Deporting soldier's wives

Over on TDAXP (still don't know where that name comes from), there was a post a while ago called "Improving Americans", on immigration. I left a comment, the last sentence of which was

Citizenship for foreigners who lay their life on the line for our country really should be a no-brainer.

Meaning non-citizens who join the American military should get an expedited path to citizenship (this is close to becoming reality). I don't really see how anyone could object to that proposal. Everyone else at TDAXP agreed.

So, from Rude Pundit, I bring you this:

Alex Jimenez's wife, Yaderlin, faces deportation because, yup, she's illegal. The woman pictured cuddling with her Army hubby may be sent back to the Dominican Republic, where she would have to stay for ten years before she could apply to come back. Her status as an illegal immigrant was discovered because, yup, Alex applied to get her a green card and legal status. The cruelest irony, if there isn't enough here, is that because Alex Jimenez is missing, a judge has put a hold on a hearing over her status. So now Yaderlin Jimenez gets to wait for the inevitable news that Alex was treated like a beef cow in the slaughterhouse and whether or not she's allowed to continue to live in the country that her husband suffered and probably died for.

Nothing to say about it really. It's just disgusting.

The Rude Pundit would like to see Malkin and Dobbs and Tom Tancredo standing at an airport, watching Yaderlin led to a plane to take her back to Santo Domingo. Maybe they could manipulate the corpse of her husband, an all-American puppet hero, so it waves good-bye and good riddance, that no sacrifice is enough to get into their special club of citizenship.

"The failure of an all-volunteer military"

Op-Ed by Andrew Bacevich in the Boston Globe.

"WAR IS the great auditor of institutions," the British historian Corelli Barnett has observed. In Iraq, the United States has undergone such an audit and been found wanting. The defects of basic US national security institutions stand exposed. Failure to correct those defects will only invite more Iraqs -- unnecessary wars that once begun prove unwinnable...

...For the vast majority of Americans, Desert Storm affirmed the wisdom of contracting out nation al security. Cheering the troops on did not imply any interest in joining their ranks. Especially among the affluent and well-educated, the notion took hold that national defense was something "they" did, just as "they" bus ed tables, collected trash, and mowed lawns. The stalemated war in Iraq has revealed two problems with this arrangement.
The first is that "we" have forfeited any say in where "they" get sent to fight. When it came to invading Iraq, President Bush paid little attention to what voters of the First District of Massachusetts or the 50th District of California thought. The people had long since forfeited any ownership of the army. Even today, although a clear majority of Americans want the Iraq war shut down, their opposition counts for next to nothing: the will of the commander-in-chief prevails.
The second problem stems from the first. If "they" -- the soldiers we contract to defend us -- get in trouble, "we" feel little or no obligation to bail them out. All Americans support the troops, yet support does not imply sacrifice. Yellow-ribbon decals displayed on the back of gas-guzzlers will suffice, thank you.

Ties in to The Progressive Case for Military Service, in the first issue of Democracy Journal last summer. It seems to me there has been a general downturn in civic responsibility - half of Americans don't vote, most Americans don't bother to educate themselves about the rest of the world, people drive giant gas-guzzling SUVs as a status symbol... sometimes I think it is because life is too easy - middle-class Americans are not really forced to struggle for what they want. The military advertises that you sho9uld join up not because you should, but because you can get lots of money, or get trained for jobs after the military, or because it will be exciting, or you can be manly. This isn't specific to the U.S. - the new Canadian Forces advertisement is "Fight Fear" (go be masculine and tough! Go do cool stuff!).

I can see why it would be difficult to gain recruitment by saying "Join the Army, because you should." Especially when there are a lot easier ways to give back to the community, like working at soup kitchens and stuff. And I think there is a fine line between a society saying "it is a civic responsibility to defend your community" and glorifying war. The ancient Greeks who we supposedly emulate with our "citizen-soldier" ideal were so far beyond that line it's shocking to me that we even give them lip-service.

Nothing really to say, just thought Bacevich's article was good.