School Military Recruiting Could Violate International Protocol
WASHINGTON - Pressed by the demands of the “global war on terrorism”, the United States is violating an international protocol that forbids the recruitment of children under the age of 18 for military service, according to a new report released Tuesday by a major civil rights group that charged that recruitment practices target children as young as 11 years old.
The 46-page report, “Soldiers of Misfortune“, which was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, also found that the U.S. military disproportionately targets poor and minority public school students.
Military recruiters, according to the report, use “exaggerated promises of financial rewards for enlistment, [which] undermines the voluntariness of their enlistment.” In some cases documented by the report, recruiters used coercion, deception, and even sexual abuse in order to gain recruits. Perpetrators of such practices are only very rarely punished, the report found.
“The United States military’s procedures for recruiting students plainly violate internationally accepted standards and fail to protect youth from abusive and aggressive recruitment tactics,” said Jennifer Turner of the ACLU Human Rights Project.
The increased aggressiveness of military recruiters is due in major part, according to the report, to the increased pressure to meet enlistment quotas caused by ongoing U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to which nearly 200,000 soldiers and marines are currently deployed.
The pressure created by current military commitments has not only translated into enhanced recruitment efforts among children under 18. The armed forces have also lowered their standards for minimum-intelligence tests, made it easier to enlist individuals with criminal records, and increased re-enlistment bonuses for soldiers who might otherwise be tempted to leave the service.
The report, which also detailed Washington’s failure to protect foreign child soldiers being held by U.S. forces at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and elsewhere around the world as part of its submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, assesses Washington’s compliance with the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.
The Protocol, which is attached to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is designed to protect the rights of children under 18 who may be recruited by the military and deployed to war.
Among other provisions, the Protocol sets an absolute minimum age for recruitment of 16 and requires that all recruitment activities directed at children under 18 be carried out with the consent of the child’s parents or guardian, that any such recruitment be genuinely volunteer, and the military fully inform the child of the duties involved in military service and require reliable proof of age before enlistment.
While the United States is one of only two countries — the other being Somalia — to have never ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. Senate ratified the Protocol in 2002, making it binding under U.S., as well as international, law. Unlike most other industrialised countries that set their minimum recruitment age at 18, the Senate decided on 17 as the absolute minimum for the United States.
According to the ACLU report, however, the U.S. armed services “regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment, heavily recruiting on high school campuses, in school lunchrooms, and in classes.”
The army’s own Recruiting Programme Handbook, for example, instructs its more than 10,600 recruiters to approach high school students as early as possible, and explicitly before their senior year, which, for most students, starts at age 17. “Remember, first to contact, first to contract…that doesn’t just mean seniors or grads…,” according to an excerpt quoted in the report. “If you wait until they’re seniors, it’s probably too late.”
Once recruiters are inside their assigned high schools, the Army’s Recruiting Command instructs them to “effectively penetrate the school market” and “(b)e so helpful and so much a part of the school scene that you are in constant demand”, with the goal of “school ownership that can only lead to a greater number of Army enlistments.” That includes volunteering to serve as coaches for high school sports teams, involvement with the local Boy Scouts, attending as many all school functions and assemblies, and even “eating lunch in the school cafeteria several times each month”.
The report documents a number of specific cases, mostly in New York and California — the two most populous states with the largest number of minority high school students — in which recruiters clearly followed these instructions. In a survey of nearly 1,000 children, aged 14 to 17, enrolled in New York City high schools, the ACLU New York affiliate found that more than one five respondents — equally distributed among the different grades — reported the use of class time by military recruiters, and 35 percent said military recruiters had access to multiple locations in their schools where they could meet students.
The report also noted that the Pentagon’s central recruitment database systematically collected information on 16-year-olds and, in some cases even 15-year-olds, including their name, home address and telephones, email addresses, grade point averages, height and weight information, and racial and ethnic data obtained from a variety of public and private sources. The explicit purpose of the database is to assist the military in its “direct marketing recruiting efforts”. As the result of a 2006 ACLU lawsuit, the Pentagon agreed to stop collecting data about students younger than 16.
But recruitment efforts even dip below 15-year-olds, according to the report, which found that the Pentagon’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), which operate at more than 3,000 junior high schools, middle schools, and high schools across the country, target children as young as 14 for recruitment. The report cited recent studies that found that enrollment in some JROTC programmes was involuntary.
JROTC “cadets”, of whom there were nearly 300,000 in 2005, receive military uniforms and conduct military drills and marches, handle real and wooden rifles, and learn military history, according to the report, which noted that the programme is explicitly designed to “enhance recruiting efforts”. African American and Latin students make up 54 percent of JROTC programmes.
JROTC also oversees the Middle School Cadet Corps (MSCC), in which children ages 11 to 14 can participate, according to the report. Florida, Texas, and Chicago schools offer military-run after-school MSCC programmes in which children take part in drills with wooden rifles and military chants, learn first-aid, civics, military history and, in some cases, wear uniforms to school for inspection once a week.
The Army also uses an online video game, called “America’s Army”, to attract potential recruits as young as 13, train them to use weapons, and engage in virtual combat and other military missions. Launched in 2002, the video game had attracted 7.5 million registered users by September 2006.
“Military recruitment tools aimed at youth under 18, including Pentagon-produced video games, military training, corps, and databases of students’ personal information, have no place in America’s schools,” said Turner.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
“voluntariness”
Word choice is very important in getting your message to new minds. This was a poor choice.
Also, about the topic, this is a great way to push the counter recruitment movement! Especially since no such protocol exists to prevent youth recruitment into peaceful services. If we play our cards right then we will always have years ahead of the military in recruitment.
Recruiting the youth of the US while still in school?
What were they called in WWII era Germany?
Oh yeah.
The Hitler Youth.
It’s your turn now America.
Uh, here it is called the Boy Scouts of America. Brown shirted little Nazi’s -grin-
Recruit the capitalists and industrialists, from Marine Mayor General Smedley Butler:
“Chapter 4: How To Smash This Racket!
WELL, it’s a racket, all right.
A few profit — and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can’t end it by disarmament conferences. You can’t eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can’t wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation — it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted — to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.
Let the workers in these plants get the same wages — all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers — yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders — everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn’t they?
They aren’t running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren’t sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren’t hungry. The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket — that and nothing else.
Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital won’t permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people — those who do the suffering and still pay the price — make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.
Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn’t be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant — all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war — voting on whether the nation should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms — to sleep in a trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.
There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most, it is necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to register in their communities as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to have the power to decide — and not a Congress few of whose members are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear arms. Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.
A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.
At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don’t shout that “We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation.” Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.
Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.
The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.
The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon’s shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.
The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can’t go further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.
To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
1. We must take the profit out of war.
2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.
3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
Chapter 5: To Hell With War!…”
Remember that Gen. Smedly Butler was approached to help overthrow the US government in the late 1930s. The people who were ready to back him were General Motors, the Rockefeller Group, and the Mellon Group. All who had made their fortunes in providing war materiel.
Keep a strong military for defensive purposes, but take the greed and profit out of war. My sentiments too.
Child soldiers? There really is N.C.L.B.
A question: the human brain does not complete its physical development until age 21-22. So how can we recruit anyone below the age of 21 for these so-called justified wars?
This of course does not include the emotional and intellectual developement of the brain, which takes many more years.
The pre-frontal cortex which processes risk assessment isn’t fully developed until the early twenties, sometimes mid-twenties. The vampire recruiters know perfectly well that if they haven’t gotten the children before their brains are fully developed, they don’t get them at all. The enlistment rate for those past the age of 24 is practically non-existent.
Three cheers for the ACLU!!!
Parents and citizens have been trying to get these monsters out of our schools for years with no results. Will the UN act? Will our congress critters react? Will American citizens rise up to stop this travesty?
Galen is right. Instead of Nazi Youth, we have Amerika Youth. This is SO immoral on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to start.
Unemployment climbs as education funding and quality fall. Let’s see, where would an unemployed, under educated young person find a job. Hmmmm. Oh yes, the military. Well, that works out just fine for an imperialisticly minded nation dominated by the military industrial complex.
william burroughs once said the thing that most frightened him was the thought of having to face an army of 13-year olds, due to the ease with which they can be shaped and controlled. he was speaking hypothetically, but the khmer rouge actually used such cadres to devastating effect during its reign. now, of course, it’s common practice in far too much of the world.
ezeflyer and all who want Peace.
Amazing how the most radical anti- war man I have heard of was a Marine General!
This trend of many in our military is now growing…not as radical as Gen. Butler but getting closer every day.
I went to a Democratic meeting and fundraiser in Brandon, Florida just yesterday and the most radical anti War candidates were all recent military officers…. I was amazed and they hope Obama will win!
Also we need more than a new president to end the war in Iraq we need to kick out the worst incumbents like Florida Bush Man and Chicken Hawk, Adam Putnam.
Putnam is a millionaire and our anti-war challenger is Doug Tudor, who really has a good chance to help us bring the troops home pronto… he told me that the only money he would OK for the War is to bring our troops home now.
We need everyone’s help now.. http://teamtudor.org/index.asp
I believe in and belong to the ACLU and can only hope that their efforts get the recruiters out of schools but I won’t “hold my breath” as they say.
To Bonnie Phillips and George W. Bush (what’s next a poster with the name of Satan?) concerning human brain development.
What you both say is true and added to that the fact that youth in the age range of 18-28 tend to have the greatest physical stamina of their lives also factors into the equation because combat is very exhausting on the human body.
Smedley Butler besides being a retired 3 star Marine general was the only general ever to be awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor for gallantry in battle.
Don’t you think that if Jena and Barbara and the two Cheney girls were faced with the prospect of breathing DU dust clouds in Iraq or Afghanistan that this “war” would have been over before it started? I do.
Yesterday, during testimony, Romeo Dallaire cited two different documents which stated that it was not only a war crime to use children as soldiers but that it was also a war crime to recruit a person for future military service while that person is still a child.
One reason why the US government refuse to acknowledge that Omar Khadr was a child soldier is because, though no American serves in the Military until they are 18, they are often recruited earlier.
Romeo Dallaire said other things as well.
Canada losing moral standing over treatment of Omar Khadr: Dallaire
“The minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, with civil liberties in order to say you are doing it to protect yourself … you are no better than the guy who doesn’t believe in them at all,” he said.
“We are slipping down the slope of going down that same route.” …
“Is it your testimony that al-Qaeda strapping up a 14-year-old girl with Down Syndrome and sending her into a pet market to be remotely detonated is the moral equivalent to Canada’s not making extraordinary political efforts for a transfer of Omar Khadr to this country?” asked Kenney.
“If you want a black and white [response] … I am only too prepared to give it to you: absolutely,” said Dallaire. “You are either with the law or you are against the law. You’re either a child soldier or you’re not. You’re either guilty or you’re not.”
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/05/13/dallaire-khadr.html
http://www.objector.org/recruiting.html
Center for Conscientious Objectors
Consider training to become a counselor for highschool students who change their mind after signing up for the early enlistment program
http://www.nlgmltf.org/
Link for the National Lawyers Guild military Counseling project. Links to regional support and information
RE: - ” In some cases documented by the report, recruiters used coercion, deception, and even sexual abuse in order to gain recruits. Perpetrators of such practices are only very rarely punished, the report found.
How can one use sexual abuse to “convince” someone to enlist? Are they threatening rape if you don’t or promising a chance to rape with impunity if you do? Or are they telling those who were raped or molested at home that the Military is a solution to all their problems? Can anyone explain this to me?
RE: - So capital won’t permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people — those who do the suffering and still pay the price — make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.
How much did both Clinton and Obama spend on even one primary? I do know that the amount of money that any party can spend during a Federal election in Canada is less than what one spends to become mayor of New York.
The problem is that a person needs too much money to be considered a serious candidate in the US. Those with the bigger war chest can shape the message.
I doubt all these corporations and well-healed lobby groups (ie NRA) are giving the money because they feel generous - they expect something for their donations.
RE: - A question: the human brain does not complete its physical development until age 21-22. So how can we recruit anyone below the age of 21 for these so-called justified wars?
This is a good point, but if you look at the comments at the bottom of the Dallaire article, there is one person who says over and over again that they knew that it was wrong to be a terrorist when they were 10 years old. How do you handle such drivel?
The situation was much worse for Omar Khadr in that he was volunteered by someone other than himself for service and had no place to run to.
Then again, someone can come to Canada to avoid serving in the US, but only for a year or two.
In the US, can a parent sign the recruitment form if the child is under age or does the form need the parent’s signiture?
RE: - Parents and citizens have been trying to get these monsters out of our schools for years with no results. Will the UN act?
Only if someone makes a complaint against a particular person and the said person leaves US soil. Then again it depends where they go - and how likely the government is to arrest and hold said person until they can be put towards the world court.
I think we have all had a false sense of separation between civil and military agencies and institutions.
Non-recruiters in schools also understand the importance of easing/facilitating the tasks of these recruiters to their own professional survival.
Some similarities in recruitment stories/efforts have been recounted by professors in the seventies regarding CIA recruitment efforts on college campuses.
In those cases, obviously minors were not being recruited but much of the selection and targeting activities were being carried out without the knowledge of those who were being targeted. And professors were clearly feeling coerced into participating with this clandestine screening and recruitment effort.
I read that comment about going into the service, an getting $30 dollars a month. I thought this Guy must be ready to Die, I was was drafted during the Vietnam war, I think I started at $78 dollars a month. but seriously, I do believe the people who send others to fight should have a little personal experience. If we want to stop the president, from going to war at the drop of a Hat. put limits on war spending, say no more than 30% of total Fedral budget. next put the kind of limits on our military they have in Germany. they were like us once.
THANK YOU ACLU!!!!! my daughter started a peace group in her high school after the army came to show off their helicopter and “encourage” the students to join….amazingly enough (ha!) she couldn’t put up posters and had a hard time with the admin.(who are afraid of losing what little funding they do get)…the kids in the peace club kept their activities in an individual file so that they had proof of their objections to war…(in case of the draft being re-instated),
Now, we are counting the pieces of mail that she gets aimed at getting her to join….
Again THANK YOU, ACLU….
great comment Peacekeepertwo
Stopping the President from going to war is a very old idea. Here’s some very old solutions.
– don’t give the President the authority to start a war.
– keep the authority to start a war with the democratic legislative body.
– keep the control over all money with the portion of the democratic legislative body that is closest to the people.
– the President’s commander-in-chief powers are limited in that everyone under him is obligated to refuse to obey an order that violates the law.
All of these ideas are in our Constitution. Unfortunately, we’ve had Congresses for the last 60 years that have willingly ceded these powers to the President.
Also unfortunately, we’ve lost any semblance of even being a democracy. Today, how much money a candidate has is the prime indicator of who will win an election. A government of the people, by the people and for the people has largely disappeared from this earth.
#
Paul Revere May 14th, 2008 12:51 pm
Keep a strong military for defensive purposes, but take the greed and profit out of war. My sentiments too.
——————
I’d be perfectly happy with a military that was just strong enough that it could fight off the Mexican army if it had to.
And, at that level, we could probably go back to the very democratic concepts upon which this nation was founded. That is no standing military at all. Rely on raising a militia to fight when you have to fight.
That was an essential cornerstone of freedom in America. It meant that the government did not have a monopoly on the use of force, and that the people essentially have a veto on a war…. if the people refuse to volunteer to come out and form a militia, then there could be no war … very democratic.
Its not surprising that people in the military end up being against war. After all, they know more about what war really is than anyone else.
Most Americans only know very romanticized views of war based on propaganda TV shows and movies.
Some of us, like me, like to read history. So we probably know a bit more from second-hand accounts.
But only someone who’s actually fought in a war, who’s had bullets and shells flying around them, who’s seen friends die, who’s killed another human being, would really know from first hand experience just exactly what war is.
Thus, its no surprise that people who’ve been in the military can be against war. And that sometimes with more passion and conviction than the rest of us. And especially if that someone rises to the high levels of command like Gen. Butler did. Then he not only has seen the horrors of war but he’s also seen how its used and ordered to protect the interests of say the “United Fruit Company” (nowadays known by the cute name of “Chiquita”). But together the picture of friends dying and having to commit murder with the knowledge that it was all just for corporate profits and the result is “War is a racket”.
Or, to quote another old general ….”War is hell”
I have a 16 yr old grandson, I told him that he is allowed to join the Navy only. Can’t tell him not to join the military, when he comes from a family with a long linage of military enlistment.
I point blank ask young people who are considering marines or army if they could pick up a rifle and kill someone. Its amazing the responses that I get. Some say yes, I tell them to go for it, but remember when you kill some one you never , never get it off your conscience. You live with that knowledge for the rest of your life. After all that’s a big part of members experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.
This is disgusting.
There’s one real simple way to stop war, though, and that’s to make it illegal for a corporation to increase its profits during wartime.
Anybody think that’s ever going to happen?
Army recruitment via a video game:
http://www.americasarmy.com/about/
“Launched in July 2002 the America’s Army game, which is rated “T” for Teen by the ESRB, has become one of the most popular computer games in the world. America’s Army has penetrated contemporary culture and is one of the most recognizable game brands as a result of its unique inside perspective of the U.S. Army and its exciting gameplay. As the game’s popularity continued to grow with each of its dozens of new version releases, the Army has expanded its brand through a variety of products including console and cell phone games, America’s Army merchandise such as t-shirts, the Real Heroes program which tells the stories of heroic Soldiers, training applications for use within the military and government sectors, and the incredible Virtual Army Experience. In the near future, the America’s Army brand will expand with the launch of America’s Army: True Soldiers for Xbox 360 in the Fall of 2007 and America’s Army version 3.0 next year.
In the America’s Army game, players are bound by Rules of Engagement (ROE) and grow in experience as they navigate challenges in teamwork-based, multiplayer, force versus force operations. In the game, as in the Army, accomplishing missions requires a team effort and adherence to the seven Army Core Values. Through its emphasis on team play, the game demonstrates these values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage and makes them integral to success in America’s Army.
In keeping with the dynamic nature of Soldiering, the America’s Army game will continue to expand and will allow players to explore the Army of today, tomorrow and the future.
There’s strong, and then there’s Army Strong!”
I think it is worth remembering that not everyone in the military is a Smedley Butler. There are not a few soldiers/sailors/marines/airmen who love war, or at least the idea of war as a way to test their manhood. This may not even be conscious thought so much as socialization. We have to start teaching our young people that you do not have the right to push people around because you have the power to as an individual or as a nation.
Presence - You mean *obscene* not O B S E N E
Youbetterwork - don’t understand your criticism of “voluntariness” Why is that a bad choice of word in getting a message out?
And we’re surprised by this……why? We’ve known this for quite awhile now. Parents are allowed to “opt out” of having military recruitment propaganda aimed at their children, but most do not know about this. It should be an “opt in” program, not “opt out.” But the military is having a real problem getting enough “boots on the ground” for their so-called wars, so this will not change. By the way, we haven’t had an actual “declared war” since World War II- every war and military action since then (including Korea and Viet Nam) has not been an actual, declared “war.” Congress needs to get a spine and stop allowing the White House to send our troops to kill and be killed whenever the administration feels like it.
There should be one criteria and only one for the entrance into any conflict. The President should ask himself (or herself), if they would send their own child into the conflict. Is the conflict worth it? If yes, then make sure their children enter into the war.
I humbly suggest that any governmental supporter of the current war, that means executive, legislative or judicial branch, have at least ONE child in arms. Conscript the Bush girls.
Make the Chicken Hawks that have avoided service all their lives put their own children in harms way. I’ll bet diplomatic means of conflict resolution can be found most swiftly. See how quickly we can end this illegal, immoral war? Nothing to it.
It can only happen little by little…
Try to make your spending count
Try to make your votes count
Try to make your voices count
if it sounds too good to believe it probably is
This is gonna be a long, long fight … we got to love it anyway
Pete Seeger told me “Our world will be saved by millions of small things.”
and like Dylan we can still sing “Oh the times they are a changin”
The ACLU has seen the enemy and the enemy is the ACLU. While the ACLU now rightly targets predatory military recruitment in defense of the youth, the ACLU was also the banner carrier for the “me” generation social breakdown that today fuels the empire machine more than anything else. While other societies maintained strong family values, keeping families together, keeping extended families together, in cohabitation which also more than anything else minimizes living expenses, the ACLU was, deliberately or not, pushing families apart, playing right into the hands of the capitalists whos covert goal was economic growth at all cost, not the least for the Pentagon’s benefit.
The capitalists knew that pushing Americans out of cohabitation and into their own individual suburban houses would drive economic growth much more than anything else, replacing the inter-dependence within families with the dependence of indivduals on the capitalist machine.
ACLU liberals, aren’t you going to defend the US military’s right to befriend school kids for the covert purpose of military recruitment? You might preserve the right for people to befriend each other for any other devious purpose. You defend everyone’s right to do everything else for any and all motives under the sun, damn every ethical principle that gets in the way. When has the ACLU been the defender of ethics? It’s always been about rights, not ethics. When did the ACLU ever defend the cooperative spirit on the economic fringe? When did the ACLU ever defend the traditional frugal lifestyles of pre1950? When did the ACLU ever defend the family farm from capitalist encroachment? These are the elements that keep people free from the shackles of capital.
The lifestyles that Americans now understand they have to return to, to save the planet, the people, the societies and the public institutions from capitalist violence, are the lifestyles that the ACLU more than any other organization, helped to destroy. It seems that the ACLU has had far too narrow of an agenda in the past and that the ACLU should now learn how to adjust and integrate its agenda into the web of human support that is battling to defend all of people and planet from the deadly onslaught of the greed-stricken elite, the class war aggressors.
I just skimmed the posts here so I don’t know if I’m repeating anything. Apologies if so.
No Child Left Behind mandates that school districts share contact student information with the U.S. military or risk losing federal funds.
Parents have the right, however, to have their kid’s name removed from the list. Some schools make a point of letting parents know this. Others might not. If you don’t opt out, recruiters will call incessantly in your kid’s senior year.
Get the form. Fill it out. Send it in.
Pass the word.
Hey rtdrury,
Recruiters aren’t befriending anybody. They’re fulfilling a quota and will promise anything to do so.
And they will harass your household with endless phone calls.
Thats right the ‘Opt Out’, didn’t know of this until at the age of 17 they used my email address to recruit my 17 yr old, almost 19 now. I asked them why my personal email, why 17? They informed me at 17 they are legally permitted to recruit. I asked “By using MY email address?”, no answer. They would not tell me how they came by this info, but I have found out. I did tell them that in no uncertain terms they would never get my daughter for I would drug her, hogtie her, throw her in the back seat covered and find my way to a country without an extradition treaty with the US, and if they were clear on this.
I never heard from them again. As a Vet I will not allow my daughter to murder or be murdered, I am VFP, DVVA, Diabled American Veteran , supporter of IVAW, VVAW and all anti-war Vets.
TinyLotus, how old is your daughter?
RE: - If we want to stop the president, from going to war at the drop of a Hat. put limits on war spending, say no more than 30% of total Fedral budget.
What about a 10% limit on spending on Military weapontry. I have nothing against spending on dual use items (which can be used for disaster relief etc), and on Military housing and bullet proof vests. When one bullet costs the same amount as building a hospital, then our priorities are a bit warped.
RE: - – keep the control over all money with the portion of the democratic legislative body that is closest to the people.
In Canada, if more people vote against a budget than for it, the government falls. Why is it still standing!
RE: - Most Americans only know very romanticized views of war based on propaganda TV shows and movies.
I think it was on Disclosure or The Hour (not sure) that I heard that, to get use of tanks etc for a movie, the Pentagon got control over the script - that they could make whatever changes they wanted. If one wants to remain true to the script, one has to make do with pretend tanks etc.
RE: - Video game
Heard about that on Disclosure with Mark Kelly where they talked about that. Up until last year, the episode was on line. Think what I did at the time was make the little one watch “Deadline Iraq.”
RE: - There are not a few soldiers/sailors/marines/airmen who love war, or at least the idea of war as a way to test their manhood.
Or need to believe that there is some sort of purpose because the idea that the sacrifices were made for nothing is too painful to bare. Facing the truth is often more painful than denying it. They were talking about the Residential schools in the news today and some of the survivors are like that in not wanting to say anything bad about the church people who took care of them at the schools - and one person who was like that but not is totally for talking about it.
The topic was about the children who did not make it home, that their bodies were snuck out in the middle of the night and buried and there was no funeral and either no marking or just a piece of wood with no name on it. Some are calling to dig up the bodies so as to identify which children they were.
There was an article here a week or so ago about female American soldiers and the parents not being able to see the bodies. The same thing happened with the children who died while attending residential schools. No autopsy was ever done on any of them.
This is quite interesting, especially since it’s quite entwined in my own life. I’m a 17-year-old senior in high school and I have received several different military recruitment brochures from the U.S. government. Being a pacifist, I threw them in the recycling, but I almost wonder if I should have kept them for further evidence. I must admit I was informed by a friend that recruiting minors violated international protocol, but I did not know it was happening so often in the U.S. If you have any suggestions..
Queen of Hearts, contact Romeo Dallaire.
Romeo Dallaire is not a pacifist, but he considers both the recruitment and the use of child soldiers a war crime - and knows the laws that back him up. He also has a movie version of “Shake Hands With the Devil” about the Rwandan genocide.
Right now he is speaking out about the treatment of Omar Khadr. Omar Khadr was both recruited and used Militarily before he was captured at the age of 15. He was shot twice in the back.
http://www.dallairemovie.com/
I have only one thing to say to this:
To HELL with UN protocol!!!
Why do you lefties always bring the UN into things? I might have actually agreed with you on this one, but because you frame the issue as whether or not the UN agrees, its impossible to.
Furthermore, we are not recruiting them “for military service” before age 18. We may be recruiting them in preparation for military service, but they will not see actual service until the age of 18. By the logic this article presents, the military would have to wait until someone is 18 to even begin filing paperwork in their name. That’s clearly not the intent of the law, which was meant to stop child soldiers. These are not child soldiers.
You guys are right about a lot of other things you day about the military, but bringing the UN into this just messes everything up.
Children are easy prey - that’s why pimps pick them up, why child molesters become scout leaders or coaches (or involved in religion) - and teens are particularly vulnerable, right up until they’re at least 25. I’ve been arguing about his ever since they lowered the drinking age during the Viet Nam war instead of refusing to draft children. Talk about a really sick society… and don’t think the rest of the world doesn’t notice how poorly children are treated in the US - I used to hear about it all the time (as if I could answer that insane question).
Nader is the one candidate for the presidencey which would impliment Butler’s ideas. Clinton, Obama, and McCain are corporate candidates who will maintain the power of the ruling elite.
Have a nice day.
RE: By the logic this article presents, the military would have to wait until someone is 18 to even begin filing paperwork in their name.
Of course! Not just to fill in the paper work, but to actually start soliciting them for Military service. What is wrong with waiting until a person is 18 before you start grooming them for enlistment!
Oh, if you wait until the person is 18 before you start trying to groom them, then they may tell you to take a flying leap.
RE: Children are easy prey - that’s why pimps pick them up, why child molesters become scout leaders or coaches (or involved in religion) - and teens are particularly vulnerable
Are gang leaders in breach of the protocol on child soldiers?
To Jim Glover- I’m surprised that Gen. Smedley Butler is the only military man you ever heard of so opposed to warfare. Do a search of quotes of retired general and president Dwight D. Eisenhower if you want to hear more. And Ike was the one who famously warned us of the military-industrial complex. On the subject of child soldiers, one of the Guantanamo prisoners who they want to execute was 15 years old at the time he survived a firefight in Afghanistan. I recall when the commander of the prison blurted that they were keeping “them” minor prisoners separate from the rest of the population. I also recall the report when, after two years in Gitmo, a boy, 13 at the time of his capture, was returned to his family in Afghanistan. After the Taliban conscripted the boy, virtually kidnapping him in a truck, the family didn’t know where their child had been until he was returned. And that was not the only one. Some other minors who aged out may still be there.
To Jewbacca: Whatever you may think of the UN, apparently the US Senate in 2002 agreed. They voted to approve it and made it law. That’s the conservative house of a conservative-run Congress at the time.
Get involved in your local counter-recruitment group. I am sure that you will find one. They really, really need the help.
School teachers can’t keep out military recuiters, even from classrooms. That’s because Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act mandates recruiter access on campuses. If schools resist, they risk losing federal funding. School teachers are fired for telling kids the truth about war and U.S. imperialism.
Even with all of the mercenaries (100,000 or so in Iraq), the U.S. can’t sustain its global wars without fresh recruits. You can act to keep kids from recruiters’ lies.
Currently, the official U.S. body count is 4,000 plus dead GIs from the Iraq war, but there are tens of thousands that will return disabled and emotionally disturbed. The loss and tragedy to families is awful to contemplate, even more so for the dead and maimed Iraqis and Afghanis because of the greater numbers killed. If you care, please get involved and dry up the recruits. The Democratic majority in Congress will not do it for you. Most are partners in war crimes.
Check organizations such as your local National Lawyers Guild, ACLU and American Friends Services Organization branches for more information.
HEADLINE: ~School Military Recruiting Could Violate International Protocal~.
Would Cheney say, “So!” He might if asked about it. The United States is a signed charter member of the UN and of the Geneva conventons and we ratified those agreements. Do we comply with their rules and laws? Of course not. Is anything ever done about our numerous and often criminal violatins? Of course not.
I apologise if someone else has posted this, but it has emerged that the UK government, has been talking about encouraging army cadet corps in all schools. We do know, that in some of the existing public/grammar schools, a sizeable percentage (20-30%) of the cadet force will go on to join the regular army. The structure of the cadet force lends itself to bullying of younger members, by older adolescent boys, who revel on their new found power.
We know that recruitment levels are falling, so, is this another way to “institutionalise” pupils, in order that we curb any individuality, or is it a genuine attempt to instil more discipline in our youth?
Whatever the answer, it would have the effect of boosting the numbers joining the military.
I was brainwashed at age 4 with GI Joes and model tanks. I wanted to be that GI Joe. Didn’t make the cut… if i had I would be shooting at locals in Iraq today.
as a young adult I worked a brief stint with a military contractor. Doing ‘cool stuff’ making weapons for ‘defense’. A year later… ‘cool’ turned into ‘disgust’ when I realized the engineers were all excited talking about a new laser guided bomb design that had little wings the popped out… spinning the bomb… inorder to fling hundreds of bomblets over an even bigger target area… to kill more people.
I’ve been thinking about nuclear weapons. I’ve come to the realization that if you put your energy into making WMD’s… it’s impossible to claim that you’re doing it for defense. Because in the end.. the only thing that junk can do is blow yourself up. To plan on ‘defense’ through mutual destruction is idiotic and oxymoronic.
Today I refuse to participate in that contradiction of life.
AndyUK, not in the way you mentioned it - and this seems scary! They won’t present it as prerecruitment but as an exercise program and discipline to prevent unruliness etc.
The recruitment (as well as use) of underaged soldiers are discussed on Tuesday and the mission in Afghanistan is discussed Wednesday:
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/
The Tories don’t like General (no senator) Romeo Dallaire’s comments (see earlier post) on the fact that it is a war crime to both recruit and use children. There was a particularly headed exchange, which they misrepresent here. You know what is meant by a “friendly question”:
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Mr. Pierre Poilievre (Nepean—Carleton, CPC): Mr. Speaker, Omar Khadr, believed terrorist and Taliban fighter, is charged with throwing a grenade and killing a medic. Fighting alongside the same Taliban terrorists that are killing our troops is an attack against us all.
Now the Liberals want to bring Khadr to Canada. Yesterday a Liberal senator compared the Canadian government to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The secretary of state did not.
He also suggested that Canada’s refusal to bring Khadr to this country is just as bad as strapping explosives onto a handicapped girl and sending her to blow up civilians.
This is the kind of scorching rhetoric that one would expect from the Khadr family. To see it adopted by a Liberal senator is truly shocking. Following this outburst, Canadians want to know where the Liberal leader stands. Will he rise now and call on his senator to apologize?
***********
Mr. Mike Wallace (Burlington, CPC): Mr. Speaker, yesterday at the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights, a Liberal senator said the Canadian government was morally equivalent to al-Qaeda and the Taliban for not seeking the immediate release of Omar Khadr. Offered several opportunities to retract his remarks, the Liberal senator doubled down and repeated them.
Does the Secretary of State for Canadian Identity think the senator’s comments will affect Canada’s reputation on the world stage?
Hon. Jason Kenney (Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity), CPC): Mr. Speaker, I am afraid it might. I was deeply disturbed to hear the remarks of the Liberal senator who repeatedly and deliberately said that there is a moral equivalence, that is to say no moral difference, between the mass murder of civilians by terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and the policy of Canada on the Khadr matter, a policy established by his own Liberal government.
I find and I am sure that all Canadians find these remarks unacceptable, extreme, odious and demanding of an immediate apology from that senator and from his leader.
Just watched a documentary called “Sir, No Sir!” about the GI antiwar movement in Vietnam. Absolutely fascinating! They interviewed these guys who were Air Force intelligence analysts who, by not analyzing and passing on intelligence, turned the Air Force into an institution that was “unreliable for conducting the war” (paraphrased). Sure would be nice to see some of that kind of patriotism now!
Don;t forget that the NCLB Act gave military recruiter’s unlimited acess to most student information in America’s public schools with threats that if states did not comply, federal funding for roads would be withheld!
ezfyler: Great post!
Jim Glover: Good luck in Florida!
Ez, Jim, and others. Smedley Butler was right but others have gome forward as well. The late Col. Fletcher L. Prouty (USAF) was another military veteran dedicated to the truth. He was a learned man speaking in great detail on a variety of subjects and I used to listen to him on the Karl Loren radio program when I lived in Los Angeles in the mid 80’s. Google his name and check out the official website.
Brigadier General Herbert C. Holdridge (USA) was another honest man who saw the corruption in war. I never met Holdridge, but my ex-wife and in-laws knew him intimately and admired his honesty and courage. They quoted him a lot. I posted something about him on CD last year, and a few bloggers were at odds with my comments. According to my ex, Holdridge said the Japanese wanted an honorable surrender as early as 1944, sending out envoys to cut a deal with the US but our defense plants were booming, everybody not in uniform was working, the the industrialists and the bankers were making a fortune, and, from what I was told, we wanted to prolong the war for another year to keep the cash registers jingling. He resigned his commision in disgust , the only general to do so during WW2.
The Japanese Navy was defeated, they couldn’t prevent our aircraft from blowing Nippon to smithereens, and we were told they would fight up until the “last man standing.” Hence, the logic behind A-Bomb Harry’s decision to nuke them. Again, from my CD post of last summer, I quoted the 1975 article from the late Norman Cousins’ defunct publication, ‘Saturday Review.’
After the Soviet Red Army defeated the master race of Europe, Stalin, our “ally” told Truman and Churchill he would start moving troops eastwards and attack the master race of Asia to help end the Second World War. Truman’s advisors didn’t want to split Japan with the “evil commies” like we were going to do in Germany, and by dropping those two big boys, Tojo and his merry band of imperialists would wave the bed sheet and there would be no need for the Red Army to intervene. And, we’d show the Russians the destructive power of an atomic bomb in case they wanted to mess with us.
No bid contracts, invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, Reagan’s unauthorized support for the anti-peasant, anti trade-unionist murderous death squads in Central America, our support for the same in Columbia and elsewhere: it never stops, does it?
Hitler had the elite SS. The cream of the crop! We have Blackwater. The cream of the crop!
Who said, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”
Guntotinliberal: Excellent film! See ‘The Christmas Truce of 1914′ on the History Channel or read about it, and while you’re at it, seek out Dalton Trumbo’s novel, ‘Johnny Got His Gun.’ If I remember, it was published in 1939 and I think “banned” during WW11.
The world’s only superpower, or “superbully”, will eventually pay their karmic debt like other empires did. We read about it everyday on CD. A little at a time. How many of you CD’ers heard or saw Amy Goodman interviewing Gore Vidal yesterday? Now that’s a real man!
Considering the recent ruling - one reason the recruiters may have to solicit under aged youths is that it is going to be hard to reinforce the “don’t ask / don’t tell” policy if gay Californians are recruited after they marry.
…this is at the same time the US military is ACTIVELY recruiting known gang members and violent felons…some as they leave the various super-max penitentiaries..
Galen: 1:50 pm post.
You bet! The Nazi SS took so-called sub-types in the latter days to fill its ranks.
Galen - that is a policy for disaster.
Vaudree, don’t worry, they will probably be refused by the US army and end up in Blackwater!
John Freeman Wrote: >>Uh, here it is called the Boy Scouts of America. Brown shirted little Nazi’s -grin-<<
John Freeman, unless you were a Boy Scout please do not comment about what you do not know. I was a Boy Scout for 3 years. The primary goal of the Boy Scouts of America is to teach citizenship skills beyond just voting. You know citizenship, the thing the left talks about but never actually gets down to doing. Oh yeah, I read alot about on this list about bloggers’ contempt for the “sheeple” as they contemptuously call the general public. We are taught to involve ourselves in the community. We learned about ecology, the environment, volunteering our time to the public good, journalism, good stewardship, etc. This is what I learned from it and now I appreciate what they were doing for the community.
When I went into the Boy Scouts I enjoyed it mostly for camping in the great outdoors. We were taught to respect nature. We were not allowed to bring AM transistor radios (The 70’s version of an mp3 player) in order to focus on the wonder of nature.
When I was in the Scouts their headquarters was based in New Brunswick, NJ and was less politicized by the right as it became later. If they can be faulted for anything they are discriminatory against gays. I vehemently disagree with their discrimination against gays. Still I have also participated with them as a volunteer ham operator and, uniforms aside, military anything never enters the picture.
There are no drills, marches, training with weapons or mock firefights. The only gun I ever fired in the Boy Scouts was a rim fired bolt-action .22 rifle in a target practice range. It was hardly a military assault weapon.