Blacks as “Cannon Fodder” on U.S. Front Lines?

     Lizette Alvarez reports from Denver on the Army’s drive to recruit more Hispanics in “With Charm and Enticements, Army Is Drawing Hispanic Recruits, and Criticism.”

     She paints the drive in a negative light: “In Denver and other cities where the Hispanic population is growing, recruiting Latinos has become one of the Army's top priorities. From 2001 to 2005, the number of Latino enlistments in the Army rose 26 percent, and in the military as a whole, the increase was 18 percent. The increase comes at a time when the Army is struggling to recruit new soldiers and when the enlistment of African-Americans, a group particularly disillusioned with the war in Iraq, has dropped off sharply, to 14.5 percent from 22.3 percent over the past four years.

      “Not all Latinos, though, are in step with the military's recruitment goals. In some cities with large Hispanic populations, the focus on recruitment has polarized Latinos, prompting some to organize against recruiters and to help immigrants learn their rights.

     “Critics say recruiters, who are under pressure to meet quotas, often use their charm and an arsenal of tactics, including repeated calls to a recruit, lunch at a favorite restaurant and trips to the gym. The Army also parades rigged-out, juiced-up Hummers wherever youths gather as promotional tools.”

     Ironically, the left-wing and media have often lambasted the U.S. military as a white Republican bastion. Yet the Times and the media are suspicious of affirmative action when it comes to the military.

     Alvarez relays a racially charged left-wing criticism in a fuzzy paragraph that leaves open the question -- is the accusation true or not?

     “Critics also say that Latinos often wind up as cannon fodder on the casualty-prone front lines. African-Americans saw the same thing happen during the 1970's and 1980's, an accusation that still reverberates. Hispanics make up only 4.7 percent of the military's officer corps.”

     At National Review Online, John Miller finds the line “outrageous” and points to this study refuting the charge.

For more of Alvarez on army recruitment of Hispanics, click here.

David Sanger’s Unkindest “Cut”

     David Sanger amusingly displays pro-spending bias in the same sentence that Bush attacks it.

     Following Bush to New Hampshire for Thursday’s “Back at Campaign Site, Bush Sells Budget,” political reporter Sanger writes “In an appearance at a hotel that is usually the site of political events during the New Hampshire primaries, Mr. Bush said he had no intention of giving up his insistence on revamping the Social Security system, a proposal that sank in Congress last year, and he argued that he was fixing the Medicare system, not eroding it.”

     Sanger displays his dissonance while quoting Bush, using the word “cut” in the very sentence in which Bush complains about the media’s use of the word. “‘This isn't a cut,’ he said of his plan to cut $36 billion over five years out of the Medicare program by changing the formulas that govern its growth. ‘People call it a cut in Medicare. That's not a cut. It's slowing down the rate of growth. It's the difference between slowing your car down to go the speed limit, or putting your car in reverse.’”

     The media and Sanger certainly tend to refer to reductions in the growth of Medicare spending as “cuts.”

For the rest of Sanger with Bush in New Hampshire, click here.

Muslims vs. Europeans: Alan Cowell’s Awkward Balancing Act

     More on the Mohammad cartoons in Wednesday’s story by London-based Alan Cowell, “West Coming to Grasp Wide Islamic Protests As Sign of Deep Gulf.”

     “For decades European nations have wrestled with an influx of immigrants who came for economic and political reasons, primarily from lands where Islam is the dominant faith -- from Bosnia and Turkey, from Iraq, Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East, from North Africa and Somalia. But many feel they have never been fully welcome. The catalog of Islamic terrorism -- from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, to the March 2004 bombings in Madrid and the July 2005 attacks in London -- has challenged governments and societies to distinguish between moderates and extremists, like the four British-born Muslims who killed themselves and 52 other people in London.”

      Cowell argues: “…there is a seething resentment among some Muslims that they are treated as second-class citizens and potential terrorists in lands that deny the importance of their faith, even though the number of Muslims in Europe totals 20 million, and possibly many more.

     He balances that with the point of view from the European side: “That mistrust is mirrored by a gnawing sense among some Europeans that their generous welfare states have become home to an unwelcome minority that does not share their values and may even represent a fifth column of potential insurgents, who project themselves as the victims of Islamophobia and discrimination in housing and jobs.”

     But Cowell’s balancing act goes awry with this faulty comparison: “In London on Tuesday, Abu Hamza al-Masri, an Egyptian who is wanted in the United States on terrorism charges, was sentenced to seven years for incitement to murder. Five days earlier, Nick Griffin, chairman of the anti-immigrant British National Party, was acquitted on race hate charges relating to assaults on Islam as a ‘vicious, wicked faith.’ The different outcomes provoked fresh accusations that British justice -- like British society, by this argument -- discriminates against Muslims.”

     Cowell lumps the cases together without explaining the enormous differences. Don Van Natta Jr.’s front-page story Wednesday explains al-Masri was convicted of “using his sermons to encourage his followers to kill non-Muslims.” If Griffin ever incited his followers to kill immigrants, Cowell doesn’t use the quote.

     Chris Judd at NewsBusters makes more points about Cowell as well as an Arts piece by Times critic Michael Kimmelman that’s pretty hostile toward the publication of the cartoons – yet is accompanied by a photo of Chris Ofili’s offensive “Virgin Mary” painting.

To read the rest of Cowell from London, click here.