In their July 4th issue (available online now), Newsweek's reporter Michael Isikoff (sound familiar? Remember the Qu'aran flushing story?) is running a story about post 9/11 use of "material witness" arrests by the Justice Department titled "Exclusive: A Sharp New Look at 'Material Witness' Arrests". It heavily cites a report being put out by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch claiming the practice may account for "...the most civil-liberties abuses of any post-9/11 policy." [play heavy melodramatic chords here]. (Note the pre-supposition of guilt by the ACLU / HRW / Isikoff / Newsweek in claiming that the arrests are civil-liberties abuses)

Mr. Isikoff goes on to make a point of stating that of those held under these material witness warrants that "—almost all of them [were] Muslim men—" Why did he have to point of the religion of the suspects in such a blatantly provoking way? I mean, yes, it could make a difference, however one must consider the fact that the 9/11 hijackers were all Muslim. That Osama bin Laden is Muslim. That al Qaeda is a radical, fundamentalist group of....Muslims. Therefore, when investigating a terrorist group and arresting people based on those tips and intelligence that one would probably investigating or arresting a larger number of Muslim's? When investigating the KKK and the Aryan Nation don't you tend to find mostly white Christians? How come that is never pointed out in quite the same manner?

The editorial review at Newsweek is becoming ridiculous. This article is so blatantly biased as to be laughable. After dedicating the ENTIRE article to the ACLU / HRW version of events and the ACLU / HRW interpretation of the law, Mr. Isikoff then devotes TWO whole sentences to a rebuttal by the Justice Department. Mr. Isikoff almost as an afterthought acknowledges that the arrests are made under a warrant signed by a federal judge and of course require evidence.

Newsweek should be ashamed.

How strange that the Washington Post is running an article on military recruiters and high schools.

And I'm sure it's purely coincidental that there are also a large number of articles listed on news.google.com with the terms "military recruiter high school" (even after you subtract the syndicated Associated Press and Washington Post articles) that all just happen to have been released in the last two days.

I mean, there couldn't be some sort of organized plan to saturate the free, independent media with a story now could there?

In an article in the Guardian, Ms. Nancy Carroll stated that she believes that recruiters unfairly target minority students and that "People of color who go into the military are put on the front line...''

This seemed odd to me so I did a little bit of research.

The DOD publishes a report titled "Population Representation in the Military Services" (it's really really hard to find. I actually had to type "ethnicity statistics" into the DOD search engine and click a button!) which details race and ethnicity of recruit candidates and accessions for enlisted and officers. Let's take a look at some of the stats shall we?
Totals for the DOD Applicants

Race	Male	Female	Total
White	71.10%	60.91%	69.04%
Black	15.97%	24.62%	17.71%
AIAN	2.14%	2.40%	2.20%
Asian	2.85%	3.01%	2.88%
NHPI	1.56%	2.14%	1.68%
Two or More	2.48%	3.02%	2.59%
Unknown	3.89%	3.90%	3.89%
Hispanic	13.73%	15.15%	14.02%
Not Hispanic	86.27%	84.85%	85.98%

source data: Appendix A-03. 2003 Population Representation in the Military Services

Total DOD Accessions

Race	Male	Female	Total
White	77.51%	67.54%	75.79%
Black	13.35%	22.86%	14.99%
AIAN	1.75%	2.15%	1.82%
Asian	1.26%	1.09%	1.23%
NHPI	0.44%	0.37%	0.42%
Two or More	2.62%	2.88%	2.67%
Unknown	3.07%	3.11%	3.08%
Hispanic	11.24%	12.73%	11.50%
Not Hispanic	88.76%	87.27%	88.50%

source data: Appendix B-03, 2003 Population Representation in the Military Services

If the military is "unfairly targeting" racial / ethnic minorities, they seem to really suck at it.
Most of the applicants and recruits appear to be white, non-hispanic males.

Perhaps the Guardian (and the Associated Press) could have done this oh so complicated research and provided it to their readers rather than just doing a press release for groups such as Code Pink, American Friends Service Committee, and Veterans for Peace, all of whom are linked to and listed as co-sponsors by the websites provided by the Guardian in the article at http://www.leavemychildalone.org/

You don't suppose those groups would be lying about the statistics or that they might have an ulterior motive now do you?