Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, October-December 2012

– Davíd Morales
    

[Note: This article is a condensation of an academic research paper. The names of the district, schools, communities, and interview subjects used in this study have been changed in order to preserve their privacy.]

In recent years, JROTC, or the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, has reached an advanced level of proliferation throughout public high schools in the United States. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Pentagon’s failure to meet its recruitment quotas in the past have led to an increase in the number of JROTC units across the country. This expansion has been significant in urban, inner-city, and low-income schools. The military science course offered as an elective, or sometimes in lieu of physical education, in public high schools has proven to be an efficient recruiting tool. Although the Department of Defense (DoD) and school districts across the country state otherwise, it has been documented that over 40 percent of students who go through the JROTC program enlist in the military at some point in their lives.

The educational system in the U.S. finds itself in a critical condition — historically disenfranchised students are more underserved than ever before. Many underrepresented students of color and working-class students in urban environments lack equitable educational opportunities at their schools and, as a result, are pushed into the military. This study investigated how students at three high schools in a large and diverse district in southern California are tracked into the JROTC program.

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From Draft NOtices, October-December 2012

– Miriam Clark
    

Reports of sexual assault within the military are rising! Victims are primarily women but include some men. Over the last decade, exposés in special television reports, magazine articles and radio shows have offered personal testimonies and estimates of the high frequency of sexual assaults, but no significant changes have resulted.

In Washington D.C. last month, attorney Susan L. Burke filed a case against current and former secretaries of defense alleging ongoing violations of the plaintiffs’ civil rights. The suit has been filed on behalf of nineteen former and current U.S. military service members.

According to Burke, “After being raped or sexually assaulted by uniformed colleagues, these survivors reported the crimes. . . . Instead of their perpetrators being punished, the victims were intimidated, isolated, and retaliated against.”

There are four previous cases pending in federal district or circuit courts.

A key problem is permitting the “chain of command” (i.e., a single individual) to control which sexual assault allegations are fully investigated and prosecuted. The military has not eliminated the ability of a single officer to prevent a victim from accessing the military’s judicial system. The reality is that this officer may well be a sexual predator himself.

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2012

– Rick Jahnkow
    

A recent report by Associated Press reporter Ben Hubbard indicates that the Syrian government’s brutal attacks on opponents of President Bashar Assad’s regime have led to a significant increase in draft avoidance.

Syria conscripts young men for a term of 18 months, which some people try to avoid by traveling abroad, seeking waivers for medical reasons, “using connections and bribes to get their names off the rolls,” or hiding in opposition areas. According to Hubbard, anti-regime activists are saying that the number of men avoiding the draft has increased significantly during the 15-month conflict that the U.N. says has taken 9,000 lives.

Hubbard says the true extent of draft resistance is hard to gauge, but a notable sign of its seriousness is the fact that Assad proclaimed an amnesty in June if men who have failed to report for duty will show up within 90 days (120 days for those outside the country).

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Ninth CIRCUIT COURT RULING: CONFRONTING MILITARISM BY USING EQUAL ACCESS TO HIGH SCHOOLS

When the military comes to your local high school, you have a legal right to give students an opposing view. This has been the position taken by federal district courts in Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois and two federal appellate courts. The most broadly-worded decision came from a case that COMD took to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the 1980s. Here is the background:

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