Military Enlistment

Other problems that recruiter's face, when trying to attract military personnel, is advanced education, youth trends of popularity and society views. The principal activities that "compete" with military service for recent high school graduates are further schooling and civilian employment. The trade-offs among these alternatives shift substantially over time because of both fluctuations in the civilian economy and secular trends in the aspirations of youth (Sackett, 2003, p.43). With the current events in the world today and in the United States the trade-offs of not joining the military seem to have the edge causing recruiters to work harder and the government to spend more money on meeting their goals.

On September 11, 2001, a series of terrorist attacks were directed for the United States by means of four hijacked planes. Two of which hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Department of Defense, and the fourth crashed in a field near Pittsburg after it was meant to hit the White House. The terror spread in the United States and brought concern and fear to the citizens. The impact of these terrorist attacks caused serious and detrimental damages within the country, and their result on the people were enormous; insecurity, helplessness, and susceptibility spread. Especially after the release of a videotape in which Osama Bin Laden, head of Al-Qaeda, admitted that he was responsible for the terrorist attacks. Hence, President George W, Bush declared the “war on terror” against all terrorists in the Arab world, specifically Afghanistan and Iraq. In the following paper, we will be discussing how the war on terror was waged, its effects on the target countries, and how it was perceived by political thinkers, where some saw it as a conspiracy theory against the Arab countries, and others believed the USA was the victim.

Foreign and domestic policies are not linear, rather the policies are connected in a circle, with each policy reinforcing the values of another. Domestic American terrorism in the prison and detention systems and governmental reforms are influenced by the mobilization and ethnocentrism abroad. The militarization internationally is justified by the domestic handling of the same cultural issues within the United State borders. The United States has strangely used a near Catch-22 to handle dilemmas. The United States has allowed perspective to become reality, whether with oneself or regarding issues abroad, specifically in the Middle East. Terrorism is the use or threat of fear for political or economical gain. An internal characteristic of terrorism is how dependent it is of perspective, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. To understand “terrorism,” a focus must be applied to the history, what drove an organization to commit such acts. Respectively, the Middle East has been a hotbed for the key word “terrorism,” especially because of 9/11. Subsequently, Muslims have been stigmatized by the United States as terrorists. The consequences spawned because of 9/11 require a look to the past to understand the present.

When draftees are tested only eighty percent score average or above average while 99 percent of volunteers scored average or above on the standardized military test (Jehn, 2). Recruits score higher on enlistment tests when an all-volunteer force is used. Also, not all people have the personality it takes to serve in the military. Some people are meant to do other jobs like and teaching and farming. The US will also have a shortage of expertise if a draft is put into place. When an all-volunteer military is in place, the military is able to obtain workers that specialize in specific areas such as medicine and military strategists. With a drafted force, soldiers come to the base, the soldiers are trained, the soldiers fight, and then they are honorably discharged. While an all-volunteer force is in place, soldiers must stay for the required time they need to serve due to requirements of that branch of the military. While soldiers are serving this period of time, they are able to specialize in a field. The US should have an all-volunteer military because people that are volunteering have a better knowledge than a draftee that has never considered the military. Previous studies show that volunteer soldiers out perform drafted

Events of the new millennium irreversibly changed the direction of American foreign policy. During the 1990s, Anti-American sentiments burgeoned in the Middle East within growing radical Islamist groups that perceived America as empirical and expansionist after the prolonged US occupation of Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia after the end of the first gulf war. The September 11th attack on the Twin Towers, once representative of American military and economic hegemony, symbolized to many a political failure that would change the focus of American national interest for years to come.

Social and cultural aspects play a significant role in the media’s unflattering depiction of Islamic extremists, which correlates directly to military spending and relations with the Middle East. Since 9/11, when Arabs attacked the U.S. on behalf of Afghan Islamic extremists, relations with the Middle East have been tense, according to Thomas Kean and others in "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Kean and others report that repercussions of the 9/11 attacks included homeland security improvements. Dov S. Zakheim, former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense and Chief Financial Officer, similarly discussed that relations worsened after 9/11 in "September 11: A Decade Later What 9/11 Has Wrought”, which details the effects

Some people such as yourself, who do not support military recruiting in high schools, worry that military recruiters prey on the poor students and persuade them to join by offering things such as signing bonuses and the promise of free college. Admittedly those things might be offered, although not specifically for those of a lower income household, but for all recruits, and they are not intended to be used to trap those students into the Military service. In a study done by the Center for Naval Analyses under the Department of Defense it was found that when the nation is divided into five “strata of affluence”, from poorest to wealthiest areas, most recruits hail from the three middle-income brackets while the poorest (under $36,74 a year) and the wealthiest (over $76,981 a year) brackets are under-represented (CNA 2014). I understand your concerns on this matter, and while in some cases the recruiters might actually focus on the lower income families, the majority of the military recruiters just want to see your children do what they are passionate about and see them succeed in it, as I know you do as

September 11, 2001 was one of the most influential days in the history of the United States to date. Although the physical attacks only happened in New York City, Washington DC, and a field in Pennsylvania, not a sliver of our country has been left untouched. 16 years later, our country is still facing challenges that can be directly tied back to the effects of 9/11. It was not just an event that changed the United States, but also has completely changed how the entire world has come to interact and cooperate. As a consequence, the way that we view terrorism and certain ethnicities have been drastically altered as a means to justify the excruciating crisis that our country went through at the turn of the new millennium.

September 11th holds many hard and upset feelings around the world today. The harsh actions of Muslim extremists unfortunately completely changed the way Muslims are treated, especially in the United States. These events, exacerbated islamophobia. Unfortunately, “the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, connect Muslims and Islam to terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States.” (Byng) Although it has been over a decade since the attack, many still feel racist and discriminatory attitudes towards Muslims. Muslims are the targeted minority in the United States, “the 9/11 terrorist attacks shifted the social and political context for Muslims in the United States. Terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States carried out by Muslims places an identity at the center of national and global politics.” (Byng) The blame of the horrible terrorist attacks, rather than be placed on terrorists or religious extremist, has been placed on Islam in America. After September 11th, hate crimes towards Muslims skyrocketed, “the most dramatic change noted by the report was a more than 1,600 percent increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims -- a jump from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 last year.”

“Muslims, Bin Laden argues, must reverse a series of humiliations that they’ve endured since the Ottoman Empire, the last Muslim great power, was dismantled after World War I. Al-Qaeda’s 1998 declaration of a jihad, or holy war, against ‘Jews and Crusaders’ urges Muslims to attack ‘the Americans and their allies, civilian and military,’ supposedly as a response to U.S. policies that al-Qaeda feels oppress Muslims: the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia; the backing of U.N. sanctions against Iraq; support for repressive Arab regimes; support for Israel; alleged complicity in Russian attacks on Muslims in Chechnya; and interventions in Bosnia, Somalia, and other Muslim regions that bin Laden sees as attempts to spread America’s empire. These Western policies, according to al-Qaeda, add up to a ‘clear

Ever since September 11, 2001 Americans along with the majority of the world’s population have been skeptical of Muslims. It’s a sad reality but it’s hard for people to think of a Muslim without linking them directly to terrorism. But these assumptions aren’t totally out of the blue—the Muslim’s religion, Islam, teaches a low tolerance for other religions and the Islamic government has no separation of church and state, so it’s only normal to assume that their government shall have a low tolerance as well—some however, immediately translate this into terrorism. Through the Islamic government and religion, relations with foreign countries, and separation amongst themselves it can be concluded that Islamic Fundamentalism is clearly a threat

In the days after September 11, 2001, American leaders rushed to portray Islam as a peaceful religion that had been "hijacked" by a fanatical band of terrorists. One hopes that these assurances were merely tactical—that nobody was meant to believe them and that they were meant to assure the Muslim world that the inevitable American

After the attack of 9/11 many American citizens sought out an answer to why one would hijack a plane and run it into the Twin Towers, killing millions. According to the Huffpost, Islam became the main reason for the attack and furthermore labeled religion as the inspiration for many terroristic attacks (Gibson, 1). According to many Muslims, however, the attacks are anti-Islamic because the Quran states not to harm civilians who are not involved with war and to avoid it at all possible times (PBS, 3). The conflict between Muslims and Americans is growing and many issues in the Middle East has become the focus for religious terrorism.

Ever since the beginning of the terrorist attacks on American soil, the War on Terror has been involved in the lives of Americans and nations near us. The War on Terror’s background originated through conflicts between warring countries in the Middle East; U.S. involvement started when a terrorist guided plane crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 in New York City. The attack was suspected to be the work of the middle-eastern terrorist group Al-Qaeda. The U.S. military, under the leadership of then commander-in-chief George W. Bush, declared a “War on Terror” on the terrorist group and the fighting began.

Since then so-called “War on Terrorism, “against a vague and undefined enemy, rages on in from Iraq to Syria. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has initiated a number of wars in Muslim countries. These wars, which would be more correctly called massacres, have resulted in the deaths of countless innocent Muslims. Despite there are many ways to see that Muslims were not responsible for 9/11.