From Draft NOtices, October-December 2017
How a cult of American militarism continues to mobilize our society toward warmongering and imperialism.
— Pete Doktor
Graphic: "One-armed Bandit" by Mr. Fish
As a so-called Generation X veteran, I have come to understand the iconic and reactionary slogan “Remember Pearl Harbor!” not as simply a generic, nostalgic saying, as much as an American jingle that preaches a general predisposition for self-victimhood, universal distrust, vengefulness and the ceaseless posture of a war hawk in need of routine feeding. December 7, the date that Imperial Japan targeted threatening U.S. military bases in the colony of Hawaiʻi in 1941, has been immortalized by many Americans as a singular reason to perpetrate ceaseless militarism.
To be clear, “militarism” does not refer to a reasonable right to self-defense of one’s borders against actual hostile invasions. Rather, militarism is the exploitation of war for purposes other than self-defense. The U.S. has a rich history of warring for economic, political and cultural agendas — and has often justified warmongering with political proverbs like the one we’re encouraged to recite each anniversary of the “Day of Infamy.” This slogan, and others like it, will be used to reinforce historical amnesia and modern myths on the occasion of the anniversary of the attack this year.
As the November 30, 1941, Hilo Herald Tribune headline “Japan May Strike Over Weekend” reminds us, the so-called “surprise” attack of what is now commonly known as “Pearl Harbor” near Honolulu was not without some warning or provocation. This is not to say that the murderous, strategic attack by the Imperial Japanese fleet could ever be considered justified. But declassified documents confirm what has been understood for some time: the intention of Imperial Japan to retaliate against overseas U.S. expansion of military forces in the Pacific was known to the FDR administration before the attack occurred. While the exact date, time and location may not have been known, decrypted communications exposed internal Japanese reactions in response to an economic war and oil embargo pushed by the Roosevelt administration against the competing Asian industrial power.
Lest we forget that fascist Japan may have previously been an ally of the U.S. — sharing in the spoils of WWI — but when the formidable Japanese Empire began to compete with Western empires scrambling for resources and overseas markets, which included the overthrow of aboriginal peoples and sovereign nations, as was the case with the Hawaiian Kingdom, the “Allies of Imperialism” suddenly condemned Imperial Japan’s participation in the very same carving-up of the Asia-Pacific hemisphere that Western powers had already been engaged in themselves for more than a century.
Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)
From Draft NOtices, October-December 2017
— Isidro Ortiz
Editor’s Note: For this article, Isidro Ortiz interviewed Juan Perez, a Marine veteran majoring in sociology at San Diego State University. Juan will be graduating in May 2018 and plans to pursue a career in social justice activism.
Anti-militarism is often associated with the Baby Boomer generation. Thus, as the generation begins to pass, it might appear that anti-militarism does not have a future. Missed in such an observation is the emergence of a new crop of activists in generations X and Y. Juan Perez is one of those new activists.
Juan describes himself as “woke.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “woke” is defined as being “alert to injustice in society, especially racism.” When Juan describes himself as “woke” he is light years away from where he was at the time he enlisted in the Marine Corps during his senior year in high school. Juan grew up as an undocumented immigrant in one of the poorest communities, City Heights, in San Diego. In this community he attended some of the city’s lowest-performing schools. By his own admission Juan was not socially or politically conscious at that time. Indeed, he gave little thought to societal conditions and was “gung-ho” about joining the Marines.
How did Juan become woke? The roots of Juan’s woke lie in an incident during his tour of duty in Helmut Province in Afghanistan. While on patrol Juan’s unit spotted what appeared to be an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). In keeping with protocol, the unit communicated to headquarters, which in turn informed the specialized team charged with IED disposal. Within a short time, Juan’s unit was instructed to verify that the suspicious item was indeed an IED. Verification would require a physical inspection of the item.
Juan and a fellow Marine volunteered to fulfill the verification task. While this at first seemed to be the appropriate action for a couple of gung-ho Marines, it turned out to be more momentous than Juan had expected.
From Draft NOtices, October-December 2017
— Isidro Ortiz
A previous Draft NOtices article, “Removing a Few Bad Hombres” (July-September 2017), discussed the deportation of immigrant military veterans. Non-citizen immigrant recruits in the United States now find themselves possibly facing a similarly cruel and irreversible fate. In this case their potential deportation is not due to any criminal actions on their part. Instead its roots lie in Department of Defense (DoD) proposal to terminate the Military Accession Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program over security concerns. The program’s end would result in the cancellation of enlistment contracts with non-citizen recruits. As reported in media venues such as NPR, this action would leave 1,000 non-citizen recruits without legal protection from deportation. Their plight is yet another reminder of the highly problematic and untrustworthy nature of the institutional commitment to those who aspire to serve in the military. However, unlike others who have been victims of broken promises and lies, these individuals face not only frustration and disappointment but also the prospect of finding themselves bureaucratically dumped into the military-to-deportation pipeline.
The MAVNI program was established in 2008 to allow a limited number of non-citizens with only temporary visas to join the U.S. military. It “is designed to attract two types of recruits into the military: (a) health care professionals and (b) individuals who possess critical foreign language skills.” The enlistment incentive has been the opportunity of an expedited path to U.S. citizenship, i.e., a fast track to citizenship.
Although taken by surprise the recruits have refused to become passive victims. Several have initiated litigation against the Department of Defense. Mahlon Kirwa, Santhosh Meenhallimath and Ashok Viswanathan, individuals serving in the “Select Reserve,” for example, joined as plaintiffs on their behalf and other recruits. In their suit, Kirwa et al., v. United States Department of Defense, they allege that they and others are “are the victims of a misguided and unlawful attempt to deprive them of their right to seek United States citizenship.” They claim that “as non-citizen soldiers serving honorably during wartime,” they “have an absolute statutory right to apply to become naturalized U.S. citizens, but the DoD is refusing to certify their naturalization application eligibility as required by law, leaving these soldiers to languish in immigration limbo, notwithstanding their military service to this Nation.” Such actions on the part of the DoD, the plaintiffs also claim, “are contrary to law and lack the honor, loyalty, and respect that Defendants owe to these Plaintiff-soldiers.”
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:
