Letters to the Editor
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And a narrow track it is
When I read the headline, I was trying to guess where his was going. I thought maybe his question would be about pleas for asylum by Iraqis. That would be bad enough, but it sounds as if not only did he work in a question about immigrants, it was particularly about Latino immigrants. True, to large swaths of the US population, "illegal immigration" is a code word for keeping out "Mexicans"--a broad category that includes Central and South Americans. But not in my wildest imagination could I envision Tancredo working this line of questioning into an Iraq hearing. Really amazing.
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Tancredo might be off track but he's essentially correct.
The military does have an investigative unit that keeps track of gang members serving in our armed forces. The Iraq city-scape is littered with american gang graffiti and higher-ups are trying to keep an eye on it.
Tancredo IS a massive jerk-off but he's not wrong on this one. Someone should let Petraeus in on it so he doesn't look like a fool/liar when he's asked about it.
Then again, if I know about it, Petraeus knows about it and just decided to play dumb on that one.
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Motto for Tancredo
Tom Tancredo
Embarrassing his state
Since 1998
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Tancredo's A Fool
But even a fool can be right sometimes.
There is a growing and serious problem with former and active gang members, primarily in the US Army. As "kickstarts" notes, there are gang tags all over Baghdad. Military personnel photographing themselves flashing gang signs. The Pentagon is taking it very seriously, apparently.
It's not Petraeus' area (although some urban police forces are studying his insurgency tactics), so I wouldn't be surprised if he knows nothing about it.
As far as what they do when they get home: it's speculation at this point. But it's not hard to imagine that, after serving 18 months in Baghdad, some gangbanger isn't going to be less inclined to violence, nor less skilled. And the very last thing we want to do is train MS-13 street warriors to be more efficient killers.
Tancredo may be a jingoistic racist meathead, but he's not far off the mark on this one.
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HEY, I HAVE AN IDEA...
let's just not listen to Tancredo anymore! That's right, let's turn of the TV when he's on it, stop writing stories about his latest antics, and let him die on the vine.
How about it? Him and few others too.
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Gang Strong
Arguing that gang activity in the armed forces is not Petraeus' "area" to excuse his professed ignorance is disingenuous at best.
Petraeus is a ranking general in the hottest theater we have. Army, Navy, AF and Marine investigators are all well aware of the bugeoning gang activity in the military. So are most major cities' gang-crimes units. While gang members still represent a very very small portion of total military, the problem is being taken very seriously among both military and civilian folks. How can Petraeus NOT be aware of this?
The answer, of course, is that to acknowledge it would be to acknowledge that W's War has so damaged the ability of our miliary to recruit that they will let just about anybody enlist. Waivers for all kinds of past criminal activity have skyrocketed. Petraeus is as much politician as general, so he can't admit any of this for the record (even though the stats are public record) because it would make his patron look bad.
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@timhowe
I appreciate your dislike of Bush, but the Army's gang problem started before he took office. It is true that it has increased during his tenure, and it is arguable that the recruitment policies of the Army have become somewhat lax in their need to supply bodies for War Without End. But it is simply untrue to lay this one solely at Bush's feet.
In fact, the forces that drive young men into gangs are the very same forces which drive them to enlist: poverty, primarily, as well as the basic human need to be part of a group (family, gang, tribe, unit, etc), to belong. If you study the issue, you find that as gang populations rise (according to police reports), then gang presence in the US Army rises. In short, it's far from a conspiracy by MS-13 to get training for its troops, but rather an unfortunate side-effect of America's dwindling economy.
The recruiting standards have not relaxed so much that the Army will let "anyone enlist" - anyone can enlist in the Army, but they might not be inducted. The central problem is neither recruitment nor enlistment but rather criminal background checks (performed by outsourced agencies rather than the feds), which are not being done promptly, or sometimes not at all. It is similar to the problem faced by DHS with luggage handlers: hundreds were hired, and by the time all their backgrounds were checked, dozens of criminals were found (and dismissed).
As for Petraeus' knowledge, I was merely speculating, but unlike your own speculative accusation my conjecture was done with a bit of knowledge about the military and its workings. The US Army is so vast and compartmentalized that most generals have no idea what's going on outside their purview. "Need to know" rules more than just the intelligence world: even trivial military data won't be possessed by someone without a compelling reason for knowing. Althought it wouldn't be improper for Petraeus to know about this gang problem, the likelihood is that he does not.
Counter-insurgency has been Petraeus' bailiwick for some time; since it hardly concerns recruitment or discipline within the ranks, and is a relatively recent issue, there's a high chance that Petraeus has little or no knowledge of it. He's a tactics guy, a strategist and a theorist, without much of a "hands-on" history when it comes to internal Army bureaucracy. Running a war against insurgents takes a lot of time and energy, and relatively speaking, this is a minor problem in the face of that war. Recruitment and personnel issues are not his concern, but rather the concerns of numerous, much lower-ranked officers.
But you know, I can see you have an axe to grind. So grind away, but watch where you swing it.