Peacekeeping: American Civilian Reserve Corps

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February2, 2007: Confronted with what appears to be long term peacekeeping and national reconstruction tasks, the United States is looking for ways to recruit enough people who are qualified for this kind of work. One effort is to form a Civilian Reserve Corps of people with skills useful in reconstruction projects, and willing to go overseas for a while to do just that. This would be in addition to the current U.S. Army Civil Affairs units. Most of these Civil Affairs troops are reservists, and the army has its people fully committed to Iraq and Afghanistan operations. Moreover, there are some areas where American troops would not be welcome, but American civilians would be. Such a "reserve" has already been implemented, sort of, as the U.S. government seeks out people with language skills to help out in the war on terror. A Civilian Reserve Corps has also been proposed for people skilled in dealing Cyber War situations. Any Civilian Reserve Corps organization would involve finding, screening and then maintaining contact with qualified people. Some sort of payment or tax break would be required to keep the "reservists" ready to respond to a call to duty. Believe it when you see it, but the idea keeps coming up.

 

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