about his researh into these allegations and other problems in the US military.
-
Tony Benn on the EU, Cuba and Islam
Well I don’t think it helps to go around saying, “Try Blair for war crimes,” if you’re trying to persuade Labour MPs to vote against the war and they are told they’ve got to arrest and see Blair and Cherie locked up. It’s ridiculous. I said this to all the people… I mean it’s mad… I can understand peoples anger, but it is crazy
-
Hilary Benn on aid, the US, Iraq, and Tony Blair
The truth is: The real answer to the question why did we take the decision that we did, is because on the 18th March 2003 a majority of the House of Commons voted to do it
-
Johann Hari on Chomsky, Hitchens, Iraq, and anarchism
But I think Hitchens arguments are so well put and one should engage with them and take them at face value. He says Saddam was intermeshed increasingly with Islam. Zarquawi, for example, was already in Iraq before the war. I don’t agree with his argument on that. Ba’athism and Islamism are different things, and should be opposed for different reasons
-
Polly Toynbee on Iraq and New Labour
No I think it’s very difficult to navigate because for one thing even if you more want to bring democracy to the Middle East more than you want to take the oil – which I think probably is the case now – but such is the fear of fundamentalism that you wonder if you knock over the Saudi’s who takes over? Is it even stronger Wahhabist, and is that even more dangerous, and even less democratic? It’s very difficult
-
Noam Chomsky on the US Empire and hopes and prospects
They hope that China will organize a coalition of peace loving states to stop the militarism and aggressiveness headed by the US and its British ally. Well it's interesting that they have such contempt for American democracy and British democracy: they don't even dream of it coming from within. I don't agree with it - I don't think we have to wait for China to save us from all doom - I think we can do it ourselves
-
Professor Michael Mann on America's incoherent empire
The most you can have is a kind of informal imperialism where the state remains sovereign - you don’t try to interfere in it but you limit its options. This is what, typically, the US has done in Latin America when it is not intervening. The US is formidable. People contrast so-called multilateralism to unilateralist and they think of the United Nations. The US runs the UN and had run the UN for most of the 1990s and that’s what the US can do because the US provides certain resources that no-one else can provide. Nothing much is going to happen in the way of international activity unless the US is part of it and leading it and that’s what the US can return to again. What I think it cannot do is to reconstruct foreign countries on its own without having considerable local support
Maybe you should stop and think that some of us have made mistakes along the way. We ask for "waivers" in hopes of redeemption and to be a positive image for our children. Not to down play your achievments at all but we all can't cross an ocean to earn a master's degree. Seems that the rise in waivers given means we are more willing to sacrifice for our families and shovel shit for our country. I have yet to see where the coffins coming home are marked for who recieved waivers and who didn't.