From Draft NOtices, October-December 2013
— Seth Kershner
Over the past few years, my colleague Scott Harding and I have been chronicling the counter-recruitment movement from the perspective of activists. In this article, I’ll take a different approach and focus on counter-recruitment as viewed by military recruiters. Although it takes a bit of work to find out what they think, military recruiters’ candid views on counter-recruitment reveal that many are concerned at the success of activist campaigns. There’s a strategic advantage to knowing where military recruiters’ vulnerabilities lie, for they give us a peek at the soft underbelly of the all-volunteer force and may suggest areas where counter-recruiters could focus more of their resources. And when military officers spend the time to write reports investigating counter-recruitment — even naming specific groups like Project YANO — activists should consider this a badge of honor. You’re rattling their cage a bit, forcing recruiters to regroup and rethink their strategy. Even though they’ve got all the money and power in this lopsided struggle, you’re getting into their heads.
It’s important to start by noting that we learn relatively little by looking at what military recruiters say in public. In press interviews, the military has tried to play down the impact of counter-recruitment. In 2003, for example, the director of JROTC for public schools in Washington, D.C. told the City Paper that a local counter-recruiter, John Judge, “doesn’t affect us much. . . . People who are with us, who are patriotic, aren’t paying attention to what he has to say.” However, sometimes recruiters let their guard down. In 2006, the Army’s Austin Recruiting Company missed their target by four percent; one year later the company commander told the Austin American-Statesman that “it has become increasingly difficult to recruit in Austin schools because of a strong ‘counter-recruitment’ movement.”
Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)
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Implications of the Sentencing in the Manning Court-martial
From Draft NOtices, October-December 2013
— Kathy Gilberd
On August 21, Private Chelsea* Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison and a Dishonorable Discharge, after one of the longest and most significant courts-martial in U.S. military history. She was originally charged with aiding the enemy, for which the prosecution had sought a life sentence, but her attorney, David Coombs, was successful in challenging that charge. Manning was ultimately convicted of violations of the Espionage Act, among other charges, for releasing the Collateral Murder videotape, Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, and embarrassing U.S. diplomatic cables. As the Private Manning Support Network stated, the video, cables and other materials “show a pattern of lacking accountability during the War on Terror, in which civilian deaths go unaccounted for, detainee torture is commonplace and corporations wield enormous influence on U.S. foreign policy.”
Reflecting on her case, Chelsea Manning wrote in a request for pardon to President Obama:
I realized that in our efforts to meet the risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.
From Draft NOtices, July-September 2013
— Oskar Castro
Once again it is summer blockbuster season. Along with incessant pleas for us to spend hard-earned dollars to see the flick claiming to have the biggest explosions and the most seamless CGI, we are also inundated with advertising tie-in campaigns on screens big and small. This, of course, is nothing new. But what many people are unaware of is that the military has been in on this game of working with Hollywood filmmakers for even longer than the retailers have been playing the game. And, like most things, with age comes experience.
Operating collaboratively since World War II, the military has deftly been working with Hollywood to mold a consciousness of patriotism by slipping propaganda messages into films. The Pentagon assists filmmakers by providing authentic military hardware or personnel to enliven scripts. Therefore, it really should come as no surprise that right-wing director Zack Snyder would embrace the partnership that the U.S. National Guard has forged with Warner Brothers to make the new Superman movie, Man of Steel. His newly produced National Guard recruitment video and all the patriotic hyperbole around it is worthy of closer examination.
While the iconic Superman has long been known as the Boy Scout on steroids — championing truth, justice and the so-called American way — we haven't seen him being used to sell war and recruit people into wars since WWII. Sure, we've seen him in comic books and in animated cartoons where he fills the power void and supports the military when it comes to battling super-powered villains or extra-terrestrials bent on global conquest. But it's been decades since we've seen him used to blatantly sell a pro-military message.
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:
