Foolish Plan

I’m moving part of an earlier post back up to the top for awhile, because I feel like it’s really important but getting overlooked a bit (which is my own fault for dumping it into one post with that exceedingly annoying Boy Scout stuff), and I’ve added a little additional commentary about why I think it’s so important.

--------------------

In yet another questionable recruiting scheme, the military is now offering to let recruits fulfill part of their military obligations by serving in the Peace Corps. The program, proposed by John McCain and Evan Bayh, went into effect three years ago as part of 306-page defense budget bill, and—here’s the kicker—the Peace Corps didn’t even know about it until after it became law.

Big Problem #1: A big part of what protects the 7,733 Peace Corps workers spread across 73 countries is the clear delineation between the Peace Corps and the US military. Publicizing such an agreement between the two, particularly at a time when the US military is actively involved in a foreign occupation, could raise suspicions of existing Peace Corps workers, potentially putting them in danger.

Big Problem #2: There’s no guarantee that recruits who enlist with the promise of fulfilling part of their service obligation with the Peace Corps will actually be given that opportunity. The Peace Corps will require enlistees to apply to their program just like any other potential Corps volunteer. To put that into perspective, the Corps already receives three times the number of applications as they have open slots. Until the Republican-controlled Congress decides to provide more funding to the Corps, they cannot open their ranks to a greater number of volunteers. So basically, the military is using an unfunded program to try to attract new recruits, when they have just as slim a chance of getting into the Peace Corps as they would if they skipped military enlistment altogether and just applied to the Corps on their own.

Very, very dodgy stuff.

--------------------

Anyone who’s angry about the outing of Valerie Plame, the country being led to war on a pack of lies, or the ever-worsening reputation of America (and Americans) abroad ought to be angry about this as well. And here’s why…

The administration made a grave error in using the bad information about a uranium purchase in the president’s state of the union address. When Joe Wilson, who had personally debunked that information, called them out on their folly, they were left with a political problem, and to solve it—and prevent other potential critics from getting so uppity—they sought swift retribution, and lashed out at Wilson by leaking the identity of his wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. Her life, her work, and her associates were put into jeopardy for no other reason than the administration had a goal it wanted to accomplish—punishing a war critic, her husband—and that short-term political goal was more important than the lives and work of Plame and her associates. Now, the military is having a recruiting problem, attributable, once again, to administration folly—this time, asking the US military to put their lives on the line for a war that was not of last resort—and to solve that problem as quickly as possible, it’s potentially endangering the lives of active Peace Corps volunteers, for whom the clear delineation between the Peace Corps and the military (and/or CIA) provides a not insignificant level of protection. In either case, to solve one problem of the administration’s making, lives of those who get in the way by a stroke of misfortune, are given little consideration, in spite of their good work.

And should we not be outraged that after the administration sent the troops into harm’s way on nothing but lies, the military now seeks to entice and cajole additional bodies for the war of the neocons’ making with more lies? The military is promising things to potential recruits that it can’t possibly guarantee, for the reasons mentioned above. Do they even mention, I wonder, that the Peace Corps only accepts US citizens? There are plenty of enlistees who aren’t citizens. Do they mention, I wonder, that there is no existing program for soldiers to automatically transfer into the Peace Corps? That they will be required to submit an application and have no greater or lesser chance of admittance than any other applicant? That the Peace Corps does not have the funding to increase its number of volunteers any time in the immediate future? What, exactly, is this promise worth to soldiers, in reality? Much less than it’s worth to military recruiters, it seems.

Finally, because the Peace Corps has so stringently resisted associations with other forms of foreign service, its volunteers were afforded a level of trust that allowed them relationships with native populations across the globe that an occupying military force, for example, would not so easily attain. Blurring the line between the two may well compromise the ability of Corps volunteers to engage in this kind of interaction, which, in the end, hurts America—because they are each ambassadors for our country. Just as the steady decrease in international student enrollment at our universities will inevitably stem the tide of what amounts to an unintentional yet highly successful method of diplomacy, casting a pall of suspicion on Corps volunteers could have the same effect. Many people around the world do Americans the honor of regarding them differently—more positively—than they regard the American government and its military. We threaten that carefully drawn distinction when any American serving abroad can easily be misconstrued as an agent of the military.

This is a foolish plan. And like many of this administration’s foolish plans, we may all suffer for it.