12/22   Recruit is dropping, prison is overcrowded... what do you guys think
        about offer prison inmate an option to serve in the military?  Chinese
        used to do this in the imperial time.
        \_ Yeah, let's send over a bunch of rapists and murderers to Iraq.
           That'll make 'em love us.  Not that "normal" Americans have done better.
           That'll make 'em love us.  Not that "normal" Americans have
           done better.
           \_ Umm...I thought we did that.
        \_ Actually this is done quite often, esp. when things get desperate.
           Read some American/English/French war history.  Convicts make very
           poor soldiers, however.
           \_ In Colonization, they need TWO morale upgrades just to become
              free colonists!
        \_ You apparently are unaware on how high-tech the army is these days.
           The army needs highly motivated people to carry out its sophisticated
           tactics. Modern day warfare isn't about sending a mass amount of
           people to go off and die (that's what Al Qaeda does and that's why
           we have something on the order of 50-to-1 casualty ratios).
           Anyway, only the truly moronic will let people of questionable
           morality be trained for large sums of money to wield million
           dollar weapons.
                \_ Your entire response is a joke, right? hi-tech army?
                   highly motivated people? your 50:1 casualty ratio?
                   moronic-vs-moral people? surely you're kidding. I think
                   you have a very idealized notion of our military, and
                   I also think you overestimate the intelligence and
                   moral fiber of our military leaders and government.
           \_ 50:1??? Who are you kidding? Are you adding all the
              civilians casualties in there? We have lost 1.2k soldiers
              killed and 10k wounded. Do you think Al Qaeda has lost
              60k killed and 500k wounded? Where the hell did they put
              the 1/2M wounded???
           \_ al Qaeda is not sending massive army.  not even close.  and
              if anything, al Qaeda members are more motivated than us.
              high-tech weaponary is not an issue, we know that because
              we used to *TRAIN* those al Qaeda members in 1980's, remember?