Army practices legal discrimination

By Libby

If you wanted to deliberately destroy troop morale, this would be a pretty good way to do it. Wait until an Army unit is deployed and waiting in Kuwait, most probably to be sent into the meatgrinder of Iraq and strip search them for tattoos.

Army officials said the searches last May of 58 New Mexico National Guardsmen in a unit called Task Force Cobra were proper and legal.
But Brig. Gen. Kenny Montoya, head of the state National Guard, said he believes ethnicity played a role in the episode - the unit is 55 percent Hispanic.

The military previously looked into the incident and cleared the Army of any wrongdoing. It said that before the searches were conducted, the Army was advised by a military attorney that having soldiers remove their shirts to check them for gang tattoos would be legal.

Maybe it's legal but it's certainly a slap in the face to those soldiers who have signed up to risk their lives as pawns in Bush's war games. For one thing, shouldn't they have been checking for tattoos and gang affiliations before they signed these guys up? And for another, why just search this unit that happens to be mostly Hispanic? It reeks of racism.

If this is the Bush administration's definition of supporting the troops, I think they should invest in a better dictionary.