Blurring the lines with the Military puts Peace Corps Volunteers in Danger

(2005-08-27) Peace Corps Online / Joanne Marie Roll

Soldiers who become Peace Corps Volunteers under a new recruitment program being pushed by the military will have intelligence of great value to the enemy and once assigned to remote sites as Volunteers will be vulnerable to capture by terrorists.

In December 2002, when the National Call to Service legislation was amended to allow recruits to meet part of their reserve military obligations after active duty by serving as Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), this country had not yet invaded Iraq and was not in prolonged military engagement in the Middle East, as it is now. The Taliban in Afghanistan had been defeated in a multinational military effort. The military did not look that different from peacetime. Now it is really different.

Soldiers who have been in the military during a time of war, will be loaded with intelligence which would be of prime value to terrorists. Once away from the protection that the military of necessity provides its members and assigned to remote Peace Corps sites, unarmed and isolated, they will be vulnerable to being captured.

This is some of what soldiers know which would be of value to terrorists: They know how the United States trains soldiers; they know strategies for interacting with civilians; in specific locations, (Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries with a US military presence) they know the names of civilians cooperating, perhaps secretly, with US Forces; they know where weapons are stockpiled; they know contingency plans and they know a whole lot more, which we don't know, because it is secret intelligence.

So called "human intelligence" is critical to both sides. Soldier/PCVs would be walking, talking, computer chips. And if they are captured, what is their status? Would they be considered POWs and covered by the Geneva Convention? Or, in the language of Bush, would other countries be free to call these soldier/PCVs, non-uniformed "enemy combatants" and detain them indefinitely and torture them for the information they have?

Senator McCain, one of the authors of the legislation, does not understand how the Peace Corps works. When McCain was a POW, his status was clearly defined and he was, according to his books, sustained by the loyalty and support of his fellow Americans who were imprisoned with him. Even then, he admits to giving in under torture.

To say this is not to diminish his bravery or sacrifice. Richard Starr, a PCV who was captured and held captive for three years in Colombia, did not have any contact with other PCVs and the United States government abandoned him after evidently being able to assure the Colombian government that Starr was not CIA and had not been engaged in any other US governmental activity in country. The US government will not be able, honestly, to give such assurances if a soldier/PCV is captured. Plus, Starr didn't know anything. PCVs don't know anything. Soldier/PCVs will know a whole lot.

Those of us who have served our country, either in the Peace Corps or the military, know that ignorance about these issues by those who have never served is exceeded only by their arrogance. McCain is the exception; but he is a romantic and did not have enough respect for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers to have even consulted them before initiating this legislation. He doesn't have a clue of how and where Peace Corps Volunteers work.

This is incredibly stupid policy which will endanger the security of the United States.

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Joanne Marie Roll served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia in the 1960's.

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To learn more about Peace Corps Volunteer Richard Starr who spent three years in captivity from 1976 to 1980 as the hostage of a insurrection group in Colombia, read "Remember with Honor" published on "Peace Corps Online" at:

http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/467/2019711.html

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Peace Corps Online is an independent news forum published by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. It is not a part of the United States Peace Corps, which is a federal agency.


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