For the first half of this century, when America and its leaders were reluctant to intervene abroad, private citizens went overseas to help other countries fight invaders and oppressors. Among the most famous of these were
the Abraham Lincoln Brigade which fought against Franco’s Fascists.
the Flying Tigers which supported Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalists against Japanese invaders.
the Lafayette Escadrille which aided France and Great Britain against Germany in World War I.
These people could be called mercenaries, but they were not professionals like other mercenaries; they didn’t just hire out to whoever could afford them but wanted a chance to fight in a specific war for a specific side. So for the purposes of this thread, I’ll call these groups international brigades, as they were generically called in the Spanish Civil War.
Today, Congress and the president are daily faced with violence and oppression overseas that present no threat to U.S. security, where the commitment of U.S. forces would not be backed by any national consensus. The harsh lesson of Vietnam is that no president or Congress wishes to wage war without a national consensus behind it. There was no consensus behind the intervention in Bosnia or Kosovo; while Bush managed to build such a consensus for the Gulf War, it would have evaporated quickly had the war been prolonged and U.S. casualties as heavy as predicted. Still, events like the genocide in Rwanda or the massacres in Timor shock many Americans’ consciences and call for us to do something.
Is a revival of the international brigades feasible? Right now, in Sierra Leone, Foday Sankoh’s RUF forces are cutting off the limbs of civilians to prevent them from voting. We can be reasonably certain that neither Congress nor the next administration will commit any forces to do anything about this. Nor should they, in the absence of any national consensus that would withstand American G.I.s coming home in body bags. The record of the U.N. in fighting such atrocities is discouraging, to say the least. But would it be possible for Congress, while committing no taxpayer resources, to give its blessing to those who would go help defend Sierra Leone from Sankoh’s butchers? Could Congress even take the long-disused power of the letter of marque off the shelf, dust it off, and grant it to any American willing to risk his neck and his fortune of the abused people of Sierra Leone? Could the president, as was done in the case of the Flying Tigers, grant leave to military officers willing to join the fight, promising that they will be restored to their former rank and grade when they return?
In Spain, the international brigades lost in the end. They are obviously not a perfect solution. They may be preferable, though, to the impossible idealism of American intervention everywhere to prevent every atrocity, or the heartless policy of abandoning most victims of aggression to their fate.
Warfare is more expensive these days. Without extensive training, you have nothing more than an armed mob. Which is the main problem in Sierra Leone to begin with.
Nationalism is stronger, at least for propaganda purposes. If one side used foreign troops, the other side would accuse them of being colonialist puppets.
Hi, Opal!
Of the political activists I know, most prefer to fight with checkbooks rather than rifles. The left-wingers mostly claim to be pacifists. The right-wingers mostly would prefer to pay someone else to do the messy work.
It’s illegal. I will try to track down the U.S.C. citation, but federal law prohibits American citizens from acting as mercenaries, taking up arms under another flag, and taking up arms against a sovereign nation.
IIRC, the Lincoln Brigade, Flying Tigers, etc., were also illegal under the laws of the times (then called Neutrality Acts.) The violations were often ignored back then, as the sides the Americans were fighting for were usually the side America wanted to win. I think today the U.S. would more strictly enforce these laws.
BTW, members of the Lincoln Brigade did get in trouble in the U.S. During th era of McCarthyism, they were labelled “Premature Anti-Facists”, IOW, Commies.
Is it always illegal? I remember reading somewhere that serving in an enemy army is grounds for loss of citizenship, but I thought it was OK to serve in an allied army.
If I recall correctly, when the US entered WW2, the Flying Tigers were transferred to the US Army Air Corps. Ditto for Americans serving in the RAF.
I also remember reading about a black pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille. When the US entered WW1, most of the squadron transferred to the US Army, but because of discrimination, he chose to stay in the French Army.
28 U.S.C.A. s. 958 et seq covers just about every contingency - taking a commission in a foreign army, taking up arms against a foreign country, arming a ship against a foreign country, etc., if the U.S. is at peace with that nation. The penalty is up to 3 years in jail.
So, if you were to sign on to fight Iran, say, you are violating the law - they’re not allied with us, but we are officially at peace with them. Of course, I’m sure prosecution is very selective.
One other note. This law was enacted in 1948. I’m positive that there were preceding laws that would’ve covered the Lincoln Brigade, etc., but I don’t have a cite for them. I’ll wander back into the law books, etc.
Prior to active hostilities (not counting the initial occupation of Kuwait) in the Gulf War, CNN inteveriewed one of the US non-commissioned officers of the Legion.
As far as individuals serving in the armed forces of countries in which they don’t hold citizenship, the United States allows resident aliens, and the few non-immigrant aliens who enlisted under the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and the Republic of the Philippines when said treaty was still in effect and for approximately one year after its expiration, to enlist; however, they are not eligible to be either warrant or commissioned officers. The resident aliens, and non-immigrant aliens mentioned above, are eligible to be non-commissioned officers, which includes petty officers. E9 (and E10) also requires the enlistee to be a US citizen.
Yes, that’s what I meant by “bring back,” i.e. make serving abroad legal again, at least in certain wars for certain sides.
You may be right about overseas service being illegal even back in the first half of the century, but I never heard of anybody being prosecuted for serving in Lafayette Escadrille, The Flying Tigers, or the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, so even if it was legal, it wasn’t enforced. Ex-Brigade members sometimes got in trouble for suspected Communist ties (the Brigade was organized by Comintern, and had at least a few genuine Communists in it), but not for fighting or violating the Neutrality Acts, AFAIK.
Uncle Sam’s hands aren’t exactly tied behnd his back in these situations. I was in the amphibious navy in the 80’s, and our Marines would go on extensive training humps into areas of the Phillipines that just happened to be occupied by the New Peoples Army. A few days later you’d see fucked-up jar-heads in the chow line and you’d asked them “what the fuck happened to you?” The way these kids gave thire non-answers let you know that they’d been strongly de-briefed on how to evade the question. Later I came home and stood up at my brothers’ wedding. His best man’s Ohio National Guard duty put him in this same “what are we dong here? What are they dong there? Should we shoot before they do?” situation with the Sandanistas. No Purple Heart or big black marble self-pity wedge in the Mall for my generation - if one of us caught a bullet for Ronald Reagan, it would’ve been explained away as a training mishap in a “Hey - shit happens” letter to mom & dad.
I’m not shitting you when I apologize for the vitriol I just spewed all over your message board - I hope you at least understand I came by it honestly. I’m mad at my country and I’m mad at myself because as I was being out-processed more than a couple of the ignorant black and hillbilly kids asked me to write a book to tell the world about what it was really like, and I gave up on them too easily. But back to the OP: who needs international briagades when there are plenty of kids who can’t find civilian jobs, a huge bureaucracy to explain away their blood, and an indifferent society to absorb those explanations?
I don’t think that the training (for infantry positions) is impossibly expensive. Equipment is expensive; I can’t imagine any modern-day international brigades bringing along anything pricier than small arms, mortars, and maybe a re-fitted helicopter or two with them, even if they have a particularly rich sponsor or leader. Certainly there will never be any Flying Tigers cruising around in 80-million-dollar F-15s. But there’s always a need for more men on the ground to do the dirty work.
I’m not so sure. During the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, people came from all over the Muslim world, especially from Iran, to support the Bosnian Muslims and the Kosovars against their enemies, without (AFAIK) any formal commitment of uniformed soldiers by the governments of the guerrillas’ home countries. I don’t recall the Kosovars or the Bosnians ever squawking about colonialism; the Serbian government may have, but I think the Bosnians and Kosovars needed the warm bodies more than they needed the Serbian government’s esteem.
This may very well be true. But since it takes 15 men to keep one man in the field anyway, one presumes that, left or right, there will be about 15 check-writers for each man or woman fighting in the field. Still, it may be that comfortable Western nations just don’t have any more people willing to actually go face bullets as we did in the first half of this century. I’m not sure that I have the kind of guts it takes to go risk death for people I’ve never met. But George Orwell did.
OK, I see your point, and I don’t think we have any disagreement about pre WW-II practices.
However, I think that this would be very difficult today. Back in the days of the Flying Tigers, the U.S. was a militarily weak, isolationist and neutral country. Today, as the Last Remaining Superpower, the U.S. is going to be blamed for the actions of its citizens fighting abroad. I have no doubt whatsoever that such citizens would be labelled CIA agents, or Special Ops troops, regardless of whether the gov’mint is supporting them or not - unless the U.S. prosecutes them. I think current sensitivities, especially in the era of CNN, is gonna require the U.S. to prohibit, or at least inhibit, any large-scale raising of U.S. citizens to fight abroad.
IIRC The Flying Tigers evolved out of a group flying frieght into china. They had to arm themselves due to the hostilities.
I read Claire Chennault of the flying tigers as a kid.
