GI Resistance Alive and Well in Chicago

With a
new administration taking office in Washington, and an era of profound
economic crisis on the horizon, the U.S. military apparatus is undergoing
a strategic makeover. In many respects, conditions "on the ground"
have remained essentially the same: violence rages on in Iraq
(Obama and his commanders disagree about whether to extend the fighting
for another sixteen or twenty-three months); air strikes continue to
kill Pakistani civilians (though now at a much higher rate); Palestinians and Israelis continue
to suffer under U.S.-funded occupation; corporate war profiteers continue
to receive high-level
government appointments;
the U.S. military budget pushes along on its path of annual expansion. And yet at the same
time the elite managers of the military-industrial complex are engineering
a shift in both their marketing image and their operational focus.
Blackwater Worldwide has changed its name to Xe; military recruitment figures
have increased as the economy declines; weapons
programs are being advertised as instruments of "job creation";
torture and secret imprisonment have been symbolically expunged from
the national conscience; Marine commanders are proposing a full-scale transfer of forces
from Iraq to Afghanistan.

This last
item is particularly relevant, as President Obama has ordered an immediate
fifty percent increase of U.S. troops in Afghanistan (from 36,000 to
53,500), with thousands more expected
to deploy
by early summer. In the face of sustained public opposition to
the Iraq war, the military establishment has found it necessary to direct
its ambitions elsewhere - and with Robert Gates staying on as Defense
Secretary, the "surge" gimmick that sold so well in the context
of Iraq is now being used to promote a similar strategy in the historically
unconquerable terrain of Afghanistan. Evidently, the hope of the
new administration is that a fresh White House image, renewed international
support, and the appearance of a connection to the 9/11 attacks will
turn Afghanistan into a preferred venue for its highly profitable "global
war on terror."

For many
rank-and-file GIs, however, this image of the war in Afghanistan as
a "good war" is not at all convincing. Extreme climate, austere
geography, and vague military strategies combine to make the country
into a hellish environment for day-to-day ground operations. Moreover,
those familiar with life in the region are doubtful that a U.S.-led
"troop surge" will contribute substantially to the well-being of
the Afghan people.

But in
the eyes of some enlistees, the problems with the war in Afghanistan
extend far beyond the agonies of wartime experience, or doubts about
the underlying geopolitical strategy.

A groundbreaking
event in Chicago this week featured a panel of six military veterans,
all of whom have spoken out not only against the war in Iraq, or even
against the war in Afghanistan, but against the "global war on terror"
as a whole. The panel was organized by the Chicago chapter of
Iraq Veterans against the War (IVAW), and its participants set a bold
and courageous tone for GI resistance in the age of Obama-imperialism.

One of
the veterans, Tyler Zabel, could face deployment to Afghanistan at any
moment. A member of the Illinois Army National Guard who enlisted
at the age of seventeen, Tyler has already survived a horrifying ordeal
at the hands of the military bureaucracy. After completing basic
training at Fort Benning, GA, Tyler returned to Chicago and began the
application process to become a Conscientious Objector. Having
joined the military in order to serve the people of his country, he
was appalled by the rampant bloodlust and blind conformity he witnessed
during his time at Fort Benning. After meeting a young woman in
Chicago who had experienced war first-hand during her childhood in El
Salvador, his perspective was deepened and he became a committed pacifist.

The military's
application system for Conscientious Objectors seems designed to prevent
people like Tyler - who are morally opposed to the combat missions
for which they are being trained - from acting on their moral convictions.
In addition to three official interviews (including both a religious
and a psychological evaluation), Tyler was required to submit a long
essay explaining his refusal to engage in combat. Only then would
he begin the excruciating process of waiting for his application to
be reviewed, which usually takes between six months and one year, during
which time the applicant remains an active member of his unit.

In Tyler's
case, however, the system was especially unfriendly. One of the
first officers he consulted about his application, his squad leader
Sergeant First Class Washington, provided false information about Tyler's
eligibility, claiming that his lack of religious affiliation would prevent
him from becoming a CO. (This has not been true since a Supreme
Court decision in 1971 expanded the basis for Conscientious Objection
beyond religious grounds.) The same officer also withheld a key
document pertaining to Tyler's case - document AR 600-43 - falsely
claiming that the information it contained was classified. (The
document is in fact available through the IVAW
website.)

Then,
a few months later, when it seemed that the worst was over, Tyler received
a call from the military notifying him that he would be deployed to
Afghanistan in one week. He was flabbergasted. Normal practice
within the military allows six months advance notice for calls such
as this - and Tyler had already informed the military at length of
his pacifism and opposition to the war in Afghanistan. Suddenly,
his life was thrown into a state of panic. The personal transformation
he had undergone during the previous year, his relationships, his work,
his life itself - the U.S. government was asking him to sacrifice
all of this for a war that he found morally abhorrent.

But this
was not the end. Just one day before Tyler was scheduled to leave
for Afghanistan, he received another call from the military indicating
that he would not have to deploy after all. Then, as if this torment
was not enough, he was contacted yet again a month later with reissued
orders for deployment.

In Tyler's
mind, this was the last straw. Instead of reporting for deployment,
he decided to go AWOL and face the risk of military prosecution.
After weeks in hiding - during which time he could not work and rarely
left his home - he decided to turn himself in to his old unit.
The response of his commanders was to "demote" him to a lower rank - indicating that their intention was not to enforce military policy,
but to manipulate Tyler (an active war resister) into psychological
submission. This indication was confirmed earlier this month when
Tyler's commanders failed to contact him for drill practice, as is
the unit's routine procedure; when he telephoned them to resolve the
confusion, his commanders accused him of insubordination for his absence.
Confronted with this final pattern of abuse, Tyler knew that it was
time to get out of the military for good. Instead of reporting
to his unit, he stayed home and has not gone back since.

For several
months Tyler has lived in a state of legal and existential limbo, knowing
that the military could show up at any moment to haul him off to prison
(or worse, to Afghanistan). He has received advice from numerous
activists and politicians, but his best allies have been fellow veterans
from IVAW, whose support has strengthened his will and inspired him
to speak out publicly. Now, empowered by these relations of solidarity,
he is determined not only to resist the military's internal abuses,
but to combat the spread of militarism throughout society. "They
need this war [in Afghanistan] to continue to expand the military-industrial
complex," he says, "which our society now depends on" - but
we can resist this expansion by "closing the door to recruitment,
and opening the door for resistance," both within and outside the
military.

Tyler's
moral opposition to the military-industrial complex was echoed by the
other members of the IVAW panel in Chicago. Two national guardsmen
(one of whom is now a militant labor organizer with the IWW) described
their success at fomenting resistance among fellow rank-and-file guard
members. By sharing ideas and literature at their base, they were able
to establish strong personal relationships that served as a bottom-up
defense against the military's institutionalized discipline.
Another AWOL veteran described the U.S. military as an institution whose
mission is to "exterminate" the oppressed people of the world "like
so many cockroaches," while emphasizing the damage inflicted on vulnerable
enlistees by the military's "racist, sexist, and homophobic practices."

All members
of the panel recognized the need for movements of counter-recruitment
and anti-militarization to intensify under the new political administration.
As Fallujah veteran D. Paul Muller pointed out, the armed forces are
under strict orders to "keep the recruitment numbers up, keep the
high school students coming in." With wealthy financial institutions
tightening their budgets, military planners are under pressure to ensure
that taxpayer funds continue to flow into the massive "defense"
economy. Competition among lobbyists and policymakers for access
to these funds has escalated
in recent months,
and the various branches of the military are devising new marketing
strategies to cope with this financially starved environment.

For more information, go to https://ivaw.org/.