“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.”
-Benjamin Disraeli
According to supporters of the Bush administration, our armed forces are doing great. Recruiting goals are being met and that’s proof Americans support the noble cause of ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. Young men and women across the country are flocking for their turn to serve. Right?
Well if you doctor the numbers they are, and the best way to illustrate how such a deception is possible is through an example.
In 2006, the U.S. army set a recruiting goal of 80,000 new enlistees. The actual number recruited was 80,635. End of story if you’re lazy-minded, but this is college, so let’s dig a little deeper and use some critical-thinking skills.
Soon after the war began in 2003, the army failed to meet its recruiting goals for the first time in decades. So some changes were made. The first change was to boost the age limit for enrollment from 35 to 42. If you’re a few months shy of your 43rd birthday don’t worry, because according to Johnson City’s U.S. Army recruiter, as long as you complete basic training before turning 43, you’ve got a ticket to ride (to Iraq).
The army also lowered its aptitude benchmarks for admittance, taking in double the number of recruits who scored between 10 and 30 percent (the lowest allowable) on a standardized test that measures basic math and grammar skills. According to the Associated Press, the army recruited “more than 2,600 soldiers under new lower aptitude standards” in 2006.
Lower scores aren’t the only exception being made to fill the quota.
The army is becoming less selective on the background of new recruits too. The U.S. army doled nearly twice as many waivers for medical, moral or criminal problems (including felonies) last year compared to 2003.
Any other ways to make recruiting numbers fit? Here’s one. The Pentagon is considering signing up non-citizens to help fill up the ranks. “It works as a military idea and it works in the context of American immigration,” said Thomas Donnelly from the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Several former members of the institute serve in the administration.
Army recruiting is just one example in a long line of data-twisting chicanery carried out for no other reason than to, well, lie. Look at how the administration is counting civilian casualties. On paper it looks as if civilian casualties are down, but the administration has a funny way of counting those too. Deaths from car bombings are no longer counted, even though hundreds die every month as a result of them.
But wait, it gets better. Depending on which side of the head a civilian gets shot in, they may or may not be classified as a victim of sectarian violence. A bullet to the back of the head? OK, we can count you. To the front of the head? Sorry, you’re just a victim a violent criminal act.
It’s surreal, in fact it’s beyond the point of surreal, the lengths the administration (and its supporters) will go to shoehorn facts into an imaginary world view. If they really wanted to support the military, they should start by being honest with the men and women who are serving, beginning with an explanation of why they’re over there.
At least one elder Republican statesman is willing to do just that. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” states Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman, in his new book set for release this week.
Maybe that’s the real, yet unspoken source, of the army’s recruiting woes. The people I know in the army, whether they’re Republican, Democratic or apolitical, joined for a lot of reasons; but none of those included invading a foreign country solely for the purpose of appropriating its resources (and now it’s becoming apparent why).

Author