Perhaps Australia's military future is in worse shape than we thought:
"Young Australians are becoming too drugged and too fat to join the military.
"Overuse of recreational drugs - particularly marijuana - among 15-year-olds and junk food-related obesity are expected to worsen over the next decade, according to an Australian Defence Force (ADF) internal recruiting plan for the next five years, it was reported today.
"'The high incidence of non-medical drug use among young people (recent studies suggesting up to 50 per cent of 15-year-olds smoke marijuana at least once a month) severely limits the pool of recruitable candidates,' the recruiting report says."
Less able soldiers to fight imperial wars? Sounds ideal to me. How about a plan to reduce excessive recreational drinking, surely a far worse problem than smoking pot?
"Young Australians are becoming too drugged and too fat to join the military.
"Overuse of recreational drugs - particularly marijuana - among 15-year-olds and junk food-related obesity are expected to worsen over the next decade, according to an Australian Defence Force (ADF) internal recruiting plan for the next five years, it was reported today.
"'The high incidence of non-medical drug use among young people (recent studies suggesting up to 50 per cent of 15-year-olds smoke marijuana at least once a month) severely limits the pool of recruitable candidates,' the recruiting report says."
Less able soldiers to fight imperial wars? Sounds ideal to me. How about a plan to reduce excessive recreational drinking, surely a far worse problem than smoking pot?
6 Comments:
Yes, great - and a bunch of fat shiftless stoners on the dole to be reliable ALP votes! Win-win!
The connection between stoning and recuitment is largely a beatup of the Age's imaginattion.
What every good recuitment officer knows (be he fascist or an ALP communist) is that as employment becomes more "full" more people go for increasingly available higher paid jobs (eg computing and accountancy) and less of the "smart, eligible" prospects condescent to join the grubby military.
Also unpopular wars (with the serious side effect of death) may turn off the creme de la creme of recuiting prospects.
True enough. The Iraq war has caused a massive drop in recruitment in the US and UK, and I presume here too. So much for liberation being popular with the kiddies!
If fact, the US recruiting humbers are down in apite of very attractive financial incentives. In spite of the tagets being reduced, the failure to meet those targets continues.
What use is a bribe if you don't live to spend it?
Why join the military when those sending people off to war collectively bailed when it was their turn?
How about a plan to reduce excessive recreational drinking, surely a far worse problem than smoking pot?
Both are terrible, it’s a pity tax-dollars go towards cleaning up victims of excessive drinking, and dealing with the severe mental problems causes by long-term marijuana usage. As far as I'm concerned, if we want to legalise any illicit drugs, then we have to privatise the health system so Australians aren’t footing the bill for drug and alcohol abusers.
Less able soldiers to fight imperial wars? Sounds ideal to me.
You may not like the wars Australia has been engaged in since federation, but you are a fool if you think a b-grade military force in the Western world is a good thing. I suppose you have your hopes pinned on countries like Libya and Iran contributing to peacekeeping operations in the future?
antony
I could not agree more. There are far more efficient ways to pull the mad mullahs into line.
Post a Comment
<< Home