RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-if-they-gave-a-war-and-everybody-was-woke-military-recruitment-crt-training-obesity-reading-labor-market-11659108526?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Is the U.S. prepared for battle? By one measure, military recruitment, the answer appears to be no. Nearly every branch has struggled to meet its recruitment goals for 2022, with some falling as short as 40%. Worse yet, only about a quarter of America’s youth meet current eligibility standards—and recent surveys show only 9% are even interested.

Military leadership primarily blames this slump on two causes: teen obesity rates and the tight labor market. But data for both claims can’t paint the full picture. Teen obesity did increase during the pandemic, to 22% from 19%. But that jump likely can’t account for the sudden and widespread collapse in recruitment. Neither can the labor market. The unemployment rate today sits at 3.6%—roughly the same as in 2019. Yet in 2019 the Army exceeded its recruiting goals. It’s falling perilously short today and will be understrength by 28,000 troops by the end of 2023. The military’s benefits—including child care, housing allowances, medical coverage and large bonuses, up to $50,000—should also help insulate it from the pitfalls of hiring young recruits in a tight labor market.

What, then, explains the shift? Perhaps one answer lies in the Pentagon’s wholesale embrace of woke politics.

On his first day in office, President Biden rescinded a Trump-era executive order banning critical-race-theory training in the military. The changes made by senior commanders were nearly immediate. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin mandated that every military unit conduct a “stand-down” to confront “extremism in the ranks.” The chief of naval operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, added Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist” to his professional reading list for sailors—never mind the book’s endorsement of racial discrimination and its charges that the institutions troops swear to protect are systemically racist.

Added to the mix has been divisive gender activism. The Navy has mandated gender-sensitivity training, and released a video encouraging sailors to closely police the use of pronouns as well as everyday language, declaring that those who fail to comply aren’t “allies” of their fellow sailors.

http://henrymarkholzer.blogspot.com/2022/07/saudi-arabias-american-hostages.html

Since September 11, 2001, much information has come to light about our so-called ally, the family business called Saudi Arabia: its quaint customs, like decapitation; its degradation of women; its subservience to Wahhabism; its being an incubator for terrorists; its financing terror attacks. What has not received enough attention, however, despite the efforts of a few politicians and journalist, is the Saudi kidnapping of American citizens.

The House of Representatives’ Government Reform Committee of Rep. Dan Burton (R. Indiana) has established beyond any doubt that nearly a hundred American citizens are being held against their will in Saudi Arabia – most of them girls or, by now, women. Many, some of whom are boys, were abducted from their American mothers decades ago by Saudi fathers. In Saudi Arabia, many have been physically abused (e.g., rapes, beatings,) psychologically deprived (e.g. no contact with mothers and siblings), forced to convert to Islam, and, if female, dumped into arranged marriages even at the age of twelve.

Despite heroic efforts by the captives’ American parents, lawmakers, journalists, and others – the bureaucrats in our Saudi-coddling State Department have, once again, proved to be willingly impotent – United States citizens cannot leave Saudi Arabia. Indeed, probably alone among nations of the world, Saudi Arabia prohibits all females from leaving the country without the written consent of their husbands or fathers.

Is there no way to help our countrymen, de facto imprisoned by a primitive regime that has not the slightest conception of human rights? Perhaps.