Should U.S. recruit non-citizens?As the Roman Empire went into terminal decline, and fewer Roman citizens enlisted to fight the endless imperial wars, Roman rulers turned increasingly to the services of foreign mercenaries--ultimately, with disastrous results. Max Boot Max Boot (born 1969 in Moscow, Soviet Union) is an American author, editorialist, lecturer and military historian. He has been a prominent advocate for neoconservative foreign policy, once describing his own position as support for the use of "American might to promote American , a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an influential and independent, nonpartisan foreign policy membership organization founded in 1921 and based at 58 East 68th Street (corner Park Avenue) in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. , has urged Washington to emulate that self-destructive policy. "It is hard to pick up a newspaper without reading about Army and Marine Corps recruiting and retention woes," wrote Boot in a recent syndicated column. "Nonstop deployments and the danger faced by troops in Iraq are making it hard for both services to fill their ranks. The same goes for the National Guard and Reserves." Rather than rethinking our foreign policy to bring our military commitments into balance with our resources (and into harmony with constitutional principles), Boot argues that the military "would do well today to open its ranks not only to legal immigrants but also to illegal ones and, as important, to untold numbers of young men and women who are not here now but would like to come. No doubt many would be willing to serve for some set period in return for one of the world's most precious commodities--U.S. citizenship. Open up recruiting stations from Budapest to Bangkok, Cape Town Cape Town or Capetown, city (1991 pop. 854,616), legislative capital of South Africa and capital of Western Cape, a port on the Atlantic Ocean. It was the capital of Cape Province before that province's subdivision in 1994. to Cairo, Montreal to Mexico City Mexico City Spanish Ciudad de México City (pop., 2000: city, 8,605,239; 2003 metro. area est., 18,660,000), capital of Mexico. Located at an elevation of 7,350 ft (2,240 m), it is officially coterminous with the Federal District, which occupies 571 sq mi ." Most native-born and naturalized nat·u·ral·ize v. nat·u·ral·ized, nat·u·ral·iz·ing, nat·u·ral·iz·es v.tr. 1. To grant full citizenship to (one of foreign birth). 2. To adopt (something foreign) into general use. American citizens regard citizenship as a blessing. To Boot, it's a commodity, and those who enlist in his proposed "Freedom Legion" would be disposable cannon fodder cannon fodder n. Soldiers, sailors, or other military personnel regarded as likely to be killed or wounded in combat. cannon fodder Noun men regarded as expendable in war Noun 1. : "U.S. politicians, wary (and rightly so) of casualties among U.S. citizens, might take a more lenient attitude toward the employment of a force not made up of their constituents." Boot apparently assumes that most Americans share his view that foreign lives are cheaper and more expendable than ours. Of course, implicit in Adj. 1. implicit in - in the nature of something though not readily apparent; "shortcomings inherent in our approach"; "an underlying meaning" underlying, inherent Boot's suggestion is the possibility of recruiting foreigners to carry out homeland defense missions presently left begging because of prolonged overseas deployment of Guard and Reserve units. |
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