This Veterans Day, U.S. Soldiers Say 'Stop the War'
By Benjamin Lewis and Brandon Neely, AlterNet
Posted on November 11, 2008, Printed on November 11, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/106404/
On this day, Veteran's Day, we would like to express to the American
public why we, veterans of the Global War on Terror, have chosen to
refuse orders to reactivate into military service. We are direct
witnesses to the horrors of this war, having experienced its atrocities
at their source, and we have decided that we can no longer carry out
these illegal and immoral policies.
We
believe that veterans and active-duty GIs are in a key position to stop
illegal and unjust war, and we are inspired by the resistance of troops
who stood against the war in Vietnam. One of the preeminent reasons for
the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam was increasing dissent among the
active-duty troops stationed abroad and at home. By the end of the war,
there were entire units refusing to participate in combat, many going
as far as outright mutiny.
The United States learned a lesson
from the Vietnam War: that it is unlikely, except in the event of
self-defense, that regular civilians will execute the life-threatening
orders that are given to them by military authority. The solution of
policy makers was to create an all-volunteer force that negated the
need for a draft. This translates into a mercenary force composed of
America's disadvantaged: a sector of the U.S. demographic that is
particularly susceptible to military recruitment for lack of other
options and finding themselves with deployment orders again and again.
To
compensate for huge pitfalls in recruitment since the invasion of Iraq,
the military has resorted to recalling former service members. This
policy is known as "involuntary activation" and utilizes deactivated
service members who still have time on their contracts in the
Individual Ready Reserves (IRR) to fill shortcomings in specific job
specialties. The abuse and misuse of this policy has escalated under
the current administration to such a degree that it can now only be
viewed as a "backdoor draft" that targets the same disadvantaged
individuals the military sought out for enlistment, namely because they
are better at not questioning orders.
However, we have now begun
to question these orders. We are veterans of the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan and members of the IRR who have refused or will refuse any
activation orders that would lead to us serving an unjust and imperial
U.S. foreign policy. It is a prevailing notion that this refusal is
unpatriotic, but we consider our actions the only choice. Not only did
the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan do great harm to the people
of those countries, but it undermined the ostensible goal with which
the wars were begun: Instead of stopping terrorism, it has proliferated
terrorism, an expectation that was predicted well before the war
started.
By refusing activation, we are refusing to participate
in wars that serve the purposes of furthering the careers of
politicians and high-ranking officers. We openly support other IRR
members who follow in these footsteps. The military is a force that
rules through fear of retribution for disobeying its will. In reality,
more than a third of IRRs simply refuse to report to duty. Most of the
rest report out of fear that the military will change their discharge
status or prosecute them for desertion, but up to this point,
prosecution has been rare. Members of the IRR are not under the Uniform
Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and thus far, the military has had a
practice of not prosecuting them with criminal charges unless they
report in some form or function to activate. Very few willingly
volunteer for activation.
There can be no promise that
President-Elect Barack Obama will stop the stressful and unfair
techniques of back-to-back deployments, "stop-loss" or the "backdoor
draft" that are damaging the psychology of veterans in irreparable
ways. Nor that he will stop encouraging global violence by unlawful
uses of force. It is in this vein that we turn to organizations like
Courage to Resist, Iraq Veterans Against the War and many other
large-scale and grassroots organizations to solicit change in a largely
unrepresentative democracy, and to allow the voices of the people to
ring through the halls of the Capital.
Benjamin Lewis, former Marine Corps mortarman, Iraq veteran, IRR recall resister, peace activist
Brandon Neely, former U.S. Army Military police officer, Iraq veteran, IRR recall refuser
We owe our veterans a great debt. They have seen what the rest of us can merely imagine. Three or four million more soldiers like these two and we may see an outbreak of peace. We can hope, anyway.
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