Jamming the US military machine
Over the past year, the Pentagon has dramatically stepped
up its recruitment efforts as Bush’s debacle in Iraq drags on. In response,
there has been a small explosion of counter-military recruitment campaigns in
high schools and colleges across the country. TY MOORE of Socialist Alternative
(CWI – US) reports.
IN MANY AREAS, these youthful and combative campaigns are
emerging as the cutting edge of the anti-war movement, and could grow
dramatically over the coming year. The potential strength and mass appeal of the
counter-recruitment movement flows from the growing public opposition to the
war. This mood is particularly strong among working-class youth, who are
unwilling to fight and die for a war they increasingly see as futile and wrong.
Already, despite the still small size of the actual movement, this anti-war mood
is placing serious strains on military recruitment efforts.
Traditionally a primary target of recruiters, "black
volunteers have fallen 41% – from 23.5% of recruits in fiscal 2000 down steadily
to 13.9%" in 2005. (North County Times, 4 March) The army, National Guard and
Reserve, which make up 45% of the troops in Iraq, have not hit their recruitment
targets since October. Halfway through their recruitment year, the Reserve is
10% behind its goal and the Guard is 24% behind. The active army began missing
its targets in February, and by March it was 32% behind!
This is despite adding over 2,500 recruiters to the Guard,
Reserve and army this year alone. The army also increased its promise of college
money from $50,000 to $70,000 (though few soldiers ever end up receiving this),
while the Guard and Reserve doubled their signing bonus, now offering $15,000
for six-year commitments.
These offers, alongside financial incentives for agreeing to
high-risk positions and early deployment, will amount to over $1 billion spent
this year to entice new recruits into the army. This cynical resort to bribery
of working-class youth – this poverty draft – underscores how shallow the
support for the war actually is. Where are the tens of millions of right-wing
patriots that Bush claims his mandate from if the army can’t even meet its
target of recruiting 80,000 ‘volunteers’ by September?
Against this background the potential exists for a powerful
national movement of young people, organised in their schools and communities,
explaining the real interests being served by the war, and taking bold action to
kick recruiters out of their schools. However, achieving this will mean
activists adopting the most effective methods of struggle, and demands that can
appeal to wide layers of working-class youth, bringing them into organised
activity.
Will there be a draft?
THE DEEP CRISIS facing US imperialism in Iraq and the
growing problem of serious military overstretch have fuelled widespread
speculation that Bush will be forced to reintroduce a draft in order to crush
the Iraqi insurgency. Socialist Alternative completely opposes a draft, which
would forcibly send millions of working-class youth to be used as cannon fodder
in a war for oil and empire.
However, Bush will not lightly decide on such a course. The
ruling establishment has learned at least some lessons from its experience in
Vietnam. Most military brass and the leadership of the Republican and Democratic
parties recognise that, at this stage, reinstating the draft is politically
impossible.
Given the fresh memory of Vietnam and the broad anti-war
mood today, any attempt to force young people onto the battlefields of Iraq
would be met with explosive opposition, including uprisings and riots in many
inner cities. Conscription would also introduce massive demoralisation into the
army that could rapidly recreate the kind of military meltdown last seen in
Vietnam.
But we should not lose sight of the fact that there already
is a draft. The government carries out a racist poverty draft aimed at people of
colour and poor youth. On top of this, the Pentagon has instituted a ‘backdoor
draft’ through the mandatory call-up of hundreds of thousands of national guards
and reservists, and through their ‘stop loss’ policies.
We urgently need to build a movement to counter this draft
by campaigning for money for jobs and education, not war, and calling for the
troops to be brought home now. Building a powerful anti-war movement today is
the best way to prevent the draft from being reinstated in the future.
Many of the anti-war groups, basing themselves on the idea
that a draft is imminent, concentrate on urging youth to build conscientious
objector files. Unfortunately, this strategy leads youth down the path of
individual moral opposition, rather than public opposition through education and
mass action that are most effective in stopping the war or preventing attempts
to impose a draft.
Of course, any soldier or youth seeking conscientious
objector status deserves full support for their personal stand against the war.
Most young people do oppose the Iraq war. They do oppose cuts in education,
economic inequality, racism and other by-products of Bush’s big-business agenda.
The key question young anti-war activists must grapple with is how broad
sections of working-class youth can be mobilised into a powerful movement
capable of challenging the policies of the US ruling class.
Mass action is key
FOR THIS REASON, the counter-recruitment movement should
combine anti-war agitation and campaigns against the poverty draft with class
demands, such as funding for education and well-paid jobs, and access to
college. Highlighting the military’s racist recruiting practices and the social
problems faced by youth of colour is particularly important.
In the early stages of building campaigns in schools the
main tasks are to establish the right to table (set up stalls) and to public
activities at the school, educate students about their right to withdraw from
the Delayed Enlistment Program, and campaign to force the school to stop giving
students’ contact information to the military.
We should advocate tactics and methods of struggle that
involve the broadest possible number of youth, and that educate young people
about the power of collective action. Student walk-outs, mass demonstrations and
direct action, systematic anti-war agitation, big teach-ins, and the need for an
ongoing, organised presence in every school, are the central ideas we must put
forward.
The growing presence of military recruiters in our schools
provides an ongoing and clear target for anti-war activism. We should not wait
for the tame lobbying efforts at the federal or local level to stop recruiters
from spreading their misinformation and bribing youth into the war machine.
Every time recruiters dare to step foot in our schools, we
should organise counter-recruitment tables and protests demanding that they
leave. The aim is to create an overwhelming unwelcome, to prevent recruiters
from conducting business as usual, and to convince them that their continued
presence in our schools will achieve nothing.
As the movement develops, national days of action and
student strikes need to be organised, calling for an end to the occupation, full
funding for education, and an end to military recruitment in our schools. Such a
mass movement of young people could help spark broader movements of the US
working class which, in the final analysis, is the key to defeating US
imperialism.
Victory for Students Against the Draft & War
ON 5 MAY, a teach-in organised by Students Against the
Draft and War (SADW) at Foss High School, Tacoma, WA, was banned by the
principal. This followed an intervention by instructors from JROTC (High
School military organisation), who regularly recruit Foss students into the
armed forces. Clara Lightner and Jessica Pruitt, SADW campaigners at the
school, met with principal Sharon Schauss and were told they could not hold
the meeting – due to take place after school hours – on the spurious grounds
that they had not filled in the requisite paperwork and did not have $1
million insurance cover. They were then thrown out of Schauss’s office.
SADW immediately called a press conference, distributing
fliers to advertise it. Local press attended. The principal’s use of the
intercom to order everyone to leave the building was ignored and the event
proceeded. A hundred students signed on to the SADW email list.
On 6 May the principal agreed to some important SADW
demands. These included being given two week’s notice of military recruiters’
visits to the school, with the right to set up tables next to the recruiters,
and the right to weekly SADW meetings in the school.
Constructive discussions have been had with JROTC
students, explaining the SADW campaign for more money for jobs and education
so young people can chose an alternative to the military and being signed up
to die for a war for oil and empire.
The campaign to defend free speech at Foss High School
included thousands of phone calls from all over the US and around the world.
The US steelworkers’ national union office spoke to Clara to guarantee 100
calls to the principal and offered more support if it was needed.
Ty Moore spoke at the rescheduled SADW meeting. He also
addressed two classes after being invited by their teachers – once again, in
the face of attempts by the principal to stop them going ahead.
Subsequently, at Franklin High School, Seattle, Ty spoke
at a meeting of 90 predominantly African-American students and, with Clara,
addressed 85 at the University of Washington, Seattle.
For more information contact: www.socialistalternative.org
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