April 06, 2003
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A Reader Reports Academic Evidence On Diversity vs. Social Capital
An Army Reader Is Skeptical About The
Immigration Enthusiast Argument Du Jour – Immigrant Soldiers.
Peter Brimelow Comments
From: An Army Reader
This article (
“Immigrant Soldiers - officials estimate there are
31,000 foreign nationals serving in US Military,”
Wall Street Journal, April 4) suggests a couple
of things.
(1) The U.S. Armed Forces,
particularly the Army and Marines, are growing more like
the regulars of the 19th century, with lots of
foreigners among the long service personnel.
Phil Sheridan's NCO aide was, for instance, a
30-year veteran from Ireland who never bothered to
become a citizen. These people frequently make
good soldiers. But their loyalty is to the
service not the country. They would have no qualms
about turning their weapons on U.S. citizens. A hundred
years ago this meant some strikers might get fired on.
Today what you see being unleashed on Iraq
could be used on some place in the U.S. if the will
of the central government was being thwarted. Just
imagine something like the
Klamath water dispute turning into armed resistance
and you have a good scenario. The Republicans might have
sense enough not to push things to that point, but the
ilk of Hillary are bound to occupy the White House one
day and who can tell where their combined green agenda,
civilian disarmament passions and generalized hatred
for
average normal Americans would take them?
(2) The number of
potential sleeper agents is certainly increased with
hosts of foreigners in the ranks.
Increasingly the U.S. Armed Forces
are becoming the Imperial Legions (PC version).
Not exactly what the Founders had
in mind.
Peter Brimelow comments:
Immigration Enthusiast Central must have put out a
bulletin on this argument du jour – exasperated
readers are sending us lots of
examples from the parrot
press. As usual, it depends for its effectiveness on the
parrot press’s continuous and constant suppression of
countervailing stories that show immigrants in a bad
light – immigrant
crime, immigrant
terrorism (even when immigrant
soldiers are
implicated), immigrant
failure to assimilate.
This is what I called in
Alien Nation
“America’s One-Way Immigration Debate.”
As
“An Army Reader” shows, this argument also depends on
total historical ignorance. The British Empire did very
well with its Irish Catholic regiments (click
here for a wonderful
picture of the Munster Fusiliers receiving Absolution
before the annihilating battle at Rue de Bois in 1915).
This did not mean however, that there were no political
problems in Ireland. Nor do immigrant soldiers in the
U.S. Army mean there is no problem with America’s
immigration policy.
