Signs Of Collapse

Those familiar with the history of Rome and her Legions should be finding the emerging stories about US military recruiting quite familiar. In a manner not unlike Rome's legions, the US finds itself obliged to recruit its soldiers from populations that previously would have been excluded from military service for a variety of reasons.

The US is now recruiting from the most dangerous of possibilities - those whose criminal past shows them to be dangerous at the best of times, and hardly among those that one would willingly arm.

Along with the huge armies of mercenaries that are fighting in Iraq for pay, the "professional army" of the United States is now recruiting criminals - people who often would have no right to even vote in an election, and handing them weapons.

This comes as no surprise. Just as Rome ultimately had to recruit from her conquered peoples to feed the ever expanding needs of her armies in order to secure Rome's conquests, the US finds itself pushed to turn to those whom it would have chosen to exclude from all other aspects of public life.

I can only imagine that the US is in grave danger of finding itself in the situation of having the proverbial tiger by the tail, and not having much choice but to let it go.