Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: UK Armed Forces employ 7,000 foreigners

Armed Forces employ 7,000 foreigners
By James Kirkup and Rosa Prince
Last Updated: 11:42pm GMT 17/02/2008
The extent of the Armed Forces staffing crisis has been disclosed in
figures showing that there are more than 7,000 foreign citizens
serving in the British military.
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Britain's growing "foreign legion" - equal to almost a dozen Army
regiments - has led to renewed warnings that the Forces are struggling
to retain and recruit British citizens to their ranks. The figures
emerged as the House of Commons defence committee launched an inquiry
into recruitment and retention in the Armed Forces and they follow
growing criticism of the Government's alleged under-resourcing of the
military.
 Official defence data show that there are 7,240 Commonwealth
personnel in the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
Some 2,030 are from the small nation of Fiji. There are 880 South
Africans, 790 Ghanaians and 600 Zimbabweans. The MoD figures exclude
the 3,700 Nepalese Ghurkhas serving in the Army.
More than 6,000 of the Commonwealth personnel are soldiers in the
Army, which is already 3,800 short of its desired manning levels
because of soldiers leaving.
Earlier this month, The Daily Telegraph disclosed that one in 14
soldiers is unfit to fight as a result of being sick or injured -
almost 7,000 infantrymen.
The three Services have a total of around 196,000 personnel, with
numbers falling since the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2000, there were only 820 Commonwealth soldiers in the Army,
meaning levels have risen tenfold since the start of operations in
Afghanistan.
The Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, a former infantry commanding
officer, said: "Sadly there is no doubt at all that recruiting and
retention policies amongst British citizens for the British Armed
Forces have been disastrous. Commonwealth citizens make fine soldiers
and we are very grateful to them, but unless something radical is done
in MoD thinking, we will shortly end up with a very large percentage
of our servicemen and women coming from aboard.
"I have nothing at all against overseas troops, but it is hardly an
ideal situation."
A spokesman for the MoD said: "Foreign and Commonwealth soldiers make
a valued contribution to the overall strength of our Armed Forces,
which are stretched but can cope. There continue to be challenges in
maintaining manning levels in certain areas such as infantry and
medical specialists, and as a result, these areas are busier than
intended.
"But we are taking action to address the effects of this by improving
recruiting and retention, and restructuring our forces to focus effort
in those areas in most demand."

 Grazie, 
Sadly there is no doubt at all that recruiting and
retention policies amongst British citizens for the British Armed
Forces have been disastrous
sono diventati tutti guerrafondai imboscati come te?
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 sono diventati tutti guerrafondai imboscati come te?
Semplicemente il problema si pone per i corpi specializzati.
Un istruttore paracadutista prende per una lezione quanto un sergente 
prende in 1 settimana.
I specialisti delle comunicazioni vengono, praticamente, rapiti dalle 
società civili.
I soldati dei reparti speciali vengono reclutati a botte di 6000 
sterline a mese dai vari contractors.
Gli ufficiali vengono reclutati dalle aziende.
Poni a paragone lo stipendio di un comandate di una nave militare e lo 
stipendio del comandante di una petroliera.
Questo fenomeno non si verifica invece nel personale non specializzato.
-- 
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, 
stand like a rock. -- Thomas Jefferson