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A New Poverty Draft: Military Contractors Target Latin America For New Recruits

Ohio Voting Rights Activists Call Electoral Fight The "Biggest Deal Since Selma"

Military Families & 9/11 Families Raise $500,000 for Falluja Refugees

Homeless Veterans: Soldiers Go From Fighting in Iraq to Fighting A New War At Home

A New Poverty Draft: Military Contractors Target Latin America For New Recruits

Halliburton and other private military contractors have begun advertising campaigns in El Salvador, Colombia and Nicaragua to recruit ex-soldiers to work in Iraq.

With the situation in Iraq becoming more and more deadly and the resistance gaining increasing popular support inside the country, the Bush administration has begun sending thousands more US troops to Baghdad. But many question how many more troops the administration can afford to send, or more important, how many soldiers it can send. The US military is facing an unprecedented crisis in recruiting numbers and new enlistments. Meanwhile, new Pentagon statistics show that more than 5,000 soldiers have now been charged with desertion from bases in the U.S. and overseas since the invasion of Iraq in early 2003.

In some circles, there is talk of a return to the draft, though most analysts say that is unlikely in the near future. But it is not just the military that is facing difficulty in recruiting people to deploy to Iraq. Private contractors are also facing a serious personnel crisis, particularly given the danger of the situation and the fact that kidnappings and beheadings have become a regular part of the reality in occupied Iraq. Now, private US corporations have begun recruiting outside of the country. In recent months companies like Halliburton have launched ad campaigns and recruiting drives in several Latin American countries, promising huge salaries for fighting age men and women to serve in Iraq. Among the countries being targeted are El Salvador, Colombia and Nicaragua.

Geoff Thale, senior associate for Central America and Cuba at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Ohio Voting Rights Activists Call Electoral Fight The "Biggest Deal Since Selma"

Ohio-based journalist Harvey Wasserman reviews the ongoing controversy surrounding the presidential vote in Ohio. Representative John Conyers - the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee - has called on The Associated Press and the five broadcast networks to turn over raw exit poll data collected on Election Day in order to investigate any discrepancies between the data and the certified election results. [includes rush transcript]

Groups from across the country are in full swing with their mobilizations for mass-protests at the inauguration of George Bush next month in Washington DC.

But as the White House moves ahead selling tickets for as much as $100,000 to some inauguration events, there are many people in this country that believe the celebration is premature. While Bush continues his shaping of a second term cabinet, some within Congress are increasing their calls for a closer look at the results of the November 2 election.

Representative John Conyers - the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee - has called on The Associated Press and the five broadcast networks to turn over raw exit poll data collected on Election Day. The Michigan Democrat wants to investigate any discrepancies between the data and the certified election results. Early exit polls indicated that Senator John Kerry was beating President Bush in several key states including Ohio. That state has become the battleground in the fight over who won on November 2. We are joined now by a longtime independent journalist from Ohio, who has been investigating the controversy surrounding the vote in that state.

Harvey Wasserman, is a Senior Editor of the Free Press based in Ohio. Along with Bob Fitrakis and Steve Rosenfeld, he is co-author of the upcoming book Ohio"s Stolen Election: Voices of the Disenfranchised. His latest piece is called "Ohio electoral fight becomes "biggest deal since Selma" as GOP stonewalls."

Military Families & 9/11 Families Raise $500,000 for Falluja Refugees

A delegation of military family members whose sons died while fighting in the Iraq war will travel to Jordan from December 27, 2004 to January 4, 2005 to deliver $600,000 worth of humanitarian supplies for refugees from the U.S. attack on Falluja. [includes rush transcript]

The November attack, which virtually leveled the city and left some 2,000 Iraqis and 71 U.S. soldiers dead, also created thousands of refugees, who are living without adequate food, water, electricity and healthcare. Most of these refugees are children.

In an Internet appeal, the military family members, in collaboration with U.S. peace groups, physicians" organizations, and September 11 families, quickly raised $100,000 in donations. And humanitarian groups such as the Middle East Children"s Alliance and Operation USA contributed $500,000 worth of medical supplies.

Adele Welty, lost her son Tim Welty on September 11. He was a New York City firefighter. She is leaving for the Iraq-Jordan border with a delegation that is delivering more than $500,000 in aid to refugees from Fallujah.

Homeless Veterans: Soldiers Go From Fighting in Iraq to Fighting A New War At Home

Two soldiers who recently returns from Iraq talk about how they faced another battle after they returned home from war. Nicole Goodwin, 24, only found a permanent place to live after her story was profiled in the New York Times. 25-year-old Herold Noel is still looking for a place for him, his wife and three children. He talks to Democracy Now! in his first broadcast interview.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld remains under fire from multiple sides of the political spectrum in this country. Most significantly, several leading Republican lawmakers like Senators John McCain, Chuck Hagle and Trent Lott have voiced their opposition to Rumsfeld remaining for another term in the Bush cabinet. This week, the calls for his resignation gained more momentum after Rumsfeld admitted that he had not been personally signing letters of condolence to families of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, Rumsfeld used a rubber-stamp type machine to automatically place his signature on the letters.

Rumsfeld already was under the gun for remarks he made in response to questions from US soldiers in Kuwait on the inadequate amount of armor on their vehicles in Iraq and other shortages facing soldiers serving in the occupation. On Wednesday at the Pentagon press briefing, Rumsfeld tried to deflect criticism that he has neglected US soldiers.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speaking yesterday at the Pentagon. As the controvery continues over Rumsfeld”s future, it is not only soldiers now deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan who face serious problems. For many soldiers, another battle begins once they return to so-called civilian life in this country after leaving the war zone.

It has become one of the most shameful realities in this country. The number of veterans who return home to the US and end up living on the streets or in homeless shelters. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, nearly 300,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, and almost half of those are Vietnam vets.

Now, with the occupation of Iraq and some 150,000 troops deployed there and thousands more who have returned, a new generation of soldiers are facing the same realities experienced by their colleagues who fought in Vietnam and in other conflicts. Some of them are suffering from the effects of depleted uranium; others from posttraumatic stress disorder or mental illness sparked by their time in the zone of combat. Others find they have no place to live. Today, we are going to look at the stories of two veterans of the occupation of Iraq who came home to discover how some of the soldiers publicly celebrated by the Bush administration are forced to live.

Nicole Goodwin, former homeless veteran who retured from Iraq earlier this year. She now works with Operation Truth and lobbies on behalf of other Iraq war veterans.

Herold Noel, former Army specialist who recently returned from Iraq. He is now without a home.

For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359. Our website is www.democracynow.org. Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.

Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.

Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards, Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph, Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu, Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.