[Peace-discuss] Flyer for 11/6 demo - draft text

[C. G. Estabrook]

THE ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT (AWARE) OF CHAMPAIGN-URBANA SAYS

~SUPPORT OUR TROOPS ~ BRING THEM ALL HOME~

~SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO RESIST
THE IMMORAL U.S. WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST~

We don't often recall - or perhaps never knew - that it was the revolt of the 
U.S. military in Vietnam that was a principal reason for the withdrawal of 
American combat troops from that vicious neo-colonial war. In the 1960s, the 
Kennedy and Johnson administrations sent an army of draftees to force the people 
of South Vietnam to accept the government that we had picked out for them, when 
they resisted. By the end of the decade, the American conscript army was 
refusing to carry out the dangerous operations that produced the "body count" 
that American commanders demanded. Attacks on their officers by American troops 
- called "fraggings" from the use of fragmentation grenades - had become common.

The military opposition to that war also included officers, at the highest 
ranks. In May 1966, the recently-retired commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. 
David Shoup - who received the Medal of Honor in World War II - said about the 
escalating war in Vietnam, "I believe if we had, and would, keep our dirty, 
bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of 
depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. That 
they design and want. That they fight and work for ... and not the American 
style, which they don't want. Not one crammed down their throats by the 
Americans." Those words sound applicable to the Middle East today.

The breakdown of the American army in Vietnam led to the withdrawal of American 
ground combat troops by the Nixon administration (although the carpet bombing of 
SE Asia continued), and - not without difficulty, the end of the draft. The last 
American draftees were born in 1952 and were inducted into the army in June 
1973. The Pentagon had been arranging for some time for an "all-volunteer" - 
i.e., mercenary - army: today it clearly has no desire to resume the former system.

The result has been what is accurately termed a "poverty draft." The Vietnam War 
was fought in a time of prosperity and low unemployment in the US. The situation 
is quite different today. In the midst of the worst recession since the 1930s, 
many young Americans join the military because there are few other 
opportunities. The Pentagon believes that this situation will suppress the 
objections to what American soldiers are required to do in the course of 
invasions and occupations.

But there are nevertheless stirrings of resistence within the military to the 
Obama administration's wars in the Middle East. This week came the story of a 
30-year-old infantryman who - after two "combat tours" in Iraq and Afghanistan - 
went AWOL to resist "re-deployment" to Afghanistan because of severe - and 
untreated - PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Jeff Hanks of the 101st 
Airborne Division "plans to turn himself into his command at Fort Campbell KY on 
Veterans Day, November 11. He will be accompanied by supporters, including 
members of Iraq Veterans Against the War" 
<http://www.truth-out.org/awol-soldier-refusing-deployment-because-severe-ptsd64831>.

"As the war in Afghanistan stretches into its tenth year, now the longest war in 
US history, Jeff's story has become all too familiar in a military that is 
overextended and exhausted, pushing soldiers beyond their mental and physical 
capacities in order to fill the ranks. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have 
been marked by staggering rates of trauma and suicide. Between 20 percent and 50 
percent of all service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered 
PTSD. Suicide rates among active duty service members are twice as high as that 
of the civilian population and veterans with PTSD are six times more likely to 
attempt suicide."

Resistance from soldiers and veterans is growing. In August five peace activists 
- three veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and one military spouse - 
blockaded six buses carrying Fort Hood soldiers deploying to Iraq. Police made 
no arrests, but instead beat the activists out of the streets using automatic 
weapons and police dogs. The action, organized by "Fort Hood Disobeys," was 
aimed at preventing the deployment of 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment soldiers to 
what the veterans termed an illegal and immoral occupation.

The Obama administration has shown that it's willing to use brutal and illegal 
weapons in its "war on terror" - which most of us realize is creating terrorists 
far faster than it's deterring them. But its brutality towards American soldiers 
has been taken for granted. President Obama has been willing even to designate 
at least one American citizen - not even in a war-zone - to be killed on sight 
by the CIA or US military, because he's suspected of association with 
terrorists. That's not what the authors of the Constitution had in mind, and 
they provided the remedy of impeachment for such criminal uses of presidential 
power.

The Obama administration continues to kill people - at an increasing rate - in 
Iraq and Afghanistan, and also in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia; and they are 
threatening Iran (in spite of the fact that the UN Charter pledges members - 
including the US - to "refrain in their international relations from the threat 
or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of 
any state..."). The US is fighting a single war from Palestine to Pakistan, from 
the Caspian Sea to the Horn of Africa. And it's not to "stop terrorism," or Al 
Qaeda. (Mr. Obama has to say that, because the only constitutional authority he 
has for war is the "Authorization for Use of Military Force," passed by Congress 
a week after the 9/11 attacks and specifically directed against terrorism.) In 
fact, he is simply continuing the generation-long neo-colonial policy of the US 
in the Middle East to exercise control over the world's greatest concentration 
of energy resources. (Not because we need the oil - contrary to what politicians 
in both parties claim, the US imports very little oil from the Middle East - but 
in order to give us an advantage over our economic rivals in Europe and Asia.)

If you are appalled that the Obama administration - against the wishes of three 
out of four Americans - is conducting an unjustified war in the Middle East and 
misrepresenting the reason for it, call your Congressional representatives. 
Congressman Tim Johnson, Senator Roland Burris, and Senator Dick Durbin can be 
reached through the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. (Newly elected Senator 
Mark Kirk can - and should - be reached at 847-498-0300.) Tell them that the 
U.S. has no business killing people in the Middle East for resisting our 
invasion and occupation - and that troops who resist an illegal war are within 
their rights; resisting an immoral war is a duty.
Your protest makes a difference: local Congressman Tim Johnson, who voted for 
the invasions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, now says that he was wrong to do so 
and refuses to vote for any more funding for war in the Middle East - and he has 
kept his promise by voting that way.

You can join a local peace group that is working to end the US war in the 
Mideast. In Champaign-Urbana, one local peace group is AWARE, the Anti-War 
Anti-Racism Effort, members and friends of which produced this leaflet for the 6 
November 2010 Main Event – our monthly peace demonstration at Main and Neil 
Streets in downtown Champaign. We meet every Sunday at cpm in the McKinley 
Foundation, 5th and Daniel Streets in Champaign, near the UIUC campus. We 
discuss the war and what can be done against it. Visitors are welcome - and see 
our Facebook page. AWARE is also happy to provide speakers and/or discussion 
leaders on the Mideast war and related issues. Write <cge at shout.net>. AWARE is 
composed of people opposed to the war, but it is not affiliated with any other 
group or political party.

AWARE also presents AWARE on the Air each Tuesday 10-11pm on Urbana Public 
Television, cable channel 6. Each week we bring you comments by members and 
friends of AWARE about the war and the opposition to it, locally and nationally, 
by Americans who oppose our government's betrayal of our democratic principles.

END THE U.S. WAR FOR OIL IN THE MIDDLE EAST
BRING ALL UNITED STATES TROOPS HOME
STOP PAYING FOR WAR FROM PALESTINE TO PAKISTAN

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