Cannon Fodder: The Dream Act Is a Modern Form of Hiring Mercenaries

By David R. Givers
Contributing Writer

The Dream Act, Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, has been up and down the flagpole of congressional legislation. It would allow service in the military as a path to citizenship for young immigrants. Community service was an alternate proposed avenue to fulfill the requirement for “legalization” of undocumented immigrants. This was removed from the Act, as was payment of in-state tuition.
Because these two options are gone, more immigrant youth will see the military as their only way to gain citizenship.

The government is interested in cannon fodder, not citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), sponsor of the DREAM Act, said: “The DREAM Act would address a very serious recruitment crisis that faces our military. Under the DREAM Act, tens of thousands of well-qualified potential recruits would become eligible for military service for the first time.”

This DREAM is a modern form of hiring mercenaries, and we know what happened to the Roman empire. Better we draft recruits than have an all-volunteer force that results in the empire overreach the United States military currently prosecutes on our behalf. There are those who speculate that if we had a draft there would be militant street protests after ten years of war.

Some may consider the DREAM Act racist, as do I. Most “Dream” recruits will have emigrated from Central and South America. During the Vietnam Fiasco, Chicano and other Latino youth were sent to the front lines in disproportionate numbers. While Chicanos and Latinos were only 4.5 percent of the U.S. population, they were 19 percent of the casualties; some 80,000 Latinos served during the Vietnam War.

Raúl Al-qaraz Ochoa, an undocumented student who risked arrest and deportation by sitting-in at John MCcain’s office, no longer supports the DREAM Act. ... “because the essence of a beautiful dream has been detained by a colonial nightmare seeking to fund and fuel the U.S. empire machine.”
For further information, visit http://antifronteras.com/2010/09/18/letter-to-the-dream-movement-my-painful-withdrawal-of-support-for-the-dream-act/

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Editor’s Note: The writer is a member of Red River Veterans for Peace, Chapter 154