Ernest Young has an interesting idea that surely no person who has been forced to flee their homeland in fear of their life could disagree with…
I have just seen an item on a cable news channel in the USA, concerning the return of asylum seekers from Iraq.
The UN has asked host countries not to return Iraqi asylum seekers to Iraq.
All fair and reasonable.
During WWII Britain was host to many asylum seekers from invaded countries, such as France and Poland. With very little encouragement, these folk formed regiments and joined forces with the Allies, and were keen to see service in the liberation of their native countries. They were among the most dedicated soldiers, and earned many honours for bravery, after all, they had the best reasons for fighting against the invader.
As we have some 150,000 ‘asylum seekers’ from Iraq, in the UK, would it not be a reasonable idea to form an Iraqi Regiment, so that these Hussein haters could take an active part in liberating their own country?
Maybe they could join forces with ‘asylum seekers’ from other countries, who must all surely have good reason to oppose tyranny, to form maybe an Iraqi Division. I am sure that the skills that they have, with just the language alone, would help during the fighting, and also be of great help in ‘democratizing’ Iraq after the conflict.
Maybe I am expecting too much…
Ernest Young
Though the gap between untrained soldier and trained soldier is bigger now, no? And wouldn’t everyone be worried about the Free Iraqis containing a handful of Saddam loyalists reporting back to Baghdad?
There are many roles for which less well trained but local origin troops would be ideal, particularly in areas already overrun by an allied advance where the main concerns would be more para-military in nature… and as for internal security, that really is not that hard to control. I don’t think Ernest was suggesting ‘Free Iraqi’ troops be used at Central Command HQ!
If you’ve been following closely, american forces have been doing just this. When Rumsfeld and others spoke to the Iraqi community in Detroit they were recruiting.
An Iraqi bridgade has been training in Hungary. They will be scouts and translators for the allied forces.
Why doesn’t the US have a Foreign Legion ? They are very good soldiers, for a bargain price. Not all French ideas are bad ! Privatize the foot soldiers !
Actually, this was proposed yesterday, over here.
RK Jones
The US military already accepts non-citizens. They gain their citizenship after something like 3 years, or if they serve during a war. So, the US doesn’t really need a foreign legion–or if you prefer, the entire US military already is a foreign legion. 🙂
Ernest, that is a great post. Well said. I think this kind of thing, if done intelligently, could help bolster the foundations of a decent, liberal, post-war Iraq.
Of course, it will have no impact on the anti-war types, well, not the idiotarians, anyway. But surely even isolationist libertarians could not argue against Iraqis trying to liberate their country from Saddam, could they?
Hoestly if something gawdawful happened here and I had to flee for asylum, I’d sure as hell want to come back and fight for the liberation. Just gimme an FAL and a 1911…
— brendan
Mind you, the UK is also accepting ex-Taliban warriors (I can’t bring myself to call them “soldiers”) for asylum, as they have a “well founded fear of persecution” should they return home, and that’s the way the UN asylum rules work…almost all of them should be lined up and shot for what they did to the Afghan people, IMHO…
Just one man’s opinion, of course…
Very nice blog