Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, January-March 2014

— Jesus D. Mendez Carbajal, Project YANO Intern
    

Under the Obama administration there have been more than two million deportations to date, an average of 1,100 people every day, which is a higher rate than that for any other president in the history of the United States. More than 100,000 of those have come from California. Deportations have been facilitated in California via the implementation of the Secure Communities policy in 2009, which established the sharing of the fingerprint database between local law enforcement and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

The proposed immigration reform bill’s halt and continued deportations have sparked community organizers and activists nationwide to mobilize and stage several nonviolent civil disobedience actions calling for the stopping of all deportations and the shutdown of ICE.

On June 15, 2012, the Obama administration implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. With this step, the first group of undocumented migrants -- migrant youths -- was temporarily protected from deportation. Then, on November 15, 2013, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), in partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD), released a policy memorandum known as “parole in place.” This allows for a case-by-case discretionary exemption from deportation for undocumented dependents (i.e., children, spouse and/or parents) of members of the armed forces and military veterans.

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From Draft NOtices, January-March 2014

— Kathy Gilberd
 

The Department of Defense has just released preliminary figures showing that reported cases of sexual assaults in the military have increased by 50% in the last fiscal year -- from 3,374 in 2012 to more than 5,000 in 2013. While DoD officials are still evaluating the numbers, their initial public statement claims that this does not represent an increase in the total number of sexual assaults (which they assume to be about the same as the 26,000 cases in 2012), but rather in the number of people willing to come forward and file reports after having been assaulted.

If DoD’s assessment is correct, the increase in reporting is the result of a year of public and congressional pressure on the military to treat assaults seriously, and resulting new regulations that have provided some additional protections to victims/survivors of assault. Congressional hearings and statements, lawsuits challenging the military’s handling of assaults, and diligent work by organizations such as Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) have created a climate in which servicemembers may have a little more confidence that reporting assault could lead to punishment of the offenders and, hopefully, that reporting would not lead to retaliation.

If the trend of increased reporting is to continue -- and if the high number of sexual assaults is to decrease -- then continued pressure on the military is essential. It is clear that the current process of handling sexual assault complaints and prosecuting offenders (or not doing so) has serious problems. Scandals this year have included sexual assault charges against officials of the military’s sexual assault programs, commanders’ decisions to set aside punishment or convictions after courts-martial found officers guilty of rape or assault, and charges of assault against recruiters and Air Force drill instructors. Most recently, a woman bringing charges of rape against three Navy academy cadets was grilled for hours about her personal life and sexual habits by defense attorneys at a pre-trial investigation (called an Article 32 hearing). And despite recent regulations increasing their rights, sexual assault survivors have little power over what happens to their attackers. Mid-ranking commanding officers (called convening authorities for their power to convene courts-martial) have full discretion to decide whether or not to act on complaints at all, whether to court-martial offenders or use lesser disciplinary measures or administrative discharge when they believe the complaint, and whether to uphold sentences and convictions handed down by courts-martial. While prosecutions have apparently increased in the last year, there can be no guarantee under the present system that this will continue.

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From Draft NOtices, October-December 2013

— Rick Jahnkow
    

It’s well established that many people who join the U.S. military do so because of their economic status. It could be that they do not see options for a civilian job that pays a livable wage, they cannot afford health insurance, or they believe they’ll never be able to go to college without financial aid from the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Whether this belief is accurate or based on an individual’s limited awareness of alternatives, military recruiters are effective at exploiting economic predicament to meet their monthly quotas. Many of us refer to it as economic conscription or the “poverty draft.” It is the reason why counter-recruitment groups spend much of their time and energy gathering and distributing information on alternative sources for job training and college financial aid.

Recruitment success rates have always been strongly affected by the economy, and the high unemployment rate since the economic crash of 2008 has made it much easier for the military to meet its enlistment quotas. If, on the other hand, the economy continues its gradual improvement, we can expect that recruiting will once again become difficult and the armed forces will be scrambling to find a larger pool of people to tap to fill their ranks. This looming problem has already been projected and mentioned to members of Congress by Pentagon representatives.

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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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