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TechnoratiRefusing to Comply: The Tactics of Resistance in an All-Volunteer Military
[Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.]
On May 1st at Fort Hood in central Texas, Specialist Victor Agosto wrote on a counseling statement, which is actually a punitive U.S. Army memo:
"There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the opposite effect."
Ten days later, he refused to obey a direct order from his company commander to prepare to deploy and was issued a second counseling statement. On that one he wrote, "I will not obey any orders I deem to be immoral or illegal." Shortly thereafter, he told a reporter, "I'm not willing to participate in this occupation, knowing it is completely wrong. It's a matter of what I'm willing to live with."
Agosto had already served in Iraq for 13 months with the 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion. Currently on active duty at Fort Hood, he admits, "It was in Iraq that I turned against the occupations. I started to feel very guilty. I watched contractors making obscene amounts of money. I found no evidence that the occupation was in any way helping the people of Iraq. I know I contributed to death and human suffering. It's hard to quantify how much I caused, but I know I contributed to it."
Even though he was approaching the end of his military service, Agosto was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan under the stop-loss program that the Department of Defense uses to retain soldiers beyond the term of their contracts. At least 185,000 troops have been stop-lossed since September 11, 2001.
Agosto betrays no ambivalence about his willingness to face the consequences of his actions:
"Yes, I'm fully prepared for this. I have concluded that the wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] are not going to be ended by politicians or people at the top. They're not responsive to people, they're responsive to corporate America. The only way to make them responsive to the needs of the people is for soldiers to not fight their wars. If soldiers won't fight their wars, the wars won't happen. I hope I'm setting an example for other soldiers."
Today, Agosto's remains a relatively isolated act in an all-volunteer military built to avoid the dissent that, in the Vietnam era, came to be associated with an army of draftees. However, it's an example that may, soon enough, have far greater meaning for an increasingly overstretched military plunging into an expanding Afghan War seemingly without end, even as its war in Iraq continues.
Avoiding Battle
Writing on his blog from Baquba, Iraq, in September 2004, Specialist Jeff Englehart commented: "Three soldiers in our unit have been hurt in the last four days and the true amount of army-wide casualties leaving Iraq are unknown. The figures are much higher than what is reported. We get awards and medals that are supposed to make us feel proud about our wicked assignment..."
Over the years, in response to such feelings, some American soldiers have come up with ingenious ways to express defiance or dissent on our distant battlegrounds. These have been little noted in the mainstream media, and when they do surface, officials in the Pentagon or in Washington just brush them aside as "bad apple" incidents (the same explanation they tend to use when a war crime is exposed).
But in the stories of men and women who served in the occupation of Iraq, they often play a different role. In October 2007, for instance, I interviewed Corporal Phil Aliff, an Iraq War veteran, then based at Fort Drum in upstate New York. He recalled:
"During my stints in Iraq between August 2005 and July 2006, we probably ran 300 patrols. Most of the men in my platoon were just in from combat tours in Afghanistan and morale was incredibly low. Recurring hits by roadside bombs had demoralized us and we realized the only way we could avoid being blown up was to stop driving around all the time. So every other day we would find an open field and park, and call our base every hour to tell them we were searching for weapon caches in the fields and everything was going fine. All our enlisted people had grown disenchanted with the chain of command."
Aliff referred to this tactic as engaging in "search and avoid" missions, a sardonic expression recycled from the Vietnam War when soldiers were sent out on official "search and destroy" missions.
Sergeant Eli Wright, who served as a medic with the 1st Infantry Division in Ramadi from September 2003 through September 2004, had a similar story to tell me. "Oh yeah, we did search and avoid missions all the time. It was common for us to go set camp atop a bridge and use it as an over-watch position. We would use our binoculars to observe rather than sweep, but call in radio checks every hour to report on our sweeps."
According
to Private First Class Clifton Hicks, who served in Iraq with the First
Cavalry from October 2003, only six months after Baghdad was occupied
by American troops, until July 2004, search and avoid missions began
early and always had the backing of a senior non-commissioned officer
or a staff sergeant. "Our platoon sergeant was with us and he knew our
patrols were bullshit, just riding around to get blown up," he
explained. "We were at Camp Victory at Baghdad International Airport. A
lot of the time we'd leave the main gate and come right back in another
gate to the base where there's a big PX with a nice mess hall and a
Burger King. We'd leave one guy at the Humvee to call in every hour,
while the others stayed at the PX. We were just sick and tired of going
out on these stupid patrols."
These understated acts of refusal were often survival strategies as well as gestures of dissent, as the troops were invariably undertrained and ill-equipped for the job of putting down an insurgency. Specialist Nathan Lewis, who was deployed to Iraq with the 214th Artillery Brigade from March 2002 through June 2003, experienced this firsthand. "We never received any training for much of what we were expected to do," he said when telling me of certain munitions catching fire while he and other soldiers were loading them onto trucks, "We were never trained on how to handle [them] the right way."
Sergeant Geoff Millard of the New York Army National Guard served at a Rear Operations Center with the 42nd Infantry Division from October 2004 through October 2005. Part of his duty entailed reporting "significant actions," or SIGACTS -- that is, attacks on U.S. forces. In an interview in 2007 he told me, "When I was there at least five companies never reported SIGACTS. I think 'search and avoids' have been going on for a long time. One of my buddies in Baghdad emails that nearly each day they pull into a parking lot, drink soda, and shoot at the cans." Millard told me of soldiers he still knows in Iraq who were still performing "search and avoid" missions in December 2008. Several other friends deploying or redeploying to Iraq soon assured him that they, too, planned to operate in search and avoid mode.
Corporal Bryan Casler was first deployed to Iraq with the Marines in 2003, at the time of the invasion. Posted to Afghanistan in 2004, he returned to Iraq for another tour of duty in 2005. He tells of other low-level versions of the tactic of avoidance: "There were times we would go to fix a radio that had been down for hours. It was purposeful so we did not have to deal with the bullshit from higher [ups]. In reality, we would go so we could just chill out, let the rest of the squad catch up on some rest as one stood guard. It's mutual and people start covering for each other. Everyone knows what the hell's going on."
Staff Sergeant Ronn Cantu, an infantryman who was deployed to Iraq from March 2004 to February 2005, and again from December 2006 to January 2008, said of some of the patrols he observed while there: "[They] wouldn't go up and down the streets like they were supposed to. They would just go to a friendly compound with the Iraqi police or the Kurdish Peshmerga [militia] and stay at their compound and drink tea until it was time to go back to the base."
As a Stryker armored combat vehicle commander in Iraq from September 2004 to September 2005, Sergeant Seth Manzel had figured out a way to fabricate on screen the movement of their patrol and so could run computerized versions of a search and avoid mission. As he explained:
"Sometimes if they called us up to go and do something, we would swiftly send computer reports that we were headed in that direction. On the map we would manually place our icon to the target location and then move it back and forth to make it appear as though we were actually on the ground and patrolling. This was not an isolated case. Everyone did it. Everyone would go and hide somewhere from time to time."
Former Sergeant Josh Simpson, who served as a counter-intelligence agent in Iraq from October 2004 to October 2005, said he witnessed instances of faked movement. "I knew soldiers who learned to simulate vehicular movement on the computer screen, to create the impression of being on patrol," said Simpson. "There's no doubt that people did it."
Saying "No" One at a Time
"There was nothing to be done," Corporal Casler says of his time in Iraq, "no progress to be made there. Dissent starts as simple as saying this is bullshit. Why am I risking my life?"
Sometimes such feelings have permeated entire units and soldiers in them have refused to follow orders en masse. One of the more dramatic of these incidents occurred in July 2007. The 2nd Platoon of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, in Baghdad had lost many men in its 11 months of deployment. After a roadside bomb killed five more, its members held a meeting and agreed that it was no longer possible for them to function professionally. Concerned that their anger might actually touch off a massacre of Iraqi civilians, they staged a quiet revolt against their commanders instead.
Kelly Kennedy, a reporter with the Military Times embedded with Charlie Company prior to the revolt, described the shape the platoon members were in by that time: "[T]hey went right to mental health and they got sleeping medications, and they basically couldn't sleep and reacted poorly. And then, they were supposed to go out on patrol again that day. And they, as a platoon, the whole platoon -- it was about 40 people -- said, 'We're not going to do it. We can't. We're not mentally there right now.'"
In response, the military broke up the platoon. Each individual involved was also "flagged" so he would not get a promotion or receive any award due.
To this day, troops in Iraq continue to be plagued by equipment and manpower shortages, and work long hours in an extreme climate. In addition, their stress levels are regularly raised by news from home of veterans returning to separations and divorces, and of a Veteran's Administration often ill-equipped and unwilling to provide appropriate physical and psychological care to veterans.
While no broad poll of troops has been conducted recently, a Zogby poll in February 2006 found that 72% of soldiers in Iraq felt the occupation should be ended within a year. My interviews with those recently back from Iraq indicate that levels of despair and disappointment are once again on the rise among troops who are beginning to realize, months after the Obama administration was ushered in, that hopes of an early withdrawal have evaporated.
With the Afghan War heating up and the Iraq War still far from over, even if fighting there is at far lower levels than at its sectarian heights in 2006 and 2007, with stress and strain on the military still on the rise, dissent and resistance are unlikely to abate. In addition to small numbers of outright public refusals to deploy or redeploy, troops are going absent without official leave (AWOL) between deployments, and actual desertions may once again be on the rise. Certainly, there's one strong indication that despair is indeed growing: the unprecedented numbers of soldiers who are committing suicide; the Army's official suicide count rose to 133 in 2008, up from 115 in 2007, itself a record since the Pentagon began keeping suicide statistics in 1980. At least 82 confirmed or suspected suicides have been reported thus far in 2009, a pace that indicates another grim record will be set; and suicide, though seldom thought of in that context, is also a form of refusal, an extreme, individual way of saying no, or simply no more.
According to Sergeant Simpson, here's how a feeling of discontent and opposition creeps up on you while you're on duty: The part of the war you're involved in, interrogating Iraqis in his case, "doesn't make any sense. You realize that the whole system is flawed and if that is flawed, then obviously the whole war is flawed. If the basic premise of the war is flawed, definitely the intelligence system that is supposed to lead us to victory is flawed. What that implies is that victory is not even a possibility."
After finishing his tour in Iraq, Simpson joined the Reserves because he believed it would grant him a two-year deferment from being called up, but he was called up anyway. In his own case, he says, "I thought to myself, I can't do this anymore. First of all, it's bad for me mentally because I'm doing something I loathe. Second, I'm participating in an organization that I wish to resist in every way I can.
"So," he says, "I just stopped showing up for drill, didn't call my unit, didn't give them any reason for it. I changed my telephone number and they did not have my address." Eventually, he reached the end date of his contract and managed to graduate from Evergreen State University in Washington. "I don't know if technically I'm still in the reserves," he told me. "I don't know what my situation is, but I don't really care either. If I go to jail, I go to jail. I'd rather go to jail than go to Iraq."
Unready and Unwilling Reserves
Sergeant Travis Bishop, who served 14 months in Baghdad with the 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion - the same battalion as Agosto, who served north of the Iraqi capital -- recently went AWOL from his station at Fort Hood, Texas, when his unit deployed to Afghanistan. He insists that it would be unethical for him to deploy to support an occupation he opposes on moral grounds.
On his blog, he puts his position this way:
"I love my country, but I believe that this particular war is unjust, unconstitutional and a total abuse of our nation's power and influence. And so, in the next few days, I will be speaking with my lawyer, and taking actions that will more than likely result in my discharge from the military, and possible jail time... and I am prepared to live with that.... My father said, 'Do only what you can live with, because every morning you have to look at your face in the mirror when you shave. Ten years from now, you'll still be shaving the same face.' If I had deployed to Afghanistan, I don't think I would have been able to look into another mirror again."
I spoke with him briefly after he turned himself in at his base in early June. He said he'd chosen to follow Specialist Agosto's example of refusal, which had inspired him, and wanted to be present at his post to accept the consequences of his actions. He, too, hoped others might follow his lead. (He and Agosto, now in similar situations, have become friends.)
Agosto, whose hope has been to set an example of resistance for other soldiers, sees Bishop's refusal to deploy to Afghanistan as a personal success and says, "I already feel vindicated for what I'm doing by his actions. It's nice to see some immediate results."
His actions, he's convinced, have affected the way his fellow soldiers are now looking at the war in Afghanistan. "The topic has come up a lot in conversation, with soldiers on base now asking, 'What are we doing in Afghanistan? Why are we there?' People feel compelled to bring this up when I'm around. Even the ones that disagree with me say it's great what I'm doing, and that I'm doing what a lot of them don't have the courage to do. If anything, the people I work with have now been treating me better than ever."
On May 27th, rejecting an Article 15 -- a nonjudicial punishment imposed by a commanding officer who believes a member of his command has committed an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice -- Agosto demanded to be court-martialed.
According to Agosto, the Army has now begun the court martial process, but has not yet set a trial date. Bishop, too, awaits a possible court martial.
On June 1st, a day when four U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, Agosto told me in a phone call from Fort Hood, "I haven't had to disobey any orders lately. A sergeant asked me if it'd be okay if I had to follow orders, and I said no, and they didn't force it."
Agosto and Bishop are hardly alone. In November 2007, the Pentagon revealed that between 2003 and 2007 there had been an 80% increase in overall desertion rates in the Army (desertion refers to soldiers who go AWOL and never intend to return to service), and Army AWOL rates from 2003 to 2006 were the highest since 1980. Between 2000 and 2006, more than 40,000 troops from all branches of the military deserted, more than half from the Army. Army desertion rates jumped by 42% from 2006 to 2007 alone.
U.S. Army Specialist André Shepherd joined the Army on January 27, 2004. He was trained in Apache helicopter repair and sent first to Germany, then was stationed in Iraq from November 2004 to February 2005, before being based again in Germany. Shepherd went AWOL in southern Germany in April 2007 and lived underground until applying for asylum there in November 2008, making him the first Iraq veteran to apply for refugee status in Europe.
He, too, has refused further military service because he feels morally opposed to the occupation of Iraq. While he awaits word from the German government and is still technically AWOL, Shepherd is being supported by Courage to Resist, a group based in Oakland, California, which actively assists soldiers who refuse to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.
A counselor and administrative associate at that organization, Adam Szyper-Seibert, points out that "in recent months there has been a dramatic rise of nearly 200% in the number of soldiers that have contacted Courage to Resist." Szyper-Seibert suspects this may reflect the decision of the Obama administration to dramatically increase efforts, troop strength, and resources in Afghanistan. "We are actively supporting over 50 military resisters like Victor Agosto," Szyper-Seibert says. "They are all over the world, including André Shepherd in Germany and several people in Canada. We are getting five or six calls a week just about the IRR [Individual Ready Reserve] recall alone."
The IRR is composed of troops who have finished their active duty service but still have time remaining on their contracts. The typical military contract mandates four years of active duty followed by four years in the IRR, though variations on this pattern exist. Ready Reserve members live civilian lives and are not paid by the military, but they are required to show up for periodic musters. Many have moved on from military life and are enrolled in college, working civilian jobs, and building families.
At any point, however, a member of the Ready Reserve can be recalled to active duty. This policy has led to the involuntary reactivation of tens of thousands of troops to fight the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lieutenant General Jack C. Stultz, the Chief of the U.S. Army Reserve and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Reserve Command, told Congress on March 3rd that, since September 11, 2001, the Army has mobilized about 28,000 from the Reserves. There have been 3,724 Marines involuntarily recalled and mobilized during that same period, according to Major Steven O'Connor, a Marine Corps spokesman. (According to Major O'Connor, as of May 2009, the Marines are no longer recalling individuals from the IRR.)
Ironically, under a new commander-in-chief whom many voters believed to be anti-war, the Army is continuing its Individual Ready Reserve recalls. "The IRR recall has not seen any change since Obama became president," Sarah Lazare, the project coordinator for Courage to Resist, says. "It's difficult to predict what the Obama administration's policy will be in the future regarding the IRR, but definitely they haven't made any moves to stop this practice."
Needing boots on the ground, according to Lazare, the military continues to fall back on the Ready Reserve system to fill the gaps: "Since these are experienced troops, many of them have already served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan." Lazare adds, "When Obama announced his Afghanistan surge, we got a huge wave of calls from soldiers saying they didn't want to be reactivated and to please help them not go."
The Future of Military Dissent
Right now, acts of dissent, refusal, and resistance in the all-volunteer military remain small-scale and scattered. Ranging from the extreme private act of suicide to avoidance of duty to actual refusal of duty, they continue to consist largely of individual acts. Present-day G.I. resistance to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan cannot begin to be compared with the extensive resistance movement that helped end the Vietnam War and brought an army of draftees to the point of near mutiny in the late 1960s. Nevertheless, the ongoing dissent that does exist in the U.S. military, however fragmented and overlooked at the moment, should not be discounted.
The Iraq War boils on at still dangerous levels of violence, while the war in Afghanistan (and across the border in Pakistan) only grows, as does the U.S. commitment to both. It's already clear that even an all-volunteer military isn't immune to dissent. If violence in either or both occupations escalates, if the Pentagon struggles to add more boots on the ground, if the stresses and strains on the military, involving endless redeployments to combat zones, increase rather than lessen, then the acts of Agosto, Bishop, and Shepherd may turn out to be pathbreaking ones in a world of dissent yet to be experienced and explored. Add in dissatisfaction and discontent at home if, in the coming years, American treasure continues to be poured into an Afghan quagmire, and real support for a G.I. resistance movement may surface. If so, then the early pioneers in methods of dissent within the military will have laid the groundwork for a movement.
"If we want soldiers to choose the right but difficult path, they must know beyond any shadow of a doubt that they will be supported by Americans." So said First Lieutenant Ehren Watada of the U.S. Army, the highest ranking enlisted soldier to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq. (He finally had the military charges against him dropped by the Justice Department.) The future of any such movement in the military is now unknowable, but keep your eyes open. History, even military history, holds its own surprises.
26 Comments so far
Show AllA reader posted about the documentary film 'Sir, No Sir', and there's an evidently full copy at Google, which I just viewed. It's not of high quality, but nevertheless adequate, and most certainly recommendable. Definitely.
Not only is that film fitting for today, it also educates more about the U.S. war on and in Vietnam. I knew, had read that the Vietnam War was hell as far as what the U.S. did there, but this "Sir, No Sir!" documentary is ... definitely worth viewing and listening to. I'd say that it's a must.
odoco
Also read book, "Soldiers in Revolt" by David Cortright, an excellent companion piece to the film mentioned above.
odoco ,
You seem to understand the situation ... quite thoroughly.
========================
"mustbefree July 1st, 2009 4:34 pm
How many of these young people read something like CD and take away something from it? Most get their news from elsewhere and to try to put the onus on them for making choices with the limited information that they do get is not right."
DON'T FORGET, there's plenty of bs for reader comments at CD, too.
===============
Some readers have posted about the documentary or film, 'Sir, No Sir!', and while I had learned of this before, over a year ago, nonetheless lost the bookmark. So, I just did a Web seach and checked out the following intro., say, piece; and believe others will appreciate this American soul rap.
(triple-click and copy the url, open another tab of browser window, and paste the url)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12999.htm
(or, manage the url broken over two lines)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
article12999.htm
(I find that when URL's end with .htm or .html, then I can triple-click on them so that they're entirely highlighted, copy and paste, and the whole url is used, but only when ending with .htm or .html, here, at CD, with posts at CD.)
www.sirnosir.com
I got that again, this time through www.bullfrogfilms.com , which says this is the official website for the film.
There's a 49:27 copy at Google. You just have to do the Web search, or directly search at Google for this.
Beginning to view and listen to that copy of 'Sir, No Sir!', I think everyone should carefully view and listen to this! I've only viewed the first few minutes, so far, but it seems to be enough to realise that this is a very relevant, good, ... documentary about U.S. soldier dissent and the reasons for it. Those reasons remain to-the-point today, definitely relevant.
There's no conscription today, so why are people volunteering, instead? They volunteer based on false promises, of gaining trade skills and education, etcetera, as well as the government totally lying about the so-called justifiability of the wars. Okay, some people volunteer because of being racist, etc, and stupid, but many volunteer only because they're socio-economically depressed and need a way out of this situation; only, when it's attempted by volunteering for U.S. military service, then they're more "screwed" than they were to begin with.
DISSENT! It is the only way to work on bringing corrections, reparations, to this world, as peoples deserve to receive. The American Indians, f.e., have been long in waiting. Haitians have been long in waiting. And ... so on.
DISSENT!
If you can't do it in your own name, then do it in mine, Mike Corbeil, and I'll "answer" to the shmucks in Washington; might get my ass canned, but that's okay, I have no children or spouse and therefore risk nothing. It'd be interesting to see how they'd answer my questions or rebuttals.
If they did that honestly, then they'd have to stop these wars, but they're not likely to do this in honest terms, and I'll be sent to a cell. That's okay, but they need to stop their damn crimes against humanity. After all, and like already said, I have no dependents, so what the government would do to me would be of little importance; what it does to humanity, now that is very important.
Don't expect honesty from ... most politicians. Even Dennis Kucinich, who's among the very best in the U.S., doesn't own up to full reality, always continuing as if the Dem. Party can be corrected, which is a "pipe dream", and he signed on to authorise the unauthorisable war on Afghanistan in 2001; but he's among the very best the U.S. has, among the very best of all politicians or political officials, worldwide, just that he's mistaken, now and then.
Think, live, breathe with [individual conscience]; let no one fool you into believing wrong is right, ever! But also don't be some damn s.o.b. who lambasts political representatives for their occasional mistakes. F.e., it's important to recognise, to know about the mistakes that Dennis Kucinich has made, but it's damn wrong to crucify him for these errors. Instead, communicate with him, tell him what you realise is wrong with these decisions he unfortunately made; all while encouraging him to be as good as he can be. If Dennis Kucinich becomes as good as he can be, then he's evidently going to make a very good political leader, if and when elected to a sufficiently strong position.
He won't be elected to such levels, for cies like GE, f.e., make sure that he won't; but if The People wake up and demand that all political candidates for the presidential office receive equal time, etc., then we should be able to obtain this. The People, however, have been damn complacent and lame. So GE, et al, get their wishes and keep real candidates out.
Doint that, btw, and imo, anyway, is un- and anti-constitutional. There's been nothing constitutional about keeping Dennis Kucinich out of Dem. Party debates when it was about the campaigns for who'd be nominated to run for U.S. President. There was nothing but treason in this; expecially, by the Dem. Party leadership!
When Dennis Kucinich is wrong, then he's wrong, and he was wrong in signing to authorise war on Afghanistan, and ..., if recall correctly, Gulf War I, but he's demonstrated better and acceptable judgement in other cases, so I'm willing to give the man a little break, say. Anyway, when he's wrong, then what I expect is for other people to work on informing him of the wrongs, working to get him to understand; and I think this might work. If not, then there are fewer real souls in the U.S. government than I thought; one fewer, anyway.
odoco
Mike - I understand the situation because I was a high school history teacher and later a high school principal. For the past 8 or 9 years I have seen recruiters 'work' the kids. I have read the US Army's recruiters' handbook twice - everyone should - especially parents. I have also counseled young people about what they should ask the recruiters - specific questions that will indicate to the students whether or not the the recruiter is honest. The kids know the answers to the questions before they ask them - and if the recruiter answers evasively then the kids always nailed them on the spot. It happened more than once.
I have also loaned my copy of "Sir, No Sir" to a few area high school social studies teachers in my area. Another great film clip to exhibit on this topic would be Ehren Watada's speech at the 2006 Veterans for Peace national conference in Seattle. Kids are spellbound when they watch this - and follow-up discussions were some of the best I have ever witnessed. They are deeply impressed by the solidarity shown by Iraq war veterans as they mount the stage behind Watada in a gut-wrenching, highly emotional show of support for an "Lt." that refuses to fight the war many of them just came home from.
Many of the soldiers that Dahr interviewed would have never joined the military if they would have been more fully informed about the war before their entry. We have to find a way to actually educate our children - find ways to illuminate the possibilities of peace as opposed to war in our public school classrooms. Sadly, this rarely happens.
And Mike - I appreciate your deep analysis of this article and the accompanying posts. This is what real dialogue and education should resemble - critical thinking, understanding, acceptance, and sometimes rejection of these, but unemotional, without prejudice, and based upon knowledge.
"Erroll July 1st, 2009 9:47 pm
...
The best way to halt an occupation is to have it happen from within."
I THINK that that surely is [always] the best way; always from 'within' being the best and most immediate way of stopping a process that needs to be stopped. The same applies for corrective changes, improvements; the most influential, not necessarily most capable or qualified, but still most influential people are probably going to be members, already. When it comes to stopping processes of small organisations or groups, this may not require any internal efforts, but when we speak of matters like wars, then we must refer to the soldiers. We really don't have a choice. If we had a choice, then we could choose to withdraw the soldiers and sack the president or PM, the leader, but we do not have this capability; therefore, we need the soldiers to dissent.
Without their dissent, we're ... f*ucked, say.
I don't rely on U.S. elites, corporate or political or military. I rely on the soldiers waking up and dissenting. The "elites"? To hell!
dagger July 1st, 2009 11:12 pm,
Brief, but good post, and certainly interesting concept.
============
"mustbefree July 1st, 2009 10:23 pm
I will never throw rocks at anyone who joins but will forever throw rocks at the people,civilian and military who with malice aforthought take advantage of no draft and abuse the people who fight the wars with things like stoploss. ..."
I THINK that's along the right vein, but don't see why we should make such a fuss over conscription vs volunteer, for conscripted aren't necessarily willing, while volunteers are, and when we are willing to serve in wars that are internationally denounced as unjustifiable, then we should wonder what the F*ck is wrong with our perceptiveness.
Iow, the situation can be argued either way, because being volunteer means willing, while being conscripted doesn't necessarily mean 'willing', and the latter is better than the former; it's better to unwillingly serve in criminal wars, than it is to willingly serve in them.
I don't distinguish based on conscripted or volunteer. I distinguish on bases like we find in the article by Dahr Jamail, soldiers with [conscience] and real intelligence. Those are my guidelines. Everything else is superfluous. Like one of the dissenting soldiers Dahr spoke with or otherwise quoted said, if the soldiers refuse to serve or carry out the orders of the criminal "elites", then the war could not be perpetrated and continued; it's only willing soldiers who make it possible to continue these crimes against humanity.
Who needs conscription when you have willing citizens? You need conscription when there's no other way to form your forces, the ground forces anyway. And when situations become this extreme, that governments establish conscription, then alarms should be sounding off ... "all over the place", everywhere.
Goind based on views like mustbefree expressed, we have an awful lot of willing soldiers; yet if we understand Dahr Jamail's article correctly, then we don't have all that many willing soldiers, after all. In the latter respect, we have a lot of initially willing soldiers who quickly enough became ... quite unwilling. And conscription or volunteer surely wouldn't make any difference in this latter regard.
The only difference I believe conscription would provide is greater dissent, perhaps especially among the general public in the U.S. Given that most of the conscripted would be from poverty, ..., and promised to receive educational, ... benefits for serving, we might have the same number of troops serving anyway; but surely none would be happier than the soldiers we presently have under, so-called, volunteer terms.
The National Guard did [not] volunteer, btw! The NG are not supposed to be serving in these GWoT wars, but were forced into doing so. And once there, some were treated badly by regular U.S. military troops, and possibly officers; after, and unlike the latter, the NG were [forced]. The NG could nonetheless dissent, but for those who did and do not, they are forced into serving in these wars.
That [is] equivalent to conscription!
mustbefree, you need to take a little more time for reflection, because you quickly pass over critical data points. When we do that, then we can't competently "connect the dots", for we're then skipping "dots" that critically form part of the overall "picture". We need the [whole] "picture", and volunteering for wars of aggression really does [not] seem, or is not, better than being conscriptively forced to serve in them. The situation is actually the opposite; being forced to serve in wrongfulness is more easily forgivable, as opposed to when volunteering to serve in the wrongfulness.
Both should have dissent, but volunteering to serve out criminal orders even when we don't realise the orders are criminal, which is something we need to ask ourselves about, for we should never accept to carry out orders until we've ascertained their validity; well, volunteering actually "works out" to be worse than being conscriptively forced into doing the same thing.
Conscription can drive dissent more strongly, but as for carrying out orders against other people, being volunteer is definitely worse.
I nevertheless won't throw stones, etc., at the troops; only throwing my words. If I was fit like during the early 1990's and met some troops serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Darfur, ..., at a pub, say, then we might have some damaged bagage returning to the U.S. military, but I'm not fit for this anymore and don't go around looking for ... sport, say. The heart's there, available, but physically? Not quite enough.
Nevertheless, I tend to have more compassion for conscripted soldiers, than for volunteers. After all, what the hell are they volunteering for; hell?
That's not what they have in mind when volunteering, but evidently some or many have been waking up to reality; according to this excellent article by Dahr Jamail, and others (Courage to Resist, IVAW, ...).
When the volunteers of today volunteered, did they truly volunteer? This is an or the other question. After all, many volunteer because they live in quite dirt poverty and are promised a way out of this with all of the Uncle Sam bs that's "sold" to the poor in the U.S. Many come from poverty, need to complete high school education, want higher education, trade skills, ..., and the government makes (empty) promises that seem good, at first. That is, in a more subtle sense, conscription! Offering people who are desperate ways out of their situations and without doing this honestly is a form of conscription. Only the strongest of the principled persons would resist; all of the others would become "volunteers".
We don't have much or many to speak of for real volunteers in these wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, they were never told that they were being lied into serving in these wars. They were never told that both wars are criminal. So, are the volunteer soldiers really volunteer? Not really!
I dont want anyone to be going to war volunteer or no;my only point was that if the draft were "on the table" politicians would not be so quick to start a war because some of their kids might be called and they certainly would not like that and that is my point.Nothing else,maybe I was too wordy.Tony
"... I have concluded that the wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] are not going to be ended by politicians or people at the top. They're not responsive to people, they're responsive to corporate America. The only way to make them responsive to the needs of the people is for soldiers to not fight their wars. If soldiers won't fight their wars, the wars won't happen. I hope I'm setting an example for other soldiers."
I want this engraved on a bronze plaque, a big one. And have it prominently displayed in front of the pentagon. oh and also on the courthouse lawn of all the towns in the u.s. and affixed to the doors of all the high schools. it's perfect
Bring back state malitias where every member had to buy his own gear and served with out pay. Before the civil war, thats all we had as defense and we had a very small standing army, only 1,500 when the Civil War broke out as I recall.
I will never throw rocks at anyone who joins but will forever throw rocks at the people,civilian and military who with malice aforthought take advantage of no draft and abuse the people who fight the wars with things like stoploss.Military training is by its very nature a school of death,yours or "the other guy's".Choices are made by the individual but we as a people must share in this mess that we are in and I'm going to beat this no draft thing to death because without it the powers that be will ignore whatever we have to say because they claim that they are keeping us safe which is bullshit but and this is a big but with a mind warping message thought up by Psychologists,I'm sure it is not a stretch.Just look at this torture thing and so they tell the people "hey we're keeping you safe and all it is costing is money and some guys who,for whatever reason,voluteer, thats reasonable right"?Instiute the draft and I'll bet my ass that this whole occupation,war thing would dry up and we could stop killing innocent people.This makes me emotional whenever it comes up because the politicians and mic know they got us and take advantage totally.Tony
VETERANS DAY 2008
Wanted to write something for all the Vets out there but with a particular group in mind and that would be any and all Vets at Country Club Manor a Retirement Community, Assisted Living Facility.
It has always been my observation that when things are tough economically in the civilian ranks that a paycheck from the military is ever an option; this was so in my case in the middle 50’s but you have to have some good fortune, this may sound like an oxymoron when you consider that you are joining up to maybe kill or be killed or end up with physical or mental problems or you come back to a society that cares not a whit what you have done.
There are other reasons that people join such as the chance to get money for college, a career, a chance to travel and just for the sense of adventure. Where do most fit? A job, money for college, travel and adventure. Most career military plan it that way from the beginning; also, for instance when thing are tough folks will reup, meaning they will reenlist and probably stay for 20.
All of these people have no real clue until dumped into the shit and since a bullet or a bomb does not care what your reason was for joining. There are exceptions but most all of these people will do what they are supposed to with the best of their ability and they will do so with honor. Til one has seen, in person, what war is there is no way to have a dialog about something that can do nothing but harm to a body, heart, and soul therefore as a Vietnam Vet who has done good but never forgets we did what we did for our own reasons and salute all who did because they answered a call. Draftee’s answered also and they deserve a salute.
Have a peaceful day, Tony 11/11/08
Excellent comments and especially from courtjester and odoco regarding one of my favorite films, the powerful Sir! No Sir!. It is good to see from the article that many of the soldiers are finally realizing that Obama is not the antiwar president that many had thought he would be. It is important to keep in mind that Obama does what every American president has done and that is to shower lavish praise upon "the troops" while never singling out those soldiers who have had the courage and integrity to say NO to what has now become Obama's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The hope is that more of the soldiers in today's military will finally achieve the epiphany that Donald Duncan, the former Green Beret in Sir! No Sir!, did when he observed in the film that:
"I was doing it right but I wasn't doing right."
The best way to halt an occupation is to have it happen from within.
I believe in the spirit of service many young and not so young men and women exhibit when they sign up for the military. The military lies from the moment a recruit enters the recruiting office. Liberal and Conservative government officials rely on the constant disinformation and outright lies of the military. All governments in fact do this. I am wondering why very few people could see it when GW Bush & Co. constantly used soldiers as their shield from critcism.
The truth is that goverments want the largest militaries they can afford to aggrandize themselves not to defend their people.
How many of these young people read something like CD and take away something from it?Most get their news from elsewhere and to try to put the onus on them for making choices with the limited information that they do get is not right.What of education which has been going in the toilet for a long time since the 60's and on purpose I might add!At the same time they did away with the draft which would have put a big check on any war some asshole might be tempted to start.This is the one where they know that they have the people by the whatever word is appropiate because they know that no parent is going to go for a draft.It looks like the people will have to take a big hit for this situation but it is the assholes and that includes all politicians,who should take the biggest blame for knowing the score and taking advantage of all the people to further their own greed and agenda.Tony
"the extensive resistance movement that helped end the Vietnam War and brought an army of draftees to the point of near mutiny in the late 1960s." An extremely important part of history that the rulers do NOT want remembered and widely known. Or honored, as it should be. The anti-war veterans organized back then as Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), transformed the already extensive anti-war movement at home and many told of the actual acts of individual and whole unit passive and active acts of resistance that eventually was indeed a near mutiny. The rulers and the Pentagon will never let the true breadth and depth of this resistance be known. As now in Iraq and Afghanistan, the men and women were repelled by the cruelty, murder and destruction of people, familes and society that clearly were no threat to the US, contrary to the lies they had been told. Important as well was the extensive support and resistance network that was created by stateside GIs and their allies, visible back then in the GI coffee houses established right outside most major military bases. One still survives today as Quaker House in Fayetteville, NC outside gigantic Fort Bragg. The film Sir, No Sir is a wonderful documentary of that time and updated with interviews of active participants now 40 plus years later. Also important were GI and military created and edited newspapers distributed on and around major bases. Today, perhaps such a communication medium could be created on the WEB--or does one already exist?
And the power of the VVAW event in DC when impassioned, tearful, angry veterans spoke and then threw their medals and ribbons toward the US capitol. Ron Kovic, author of Born on the 4th of July, and subject of the film so titled, was there and is still active--from a wheelchair!!--and being part of the cross land humanitarian supply effort from Egypt to Gaza soon. A man of great courage, moral and physical stamina and integrity. VIVA and SALUD to all brave resisters past and present.
odoco
I beleive Ft. Hood (Texas), Ft. Drum (New York) and Ft. Lewis (Washington State) also now have G.I. coffee houses similar to those in existence in the late 60s and early 70s.
Every high school government class in this country should have to watch "Sir, No Sir." It speaks of true patriotism, true freedom, and a degree of courage not often found today.
I've seen you mention that film so often on here I put it in my Netflix queue :-)
Deepa
Who's A Low Level Terrorist? Are You?
By Emily Spence
01 July, 2009
Countercurrents.org
http://www.countercurrents.org/spence010709.htm
"Recently, an American Civil Liberties Union report pointed out, "Anti-terrorism training materials currently being used by the Department of Defense (DoD) teach its personnel that free expression in the form of public protests should be regarded as ‘low level terrorism’.”
"Despite that DoD officials removed the offensive section from their educational resources at the urging of ACLU members, the DoD stance is still troubling since a longstanding practice to designate peaceful, law abiding activists as dangerous and treasonable still exists in many government departments and agencies."
"Pentagon Rebrands Protest as “Low-Level Terrorism”"
(http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/06/pentagon-
rebrands-protest-as-low-level-terrorism/
However, US supports civil disobedience in other countries like Iran.
People like Victor Agosto set an inspiring standard for the kind of courage ALL of us, military and civilian, must somehow find within ourselves, and soon, if this country is to survive.
CD has some damned good articles up today.
He has served so its not a question of courage, if he has decided that he can't serve again because he doesn't believe in reasons, both he and the men that would have to depend on him will be better off if he is given an honorable discharge and sent on his way.
The time to consider these things is before you volunteer, not after. Anyone claiming anything else is a bit slow if they don't understand the word "volunteer"
Its quite different than being drafted.
I believe in the end the services will adopt a new policy after these occupations are over. They will simply give a DD to anyone that doesn't want to serve after volunteering and send them on their way without benefits. And I believe that will be made quite clear to anyone who signs up. West Point officers will have to pay back the cost of their education. The fairest and safest policy for everyone.
No man should serve in a volunteer military if he doesn't believe in what he's doing. He is a danger to himself but more importatnly to the men that he served with.
odoco
Get rid of predatory miliitary recruiters, then come back and talk to me about 'volunteerism.'
Anyone who knows the game knows the pentagon is using psychological ploys on our youth just as they do to other countries in their 'full spectrum dominance' mode of communication and thought control.
Want to explain to me what custom painted camo humvees with chrome bumpers with enlistment signs prominently displayed are doing in our high school parking lots? Want to explain why the military is now sending recent graduates back to their old schools to recruit their peers? Want to explain to me why the recruiters never talk about PTSD, combat suicides, 'command' rape, depleted uranium, Gulf War syndrome, rates of divorce for returning combat vets, the sickening and sorry state of the VA system that still exists despite a million congressional hearings, sending soldiers off to war ill-prepared and ill-outfitted, how KBR and Halliburton have actually killed troops (electrocutions and poisoning by unpotable water) and still getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars for contracts that nobody believes they ever fulfilled? Or the fact that once signed, the enlistment contract holds the young man or woman liable for its entirety, whereas the military can change the terms of the agreement at their convenience?
Volunteer Army - BULLSHIT! Take away the huge enlistment bonuses and the educational benefits that are always promised but often aren't realized and you would have nothing except the boys from Blackwater on a permament rotation schedule - ON YOUR TAX DOLLARS WHILE THE CORPS RAKE IN THE PROFITS.
Henry, don't kid yourself. The day the military decides to be clear when signing up new recruits is the day everyone runs screaming out of the recruiter's office.
In the interest of clarity they'd have to divulge that service members are not really defending their country but the political interests of huge multi-national corporations.
They'd have to tell recruits that they may be required to serve in invasions and occupations that are not really wars, that they might have to kill wholesale and indiscriminately, that "independant contractors" will often be working at cross purposes with them, that they will have inadequate equipment, supplies and preparation despite the huge amount of money being spent/wasted/lost, and that when they get home the benefits and care they need and expect will not be there for them, and that their families may not be, either.
Soldiers who have seen the lie and the light are not the danger to others, but wicked wars of wanting what belongs to others are.
How many soldiers would leave right now with a simple DD and a ticket home?
Henry8 wrote:"The time to consider these things is before you volunteer, not after. Anyone claiming anything else is a bit slow if they don't understand the word "volunteer"...No man should serve in a volunteer military if he doesn't believe in what he's doing. He is a danger to himself but more importatnly to the men that he served with."
But what happens if, as was the case with most of the National guard, and certainly many other full-timers, the conflict which you strongly hold to be immoral or illegal, does not begin until after you volunteer? What happens to those who have already witnessed the war and the immoral, unconscionable acts being committed, and can no longer believe in the legality of the orders? It is every soldier's duty to refuse an order that is illegal.
Takes much more courage to refuse to kill and torture than to follow illegal orders. God speed to them all.
Dahr, Troops: Bravo Bravisimo! Bravo Bravisimo!(standing ovation).
"For their unblinking gaze into the totality of the human condition, and their journalistic work in the field of human interest stories, we are proud to award this years Nobel Peace Prize to Kathy Kelly and Dahr Jamail!(Yeah! Wooo Whoo!, Wooo Whooo! Yeah! Whoop 'dahr' It iieezz! Yeah!"[2 hr. thunderous applause, stomping of feet]).
"And in the field of physics: for applying the recognition of humane interest in a thought form to humanity within the harms way of the field of battle...we are proud to award The Troops!"(repeat prior ovation).