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reaffirming the idea that empires collapse from within, when their contradictions cause their decline or facilitate conquest by their enemies, we see how the United States armed forces are having enormous difficulties recruiting members.
The US media maintains that the army faces the worst recruitment crisis since the end of the Vietnam War
that is, since compulsory military service was eliminated, according to a report by the Politico portal in July (https://politi.co/3Clt5zF).
With just two months to go in the fiscal year, the Army had reached just 66 percent of its recruiting goal. Gen. Joseph Martin told the House military affairs committee that the army could lose more than 20,000 troops, down from 466,000 soldiers to just 445,000, because of difficulties finding recruits.
However, as the Tom Dispatch report points out, the force offers Enlistment bonuses of up to $50,000
to candidates who decide to join the ranks (https://bit.ly/3R0I4mF). The other forces also offer bonuses, but all face the same problem recruiting fighters, with the air force facing the greatest difficulty after the army.
The reasons must be found in a broken society, in frayed institutions and in a nation with no other goal than to continue to dominate the world.
Only 23 percent of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are eligible to enter the military, down from 29 percent in previous years, notes NBC News (https://nbcnews.to/3dS6Ib1). The rest, more than three-quarters of youth, are automatically disqualified for obesity, criminal records, drug use, and physical or psychological problems.
In the US there is a true epidemic of obesity, which has skyrocketed in recent years and is growing five times faster than before among children, which kills 300,000 people each year.
The suicide rate is the highest among rich countries (14 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants), twice that of the United Kingdom and is largely due to mental illness, forming what is called deaths of despair
, which also covers drug overdose deaths, international health reports reveal. The US has the lowest life expectancy among the 38 countries that make up the OECD.
Indeed, a report by the Commonwealth Fund reports that Americans are living shorter, less healthy lives because the healthcare system isn’t working as well as it could
(https://bit.ly/3wsS7Jt). However, the US spends more on health than any other OECD country (17 percent of GDP in 2018), because it is wasted on private insurance, while public care is deficient.
Mental health is another big issue, affecting one in five young women and one in 10 men under the age of 25. These are conditions typical of inequalities based on wealth and skin color, in a country where the concentration of income continues to grow and the Afro-descendant population is harshly punished by repression and lack of prospects.
There is an additional problem, internal to the armed forces. Of the population eligible to become combatants, only 9 percent have any propensity to enlist, due to the risk of physical injury or death, the possibility of post-traumatic stress and other psychological disorders. In addition, 34 percent of young people answered a survey assuring that they do not like the military lifestyle and 28 percent indicated the possibility of sexual harassment or assault, Politico details ( https://politi.co/3Clt5zF ).
Many more data could be added that attest to the decline of the empire, and now also the difficulty in sustaining its armed forces. This does not mean that they are going to give up, far from it. It indicates that more and more private armies will be created, such as the famous Blackwater, now renamed Academi, a private company of mercenaries.
The calls private armies
they are actually paramilitary organizations that reach beyond state armies, but governments do not pay the political costs of sending their soldiers. The British G4S Secure Solutions, for example, intervenes in 125 countries, has 620,000 employees, recruits serial criminals and has excelled in assassinations of personalities, among many other crimes (https://bit.ly/3clRuul).
All the data point in the same direction: the capitalism of death that oppresses us is in the phase of causing genocide out of desperation caused by the ongoing systemic changes.
It is up to the movements to decide what to do, since there are no trustworthy institutions when the known world collapses. When those above only think of themselves, it is us that must organize to survive.
