Before You Enlist Video - http://beforeyouenlist.org
Researching Pop Culture and Militarism - https://nnomy.org/popcultureandmilitarism/
If you have been Harassed by a Military Recruiter -https://centeronconscience.org/abused-by-recruiters/
Back-to-School Kit for Counter-recruitment and School Demilitarization Organizing is focused on student privacy
WHAT IS IN THIS KIT? - https://nnomy.org/backtoschoolkit/
Click through to find out
Religion and militarism - https://nnomy.org/religionandmilitarism/
‘A Poison in the System’: Military Sexual Assault - New York Times
Change your Mind?
Talk to a Counselor at the GI Rights Hotline
Ask that your child's information is denied to Military Recruiters
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Military Recruiters and Programs Target marginalized communities for recruits...
..and the high schools in those same communities
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 Militarization of our Schools

The Pentagon is taking over our poorer public schools. This is the reality for disadvantaged youth.

 

What we can do

Corporate/conservative alliances threaten Democracy . Progressives have an important role to play.

 Why does NNOMY matter?

Most are blind or indifferent to the problem.
A few strive to protect our democracy.

The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

NNOMY

2005 Could Be a Turning Point for the Antiwar Movement

Rick Jahnkow

Rick Jahnkow -

Despite 2005 being the start of a second presidential term for George W. Bush, this year may bring together a number of factors that will offer the antiwar movement an important opportunity to shorten the U.S. occupation of Iraq and begin to reverse the decades-long growth of militarism in this country. However, to take advantage of this opportunity, the antiwar movement will have to think critically about its emphasis on symbolic war protest and look more closely at strategies for interfering with the flow of human resources needed for war, especially through counter-recruitment organizing.

As the year began, it should have been clear to everyone that the neocon plan for the Middle East pursued by the Bush administration had run into a brick wall. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is now the quagmire that many predicted, and U.S. actions in the region have created less political stability instead of more. Meanwhile, total annual spending on war and the military has reached almost half a trillion dollars, which is being financed by running up major deficits and proposing budget cuts in domestic programs that will generate much anger in the coming months toward Bush and his Republican majority. The increasing reports of Republican realists publicly criticizing Bush policies — especially over Iraq — indicate that beneath the surface, opinion against the neocons is growing even within the conservative base of Bush's own party.

Perhaps most importantly, a developing crisis in the military force structure caused by Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will soon push the Pentagon into a position where
it can no longer carry out the mission that has so far been handed to it. Reserve and National Guard forces now make up 40% of the troops in Iraq, but the National Guard missed its recruitment quota by 13% last year and Reserve forces are "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force," according to a December 2004 memo by the chief of Army Reserves, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly. Earlier in the year, a report by the Defense Science Board, a Department of Defense advisory group, concluded that the U.S. military could not maintain its current peacekeeping commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan without a significant increase in the size of the armed forces or scaling back the objectives of its missions. The Bush administration has publicly stated it intends to "stay the course," but trying to resolve this problem by increasing the size of the military is appearing to be impossible without a draft, and that route, if chosen, would be an absolute disaster for the Pentagon.

Thirty years ago, the public image and influence of the military establishment had reached a low point because of controversy over the Vietnam War and the draft that was used to fight it. When massive war resistance and the general social upheaval of the time forced an end to the draft, the Pentagon had to begin relying on aggressive marketing to fill the armed forces' ranks and improve its relationship with the public. As a result of this forced shift in strategy, the military has been gradually expanding its presence in K-12 schools and strengthening its ability to propagandize through other institutions of socialization. Those efforts, together with a less risky war fighting doctrine that grew out of the so-called Vietnam Syndrome, have helped the military establishment rehabilitate its image and expand its influence to an unprecedented level.

Right now, however, public opposition to the war in Iraq is increasing and antagonism toward the draft is still running extremely high — so high that the Republicans in Congress felt it necessary to bring Congressman Rangel's nonviable draft bill to the floor just so it could be voted down 402-2, and both Bush and Kerry felt compelled to publicly promise there would be no draft if they were elected. Furthermore, the Pentagon knows that all of its political gains over the last 30 years would be jeopardized by the firestorm of hostility that would be triggered if, once again, conscription were used to force people to fight an unpopular, risky war. It would mean that recruiters and ROTC programs would come under fierce attack on college campuses, as would the military recruiters and military-linked programs that have invaded our K-12 schools, including Jr. ROTC, military aptitude (ASVAB) testing, the Young Marines and the many military/school partnerships that have been taking root at all school levels.

If the military believes it can't marshal the resources needed to carry out its mission, and if the draft is an unacceptable solution because of the perceived likelihood of a severe political backlash, it leaves only the choice of changing the mission — which essentially means the U.S. would have to find a way to begin phasing out its occupation of Iraq relatively soon. And even though Bush has talked about staying the course, there is little else he can do if the troops, money and will are not there to continue, and if the career officers at the Pentagon become more publicly vocal in defending their own vital institutional interests — which in this case are served by changing the mission rather than resorting to a draft.

The key to actualizing this result is maintaining the perception that neither a draft nor aggressive recruiting can enable the mission to continue. The antiwar movement has an opportunity to do this by shifting its strategy to make counter-recruitment organizing and the demilitarization of schools a higher priority.

Doing this can accomplish several goals:

1. By supporting and facilitating more organizing against the military's presence in schools, we can communicate clearly that even more dire consequences are around the corner if there ever is a draft.

2. It encourages more youth activism and addresses the dangerous trend toward greater militarization of education, which if not reversed will lay the foundation for future wars and make a draft much more likely.

3. More than just offering protest, it provides a way to materially interfere with the government's ability to sustain the occupation of Iraq and pursue other preemptive wars, and in the process, we can push the Pentagon toward expressing more direct public criticism of the administration's handling of the war and of the Bush Doctrine in general.

One of the barriers to counter-recruitment activism in colleges and universities has been a set of laws, known as the Solomon Amendments, which since 1997 has threatened campuses with the loss of federal funds if they ban recruiters and ROTC. A parallel law was implemented in 2002 to stop high schools from restricting recruiter access to students and student lists. Multiple lawsuits challenging the college-related law were introduced in 2003, and on November 29, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the Solomon Amendments violated the plaintiffs' free speech. While there is a good chance the federal government will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, there is currently an important window of opportunity to escalate college counter-recruitment organizing to a level of intensity that hasn't existed in recent years. There is also a possibility for some high school districts that formerly had restrictions on recruiter access to reinvoke them, which in the current climate of concern about predatory recruiters and the Iraq war could inspire a larger number of districts to adopt such restrictions.

Even if the court ruling against mandatory recruiter access to colleges is eventually overturned by the Supreme Court, there are still many possibilities for challenging and resisting the military's efforts to recruit and indoctrinate young people, as has been demonstrated by the grassroots groups belonging to the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (www.youthandthemilitary.org). And there is also new inspiration to be drawn from the creative direct action protests that have been recently occurring at recruiting stations, including the takeover of one recruiting center in Madison, Wisconsin, by individuals demanding that it be turned into a college financial aid office.

Organizing such activities is a way for people to actually nonviolently stand in the way of what's being done in Iraq and have a tangible effect. More antiwar activists are gradually realizing how much this is needed and that symbolic protest, though valuable, is not enough. Hopefully, a larger portion of the antiwar movement will also realize it, and 2005 will become the turning point that is badly needed.

Sources: New York Times, September 20, 2003; Baltimore Sun, January 5, 2005.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org)


In Need of a Proactive Peace Movement

Rick Jahnkow

Rick Jahnkow -


Some important stories have appeared recently about disagreements between military commanders and the Bush administration over whether to begin a significant withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in 2006. A related development is the recent call for an immediate withdrawal by Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). Murtha is a decorated combat veteran who is also considered a military hawk and one of the closest congressional allies of the high-level officer corps.

Peace organizations have been quick to add Murtha’s name to the growing list of those calling for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but they’ve given scant attention to the true significance of his voice and the very potent implications of stories about military commanders’ dissatisfaction with their mission.

A more in-depth analysis of these developments and related issues can offer some important lessons on how the peace movement can hasten the end of the occupation and move proactively beyond the limited goal of ending one war.

Military Generals and the Peace Movement

For a couple of years now, some of us have been arguing that the turning point for the peace movement will come when it recognizes that counter-recruitment organizing is the most practical way to tangibly affect current U.S. foreign policy.

The argument is based on simple but compelling logic: The Bush administration and conservative-dominated Congress can continue to ignore anti-war demonstrations and other symbolic forms of protest, but they cannot ignore the fact that without enough soldiers, it is impossible to sustain a large, long-term occupation in a country like Iraq.

An additional assumption is that if the recruitment climate becomes sufficiently hostile, the military leadership will foresee serious, long-term damage to both the functionality and influence of their institution and will act to protect its interests. The combined criticism of military leaders and their allies in Congress could then produce a crisis that would force an accelerated withdrawal from Iraq and also diminish the likelihood of other U.S. invasions in the region. In essence, an “Iraq syndrome” would replace the deceased “Vietnam syndrome.”

In recent months, some elements of this equation have begun to come together. After an ominous shortfall in first-time enlistments last fiscal year, re-enlistment rates are now falling below quota, and some parts of the armed forces, especially the Army, continue to fall behind in overall recruiting. The prospects for turning this trend around look extremely poor for 2006, and according to reported comments by military insiders, the Pentagon is beginning to panic. This is apparently forcing the Bush administration to budge on its “stay the course” approach and begin talking about troop reductions in the near future.

Journalists Paul Richter and Tyler Marshall wrote the following in a Los Angeles Times article titled “U.S. Starts Laying Groundwork for Significant Troop Pullout From Iraq”:

Some analysts believe the potential long-term damage to the armed forces, not political pressure, could be the decisive factor for Bush and his advisors.

Andrew Krepinevich, a former Pentagon official who heads the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent defense research group in Washington, argues that these strains have become a key factor informing administration thinking.

Unlike the Vietnam era, when the military had a nearly endless supply of draftees, the Iraq experience has sharply reduced the flow of recruits into the volunteer armed forces and attrition rates are alarmingly high, Krepinevich noted.

Other factors, such as federal restrictions on the frequency of National Guard deployments, also limit available personnel.

This summer, differences between the White House and some military commanders over troop reductions were the result of these problems, analysts believe. Although divisions remain within the administration, there are increasing signs that Bush may be calculating that a faster drawdown carries fewer long-term risks.

“I think the administration will yield to the reality of an Army that is apparently beginning to buckle under the strain of these long-term deployments,” Krepinevich said.

The problem for military leaders wishing to express themselves publicly about this issue is that as long as they are still commissioned officers, they are discouraged by military convention and law from doing anything that could be seen as undermining the authority of their commander-in-chief, George W. Bush. If they wish to avoid legal and professional risks for speaking out, they have to find indirect ways to communicate their criticisms. This, in fact, is what some Pentagon insiders say was being done through Rep. Murtha. As noted by Alexander Cockburn in a piece posted at CounterPunch.org, “The immense significance of Rep. John Murtha's November 17 speech calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq is that it signals mutiny in the U.S. senior officer corps.” (See “The Revolt of the Generals,” Counter Punch, Dec. 3, 2005.)

Included in Murtha’s speech was the following statement, undoubtedly based on briefings he received from his Pentagon confidants:

The future of our military is at risk. Our military and our families are stretched thin. Many say the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on a third deployment. Recruitment is down even as the military has lowered its standards. They expect to take 20 percent category 4, which is the lowest [intelligence] category, which they said they'd never take. They have been forced to do that to try to meet a reduced quota.

One thing the Army has done to temporarily try to keep the recruiting crisis from snowballing is lower its recruiting quotas for the early part of fiscal year 2006 (33% less than the same period in 2005). This and the acceptance of larger numbers of less qualified recruits have allowed it, so far, to claim success in meeting its quotas; but it is really only a temporary public relations move, since the reduced numbers will have to be made up later in the year. One can only assume that the Army is hoping that the recruiting climate will change by then, and more young people will be willing to enlist. But short of another major attack on U.S. soil, the only thing that is likely to bring such a change is a significant withdrawal of troops from the war zone.

The Peace Movement’s Perceptions of the Issue

All of this is important for the peace movement to understand because it corrects the simplistic assumption often made on the Left that Bush, Cheney and the neocons are totally in control and will have their way. As this view holds, the occupation of Iraq will last at least a decade, Iran and Syria will be attacked, we'll probably have a draft, and, on the extreme side, some even say fascism will be the inevitable result. However, the reality illustrated by the differences between the generals and politicians is that the U.S. government is not as monolithic as many people think, and the power structure has factions that are often seriously at odds with each other.

As we are seeing right now, there are limits to how far Bush and the neocons can go with their plan for global hegemony when the resources for it are running low. Fortunately, we are in a position to help diminish those resources more IF we apply our own efforts with a sharper focus and stronger commitment to countering military recruiting. It would further limit the government’s capacity to wage other aggressive wars and, at the same time, give the generals more motivation to become, essentially, our short-term allies.

A hopeful sign is that college and community peace activists have been giving military recruiting more attention lately. Over the last two years, for example, membership in a key discussion list for counter-recruitment organizing (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/counter-recruitment) has approximately doubled to 573, and the list's message traffic has tripled to 334 postings per month. All across the country, small grassroots efforts are springing up – sometimes attached to existing anti-war organizations, sometimes independent of any other local group. Their effectiveness can be seen in accounts of schools that have tightened up recruiter access and opened their doors to counter-recruiters, and in reports of more frequent protests at recruiting stations and during recruiter visits to colleges.

Nevertheless, there are two weaknesses in what has developed so far. One is that the peace movement in general, including its financial support base, is still focusing primarily on vigils, rallies and other symbolic forms of protest that are not directly related to military recruiting and are having no material effect. And second, among those who are turning their attention to recruiting, many activists see it only as a tactic for opposing the occupation of Iraq, and they would cease their counter-recruitment work as soon as the troops came home.

It is imperative that this issue be given a higher priority and be seen as strategic rather than tactical. The larger context that surrounds it goes well beyond Iraq and relates to, among other things, economic class, race, ethnicity, immigration status and other socio-economic factors that help determine who winds up being sacrificed in our country’s wars. Responding to this aspect of the problem necessitates, for example, compiling information at the grassroots level on employment and educational alternatives that can lessen the pressure on non-affluent youths to join the military. Taking that step, as some of the more thoughtful counter-recruitment groups have done, is an important way to forge links with communities that have traditionally not been reached effectively by the peace movement.

Another important aspect of the problem that needs to be understood and addressed by the peace movement is the ongoing militarization of the educational system that is being driven by the military’s push to recruit. The ideal of democratic, civilian control is literally under assault as our schools are increasingly invaded by programs that teach military values, instead of critical thinking, to future generations of voters and government leaders. Programs like Jr. ROTC have taken over entire high schools in some cities and now have 500,000 students enrolled as “cadets” nationwide. Units of the Young Marines have spread into hundreds of middle schools, and there is a growing network of other military/school partnerships that propagandize students throughout the K-12 system.

Teaching military values in civilian schools is not just grooming a few children to become future soldiers. It is already affecting the general public’s increased acceptance of war as a valid response to the perception of attack. It is numbing the minds of civilians so that they do not ask even the most obvious questions when the government says we must invade another country. It is turning the country further to the right and making it difficult for people to see the direct link between such choices and the lack of healthcare, safe housing, rewarding jobs, and good educations for everyone here at home.

The challenge for the peace movement, then, is to recognize the critical nature of counter-recruitment and the position of strength it offers us if we devote more attention and resources to it. Furthermore, counter-recruitment should be embraced as an important opportunity for addressing the disproportionate impact of war on those who are politically and economically less privileged than the traditional membership of the peace movement. And finally, the full scope of the problem – including the general militarization of schools and youth culture – should be taken up for the long term, not just until the present military crisis subsides. By working as long as it takes to reverse militarization at this level, we can become a proactive peace movement that is capable of preventing war instead of only reacting when it becomes inevitable.

Information sources: Los Angeles Times, November 26, 2005; www.CounterPunch.org; Christian Science Monitor, December 15, 2005.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org)

Counter-Recruiting the "Hispanic Market"

Jorge Mariscal

Jorge Mariscal -

The 2000 census teaches us two interesting facts about the way in which Latinos are contributing to the changing face of the United States. First, more legal immigrants arrived in the decade of the 1990s than in any previous decade in our history. The economic boom (or bubble) of the Clinton years attracted large numbers of people from around the world. Second, the majority of these immigrants came from Latin America (approximately 51%; 26% are from Asian countries). For the most part, the new arrivals are workers searching for a better life, without much education, and deeply attracted by the promise of economic opportunity north of the border. The overwhelming majority of them will work hard, their children will become educated, and they will make significant contributions to our society.

Because these new immigrants have yet to experience the disconnection between the promise of democracy and equality in this country and what the country has actually delivered to working people of color over time, many of them will adopt an uncritical view of current events. If local and national authorities proclaim that war against Iraq is necessary and the mass media reinforces that message, many new arrivals will accept it as fact. Some will even join the armed forces or encourage their children to join. What better way, they ask, to show our gratitude to the United States? What better way to prove our patriotism and show that we too are real Americans?

Add to this scenario the fact that Mexican American or Chicano/a youth — that is, the children of families who have been in the U.S. for many decades, if not centuries — continue to have a relatively limited range of life opportunities. More than one-third of all Latinos are under 18 years of age. With a high school dropout rate around 40% and high rates of incarceration (in California, Latinos are 36% of the prison population but only 32% of the state population), many Latino youth see little hope for the future. The cost of a college education in California is rising sharply. Even at community colleges, where most Latino college students are found, there are proposals to double the fees. Among high school graduates attending graduate and professional programs, Latinos make up only 1.9% (compared to 3% Black, 3.8% Whites, and 8.8% Asian).

Across the board, conditions for Latinos have deteriorated since the 2000 election. After four consecutive years of increases, the median household income for Latinos decreased between 2000 and 2001. Although Latinos have a high rate of participation in the labor force, over 11% of Latino workers live in poverty. About 7% of Latinos with full-time jobs were still living below the poverty line in 2001 (compared to 4.4% of African Americans and 1.7% for Whites). What is clear from this data is that Latinos and Latinas are working extremely hard but are trapped in minimum-wage jobs. Many hold multiple jobs at low wages.

Military recruiters are well aware of this situation and have targeted Latino youth as the primary objective for their efforts in coming years. A recent "Strategic Partnership Plan for 2002-2007" written by the U.S. Army Recruiting Command notes: "The Hispanic population is the fastest growing demographic in the United States and is projected to become 25% of the U.S. population by the year 2025." The plan goes on to state: "Priority areas are designated primarily as the cross section of weak labor opportunities and college-age population as determined by both [the] general and Hispanic population."

Given the overall economic context and the military's continued interest in Latino youth — a trend initiated by Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera, who once declared that the Army could "provide the best education in the world" — we can be sure that the enlisted ranks will fill up with increasing numbers of Latinos and Latinas. (Very few Latinos make it into the officers' ranks. Among all Latinos in today's Marine Corps, for example, only 3% are officers.)

Visit any high school with a large Latino population and you will find JROTC units, Army-sponsored computer games, and an overabundance of recruiters, often more numerous than career counselors. Recently, at Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles, a group of students was so appalled at the intrusive behavior of recruiters that they formed "Students not Soldiers" and demanded that real job counselors be hired.

Such acts of resistance to the ongoing militarization of U.S. culture, however, are rarely reported, so many Latino students and parents will fall prey to a limited range of opportunity and the Pentagon's propaganda blitz. As progressives involved in counter-recruitment work, we must struggle to understand the pressures on Latino communities. It will not be enough to shake our heads in disapproval at their displays of uncritical patriotism.

With war looming in the Middle East, Latino communities are slowly awakening to the fact that a permanently militarized economy and culture will not benefit them or their children. Our message to them should be that they can serve their country by excelling in work and study, by speaking out for peace and equality, and by joining the struggle to bring economic justice to all people.

Jorge Mariscal is a UC San Diego professor, a Vietnam veteran, and a member of the counter-recruitment organization Project YANO.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org)

Revised: 10-19-2019

National Counter-recruitment Movement Enters New Stage

Rick Jahnkow

Rick Jahnkow -

Tools makers of PeaceOver 100 activists were present in Philadelphia the weekend of June 25-27 to officially christen the new National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY). Born from a proposal made at the "Stopping War Where It Begins" counter-recruitment conference held a year earlier in Philadelphia, NNOMY is an effort to bring together the growing number of organizations and activists who are working against the militarization of young people in communities across the country. Participating in this first NNOMY conference were people from California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawai'i, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Most of the conference participants represented organizations that have officially become network members or are considering doing so. Approximately 30 local, regional and national groups have joined so far, some of which are: Veterans for Peace, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Youth Activists/Youth Allies (NY City), Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, Pax Christi USA, CHOICES (D.C.), Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (San Diego), American Friends Service Committee, Madison Area Peace Coalition, Teen Peace in Port Townsend (WA), Los Angeles Coalition Opposed to Militarism in Our Schools, Not in Our Name, Resource Center for Non-violence in Santa Cruz (CA), and Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft. Additional memberships are pending from various other organizations.

To promote more effective networking and organizing, caucuses were formed at the conference around issue and identity themes, such as women in the military, Latinos, draft-related issues, rural organizing, people of color, youth of color and LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Questioning). To broaden representation in decision-making, caucuses were invited to apply for membership status that is equal to regular organizations, and some were included in a NNOMY steering committee. Ten organizations and six caucuses were unanimously approved for the steering committee, which will make between-meeting decisions that are subject to review by the larger body of voting network members. Also adopted was a proposal from the youth caucus to have at least two steering committee members younger than 25, and to pursue the goal of majority representation by both youth and people of color.

NNOMY will continue to grow and develop plans, but an immediate course was set at the conference to pursue two goals: facilitating further development of organizing and educational resources, and promoting regional training of counter-recruitment organizers. For the near future, conference participants volunteered to collaborate on some specific resource development projects, and regional caucuses met to discuss what they could do to carry out networking and training in their geographical areas. Progress in these and other areas will depend on additional post-conference communication, so the contact information for participants will be incorporated into the Stopping War email list that was established after the national conference held in 2003. Caucuses will have their own communications networks and will, hopefully, continue to work on the special issues that brought them together.

One important facet of NNOMY is its commitment to including and supporting the various communities that are especially affected by military recruiting and the violence of militarism, including people who are victims of the military's homophobia. And since the conference dates overlapped with gay pride celebrations nationally, special materials were given to conference attendees on issues relating to militarism and sexual identity. An exciting music/spoken word event was also organized and hosted by the Attic Youth Center in Philadelphia, one of the few Queer youth centers in the country.

The NNOMY conference itself was co-hosted in Philadelphia by the American Friends Service Committee and Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. Conference planning and other tasks were shared by a number of groups that had served as an ad hoc steering committee, but the AFSC Youth and Militarism Program office provided the bulk of the on-site resources and logistical support, including the Friends Center where the conference was held.

It was especially appropriate that the founding meeting of this network occurred in a city where some of the most important revolutionary events occurred in U.S. history and within days of the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. While some of the decisions that went into the formation of the U.S. government over 200 years ago were tragically inconsistent with the ideals of liberty and justice for all, one thing that many of the country's founders got right was their perception that the growth and influence of a large military establishment would undermine civil society and progress toward democracy. Over the last 60 years, this lesson has been largely forgotten, and the traditional controls over the military that were once seen as necessary and even taken for granted have greatly eroded. In addition to the considerable influence that the Pentagon has over government decisions (including economic ones), our most important institutions of socialization, the public schools, are being overrun by people in uniform teaching military values, and popular culture is being saturated with messages that popularize soldiering and war. We are rapidly approaching a point where the long-term effects of militarization will be extremely difficult to reverse. A massive effort is needed to turn the trend around, and NNOMY is a crucial step in that direction.

The conference in Philadelphia was a time of sharing, discussing, strategizing and planning that left us at the end with an important opening to build a movement that speaks to the needs of constituencies that have traditionally not been reached very well by the U.S. peace movement. And because it focuses on interrupting the flow of human resources and challenging the mechanisms of propaganda that are needed to wage war, it is an effort that also offers people an effective way to move from war protest to war resistance, while at the same time working for long-term social transformation.

For more information, contact NNOMY c/o AFSC Youth and Militarism Program, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; 215-241-7176; http://www.youthandthemilitary.org.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org)


Illegal Immigrants: Uncle Sam Wants You

Deborah Davis

Deborah Davis -

Latino teenagers, including illegal immigrants are being recruited into the military with false promises.

In 1996, Jesus Alberto Suarez del Solar was a 13-year-old boy, up from Tijuana on a family shopping trip, when he stopped at a Marine Corps recruiting table at an open-air mall in Chula Vista, Calif.

Jesus had been an easy mark for the recruiter—a boy who fantasized that by joining the powerful, heroic U.S. Marines, he could help his own country fight drug lords. He gave the recruiter his address and phone number in Mexico, and the recruiter called him twice a week for the next two years, until he had talked Jesus into convincing his parents to move to California. Fernando and Rose Suarez sold their home and their laundry business and immigrated with their children to Escondido, where Jesus enrolled at a high school known for academic achievement. But the recruiter wanted him to transfer to a school for problem teenagers, since its requirements for graduation were lower and Jesus would be able to finish sooner. He was 17 and a half when he graduated from that school, still too young to enlist on his own, so his father co-signed the enlistment form, as the military requires for underage recruits.

Three years later, at the age of 20, his body was torn apart in Iraq by an American-made fragmentation grenade during the first week of the invasion. In the Pentagon’s official Iraq casualty database, his death is number 74.

Now Jesus is in a cemetery in Escondido, and his parents, who blame each other for his death, are painfully and bitterly divorced. While his mother bears her loss as a private tragedy, Fernando, who has dual Mexican and American citizenship, is working tirelessly to protect other young immigrants from being manipulated by U.S. military recruiters—the way he wishes he had protected his son.

In the Iraq war, citizenship is being used as a recruiting tool aimed specifically at young immigrants, who are told that by enlisting, they will be able to quickly get citizenship for themselves (sometimes true, depending on what the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) branch of the Department of Homeland Security finds) and their entire families (not true; each family member has to go through a separate application process). Nevertheless, with the political pressures on Latino families growing daily under this administration, many young Latinos are unable to resist the offer, which immigrants’ rights activists see as blatant exploitation of a vulnerable population.

From African American to Latino

Jesus, like the large majority of new military recruits, was signed up through the Delayed Entry Program (DEP), which operates in high schools, GED programs and home-schooling networks across the nation. The well-crafted messages on the DEP website have been in development ever since the draft ended and the all-volunteer military was initiated after Vietnam. The DEP’s persuasion campaigns originally targeted black teenagers with the message that military service equaled jobs that promised equal treatment regardless of race. DEP recruiters were able to easily meet their quotas until the early ’80s, when enlistment rates of young African Americans began to decline and the rates for Latinos began to rise for reasons the military did not understand. A 1995 article in Marketing Science, “The Navy Enlistment Marketing Experiment,” noted that “a surprising development was the emergence of the Hispanic population as an important variable contributing to the pool of … contracts. Further investigation of the phenomenon is warranted.”

Over the next decade, the military commissioned a number of studies on the relationship between race and ethnicity and the “propensity to enlist.” For example, the Youth Attitude Tracking Survey, conducted between 1975 and 1999 and published by the Defense Technical Information Center, found a correlation between the rising educational achievement of blacks and lower enlistment rates; and between the low educational achievement of Latinos (particularly if their first language was not English) and rising enlistment rates. As Latinos became a more important source of recruits, the Pentagon hired market research firms to design advertising campaigns that addressed the issues they cared most about—pride in family, children in school and citizenship.

Today, the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force recruitment campaigns focus largely on education and benefits to families. The Army’s campaign, created by Cartel Impacto, a cutting-edge firm from San Antonio, uses the firm’s proprietary “barrio anthropology” and grassroots “viral and guerilla marketing” techniques to “go deep into the neighborhoods and barrios” in order to tell Latino families how the military can help them have the kind of life they want in America. “We address the core issues of why they left their country in the first place,” says a Cartel Impacto spokesperson, who did not want her name published. “You have to conduct your outreach carefully,” she says, “using PTAs as an entry point,” as well as “local Hispanic groups that the newly arrived would look to.”

Recruit friends, earn bucks

These marketing campaigns support the work of recruiters who—as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act—must have free access to students in every one of the country’s public schools. Recruiters operating in high schools try to get children as young as 14 to sign up for the military’s DEP, which allows them to finish high school before going on active duty. Under the program, these young “men and women,” as recruiters are trained to call them, are targeted, tested, gifted, video-gamed, recruitment-faired and career-counseled into enlisting before they turn 18. They are also paid $2,000 for every friend they talk into signing up with them, and, until recently, were paid $50 for every name they brought in to a recruiter. The DEP website provides tips on how students can assist recruiters in signing up their friends. The student can:

  • · Provide your recruiter with names and numbers of anyone you know who is considering joining the military.
  • · Obtain the names and numbers of people who work with you or attend places you frequent and the best time to talk to them.
  • · Obtain the names and numbers of friends or acquaintances who sit with you in classes.
  • · Help your recruiter by screening his/her lists.
  • · Accompany your recruiter to places your friends normally hang out and make introductions.

In addition to cash, students who help recruiters to enlist their friends are promoted to a higher military rank, from Private E-1 to Private E-2, even before they are out of high school. The rewards are commensurate with the quality of the friends they recruit, as measured by their friends’ ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) scores. “You will get promoted to Private E-2,” promises the DEP website, if your referrals lead to the enlistment of “one soldier who scores 50 or higher on the ASVAB,” or “two soldiers who score 31-49.” Private E-1s are paid $1,301 a month, while E-2s earn $1,458 per month. Further, getting a second high-scoring friend or two more low-scoring friends to enlist earns the student another promotion, to Private E-3, and kicks the entry pay up to $1,534 per month.

Another way DEPs can earn extra money is to volunteer for hazardous duty. Students who sign up to be in a combat unit, or to dismantle explosives, or to handle toxic chemicals, get an additional $150 per month on top of their basic pay. Volunteering for hazardous duty, however, is a relative concept. Since DEP recruits do not, by definition, have a college education, there are few other military occupations open to them, except if their ASVAB scores are high enough for them to qualify for advanced training. But with the greatest need in this war being combat soldiers—so much so that even highly trained Air Force personnel are being sent to work with Army ground troop units—the chances of any DEP recruit getting out of combat duty and its attendant hazards are slim. The ASVAB is also administered only in English; and any job requiring even a security clearance cannot be held by a non-citizen. The implications of these conditions for young immigrants can be deadly.

The Department of Defense’s casualty database (http://icasualties.org) doesn’t publicly break down the dead and injured by ethnic group, but a tally of Latino surnames found that between January 10 when the surge began and July 1, 20 percent of the 174 young people (aged 18-21) who died were likely to have been Latino (the military does not keep public data on the race or ethnicity of casualties). With the intensification of DEP recruiting efforts in largely Latino high schools since the invasion began, this is no surprise.

Legal illegals vs. illegal illegals

How many of these young Latino recruits are illegal immigrants? “Nobody knows,” says Flavia Jimenez, an immigration policy analyst at the National Council of La Raza. “But what we do know is that recruiters may not be up to speed on everybody’s legal status. … We also know that a significant number of [illegals] have died in Iraq.” The recruitment of illegal immigrants is particularly intense in Los Angeles, where 75 percent of the high school students are Latino. “A lot of our students are undocumented,” says Arlene Inouye, a teacher at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, “and it’s common knowledge that recruiters offer green cards.” Inouye is the coordinator and founder of the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools (CAMS), a counter-recruitment organization that educates teenagers about deceptive recruiting practices. “The practice is pretty widespread all over the nation,” she says, “especially in California and Texas. … The recruiters tell them, ‘you’ll be helping your family.’ “

Inouye referred me to Salvador Garcia, a student whose father had been deported, and who had been approached by a recruiter when he was a freshman at Garfield (He is now a senior). Garcia says the recruiter told him: “If you need papers, come and fight for us and we can get you some, and then you’ll never have to mess with immigration.” When he told the recruiter that he was born in this country, the recruiter responded, “Do you have anybody in your family that needs a green card, needs papers?” Salvador told him that his father, who had entered the country illegally from Mexico, had recently been deported. “If you join the military you can get your father back,” the recruiter said. “It’s not a problem, we can get him his papers and nobody will ever bother him again.” Salvador almost signed the enlistment form right then, but says he was stopped by the realization of “how it’s all connected—the war and Mexico and immigration.” He is now active in the counter-recruitment movement.

Recruiters in other parts of the country are making the same promises. In Chicago, for example, Jorge, whose entire family was illegal, joined the military because a high school recruiter promised that he and every member of his family would get a green card. Jorge actually did get a green card while he was in Iraq, but he became so angry and disillusioned when the military did nothing for his family that he went AWOL.

He is now back in Chicago, where a counter-recruitment activist named Juan Torres, whose only son was killed in Afghanistan, is working on getting him discharged from the military. Torres works with a number of counter-recruitment groups, including Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out, but mostly he works on his own, speaking at churches and schools around the country. He estimates that in the past year, close to 200 students have told him that they have been offered green cards for enlisting, and he says he personally knows of “five or six illegal families who have kids without papers in Iraq.” Torres talked one teenage girl into changing her mind just as she was about the sign the enlistment papers. He says that the recruiter told her, “Now you’re in trouble, you and your family, you will have to leave.” And Torres says he once asked a recruiter, the son of one of his friends, “How can you lie to the kids like that?” The recruiter told him, “Sorry, it’s my job, and I don’t want to go back to Iraq.”

Despite the mounting evidence of these recruitment practices, the Pentagon denies that illegal immigrants are in the military. “If there are any,” says Pentagon spokesman Joseph Burlas, “then they have fraudulently enlisted, and when they’re caught, they are discharged.”

That is what happened to Army Pvt Juan Escalante, whose illegal status was discovered while he was serving in Iraq. He was discharged and shipped home, and ICE began deportation proceedings against him and his parents, who had smuggled him into the United States from Mexico when he was four years old. However, Escalante’s unit commander wrote a letter on his behalf, saying he had served with distinction, so ICE reversed its decision and accepted his citizenship application. The deportation case against his parents, who also have two U.S.-born children, is still pending.

Another illegal immigrant serving in Iraq, Jose Gutierrez, was not so lucky. He was one of the first members of the U.S. armed forces to die during the invasion. Gutierrez had made his way to this country from Guatemala in 1996, at the age of 15, to escape the violence perpetrated by the death squads, only to be killed in Iraq by friendly fire. When the Pentagon announced his death, it came in the form of a carefully managed PR campaign that included a posthumous award of citizenship for Gutierrez, presumably to show that if an illegal immigrant manages to enlist and make it to Iraq, he will be rewarded. However, Gutierrez remains the only illegal alien on the U.S. casualty rolls whose real hometown is listed, while others who die are reported to be from Boston or Los Angeles, or wherever a recruiter finds them. In New York City, according to counter-recruitment activist Melida Arredondo, whose young stepson was killed in Iraq, DEP recruiters instruct illegal immigrants to write “New York City” as their “home of record address” on the enlistment form, and to write “pending” for their Social Security number.

Non-citizen soldiers

Why is all of this happening, when the enlistment and expedited naturalization of illegal immigrants serving in the armed forces is specifically authorized in U.S. law? An Executive Order signed by President Bush on July 3, 2002, provided for the “expedited naturalization for aliens and noncitizen nationals serving in an active-duty status in the Armed Forces of the United States during the period of the war against terrorists of global reach.” Under this order, any noncitizen in the military can apply for expedited citizenship on his first day of active duty. Not only is this order still in effect, but it has been codified in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2006, that authorizes the enlistment of (1) nationals of the United States; (2) aliens who have been lawfully admitted for permanent residence (green card); (3) residents of several former U.S. territories; and (4) any other person “if the Secretary of Defense determines that such enlistment is vital to the national interest.”

With the law so clear on this issue, the treatment of illegal immigrants in the military, both by the Pentagon and by ICE, is difficult to understand. “Apparently,” says Lt. Col. Margaret Stock, a nationally known immigration attorney and professor of military law at West Point, “nobody at the Pentagon reviewed the [regulations] on immigrants when the war started.” She adds, “If the Pentagon has any immigration attorneys, I haven’t met them.”

Stock speculates that if the Pentagon is aware of the law, it might be “afraid there would be a political backlash” if the use of immigrant labor for the war were discussed openly. In a later e-mail, she added, “And by the way, the Pentagon has ALWAYS had the authority to recruit foreigners in wartime. … The only thing that changed in January 2006 [when Bush signed the NDAA] was that Congress made it HARDER for the Pentagon to recruit foreigners who are not Lawful Permanent Residents. It used to be that ANYONE could join the military in wartime—even undocumented immigrants—but now the Service Secretaries have to find that an undocumented person’s enlistment is ‘in the vital interest’ of the United States.”

To illustrate her point, Stock noted that a section of the 2006 Immigration and Nationalization Law locates the naturalization of immigrants serving in Iraq firmly in the tradition of naturalizations “during World War I, World War II, Korean hostilities, Vietnam hostilities, [and] other periods of military hostilities.” During these wars, citizenship was granted solely on the basis of three years of honorable service or honorable separation from service (discharge), whether or not the person ever lived in the United States.”

“Recruiters trying to fill slots have historically pressed vulnerable people into service,” says Dan Kesselbrenner, director of the National Immigration Project, a program of the National Lawyers Guild. “But for some people it’s the only way they are ever going to get citizenship.”

What recruiters do not tell their targets, however, is that the military itself has no authority to grant citizenship. It forwards their citizenship applications to ICE, which will then scrutinize them and their entire families for up to a year. Created under the Homeland Security Act of 2002 as the successor to the law enforcement arms of both the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the U.S. Customs Service, ICE has been tasked “to more effectively enforce our immigration and customs laws and protect the United States against terrorist attacks.” ICE does this, as its website explains, “by targeting illegal immigrants: the people, money and materials that support terrorism and other criminal activities.”

Recruiters also do not tell their targets that citizenship can be denied for the very same past criminal offenses that the military may have overlooked when admitting them—such as being in the country illegally. Nor do they tell recruits that citizenship can be denied for any kind of dishonorable behavior, which includes refusing to participate in combat. The immigrant law that provides for the naturalization of illegal immigrants in the military clearly states, “No person who … was a conscientious objector who performed no military, air, or naval duty … or refused to wear the uniform, shall be regarded as having served honorably or having been separated under honorable conditions.” This means, according to Stock and other military law experts, that while applying for conscientious objector status is not, by itself, grounds for a dishonorable discharge, attempting to act on one’s beliefs by refusing to fight, wear a uniform or carry a weapon, constitutes disobeying an order, which is dishonorable behavior.

As the war in Iraq drags on and recruiters step up their efforts to enlist high school students—even demanding the right to come into classrooms—teachers, parents, and students themselves are doing what they can to slow the rate of enlistment of young immigrants who believe that military service is their path to citizenship. But as long as American citizenship remains a kind of salvation myth for the Latino community, military recruiters will be able to exploit their longing for it.

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill (S 1639), which failed to pass the Senate in June, proposed to give legal permanent residency to any “alien who has served in the uniformed services for at least 2 years and, if discharged, has received an honorable discharge.” In other words, illegal immigrants have been in the military all along, and the government was getting ready to admit it. Now, with the bill’s defeat, they will be forced to remain hidden, and the sacrifices they have made for this country will continue to go unacknowledged.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I would like to thank Melida Arredondo for all of her assistance to this article.

Links:

Documents:


 


Military Enlistment: or When a Contract Isn't Contract

Jorge Mariscal

Jorge Mariscal -

Santiago v. Rumsfeld

It is an axiom among activists working in the area of counter-recruitment that the enlistment contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. What this means in practical terms is that whatever a recruiter promises to deliver to a new recruit-specific jobs or assignment, length of service, benefits, or even citizenship-can be withdrawn or changed at any time.

Section C, Paragraph 9(b) of the enlistment contract states:

"Laws and regulations that govern military personnel may change without notice to me. Such changes may affect my status, pay, allowances, benefits, and responsibilities as a member of the Armed Forces regardless of the provisions of this enlistment/reenlistment document."

While this loophole is well known in counter-recruitment circles, it obviously is not something recruiters emphasize to young people and their families. Major David Griesmer, public affairs officer for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command based in Quantico, Virginia, for example, recently described the recruitment process to the San Francisco Chronicle:

"If you don’t like what you’re hearing, you can walk away. And I can tell you that everything is spelled out in a contract when the applicant signs."

But the Pentagon’s stand down of all recruitment activities on May 20 was a warning flag signaling widespread recruiter deception and unethical conduct. More important, the recent case brought by a National Guard soldier against the Pentagon puts the lie to Major Griesmer’s claim and sheds new light on the true nature of the military enlistment contract, a contract that according to this recent court decision is no contract at all.

In Santiago v. Rumsfeld, the curtain concealing the realities of military service is pulled back to reveal the literal meaning of G.I. (government issue) or the soldier as property. Emiliano Santiago, the young Mexican immigrant who brought the case, was not a political activist and did not oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The son of migrant farmworkers, he enlisted in the Oregon National Guard for one of the more intangible reasons young people sign up-the lure of the uniform. He recalls his recruiter telling him that the National Guard would never leave the United States "unless there was World War III."

For almost eight years, the recruiter’s partial truth held up for Santiago even though thousands of National Guard troops already had been sent to Afghanistan and Iraq. With only two weeks left in the Guard, Santiago was ordered to report to Fort Sill where his unit was prepariing for deployment to Afghanistan.

Because his term of enlistment was technically over Santiago decided to challenge the government. Currently more than a dozen soldiers affected by the so-called stop-loss policy have filed similar lawsuits. Between 40,000 and 50,000 active-duty, reserve, and National Guard personnel have had their terms extended under the policy since 2001.

Santiago and his attorneys lost the first round in the U.S. District Court in Oregon, and immediately appealed to the U.S. Ninth Circuit. On May 13, 2005, a panel of three judges upheld the lower court’s ruling and thereby validated the government’s position.

In their opinion, the judges invoked Title 10 § 12305(a) of the U.S. Code which reads in part:

"the President may suspend any provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to any member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the United States."

According to Santiago’s lawyers, such presidential power is granted only when Congress has declared war or a national emergency. President Bush declared a national emergency on September 14, 2001 but Congress has yet to do so. The presidential decree has been renewed each year since 2001 even though U.S. Code Title 50 § 1622 reads:

"Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated.."

The Ninth Circuit Court’s decision underwrites the almost unlimited power of the executive branch in national security situations, affirming the government’s contention that "threre is no basis for the notion that principles of construction drawn from commercial contract disputes can be invoked to transform a vital federal statute into a dead letter, especially in the crucial area of the President’s power to command the military and protect this Nation’s security."

Of greater interest to counter-recruitment activists are the arguments made about the legal status of military personnel. In both the district court case and the Ninth Circuit case government lawyers argued that contractual obligations did not apply in the Santiago case because upon entering the military the status of a "citizen" shifts to that of "soldier."

Basing its argument on Bell v. United States (1961), itself based on an 1890 decision, the government stipulated: "Enlistment in the armed forces does not constitute merely a bargain between two parties, but effects a change of status by which ‘the citizen becomes a soldier.’" Under this new status, "common law contract principles yield to federal statutes and regulations." The government further argued: "The terms of an enlistment contract certainly cannot circumscribe the authority of the Presidentto conduct the nation’s military policy."

The Ninth Circuit’s ruling reiterated that the military enlistment contract "provides notice that changes in federal law-even if inconsistent with the written terms of the contract-would apply" given that "the contract itself specifies that unlisted contingencies may cause an alteration in the agreed upn terms." In short, every recruit who signs an enlistment contract has just signed away his or her fundamental rights as a U.S. citizen.

Acknowledging the "disruption, hardship, and risk that extension of his enlistment is causing Santiago to endure," the Ninth Circuit nevertheless upheld the original decision and in effect sent Santiago packing to Afghanistan. Post-trial comments by the Pentagon spokesmen denied that the purpose of stop-loss orders was to compensate for recent recruitment shortfalls.

Rather, argued Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, "It’s about teams I think most Americans would prefer that, even if they’re opposed to the war, that they fight together as teams." Apparently, as Emiliano Santiago learned the hard way, the U.S. military is a "team" that recruits young men and women under false pretenses and then never allows them to quit. Santiago’s new estmated date of separation from the National Guard is December 25, 2031. The government has assured him that the date is simply an "administrative convenience."

JORGE MARISCAL teaches Chicano Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of Project YANO (San Diego), a counter-recruitment and anti-militarism organization. Visit his blog at: jorgemariscal.blogspot.com/ He can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


Subcategories

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Article Count:  1

Opinion Article Count:  1

The NNOMY Opinion section is a new feature of our articles section. Writing on youth demilitarization issues is quite rare but we have discovered the beginning articles and notes being offered on this subject so we have decided to present them under an opinion category.  The articles presented do not necessarily reflect the views of the NNOMY Steering Committee.

NNOMY CAMPUS: Youth Counter-Recruitment and Demilitarization Workshops Online Article Count:  1

 

Activists Demilitarizing Our Public Schools

The NNOMY CAMPUS page is a resource for activists wishing to understand how to more effectively intervene in our public schools against the increasing influence of Pentagon programs to indoctrinate our youth for war. A series of webinars are being planned on different successful strategies to effect policy changes in school districts that better protect student privacy from military recruiters, to organize access to counter-recruit on campus, and to monitor the activities of military personnel on public school campuses. Topics are listed by series and subject. NNOMY webinar based workshops are a more effective method to instruct how to proceed with curbing the number of youth that make the choice to join into military service, or do so with a more informed picture of what this service will entail.  This page will be updated periodically as additional webinars are conducted and new materials are produced to support these trainings. NNOMY will maintain these educational resources with the most up-to-date information and informed opinions as possible in order to keep the practice of national counter'recruitment efforts viable into the future.

 

Available Webinars:    

Conservative Religious Influence Article Count:  2

Michael FlynnThe warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible. - Chris Hedges (From his article: The Christian Right and the Rise of American Fascism, 2011)

Revised 04/17/2016

Corporate Influence Article Count:  1

Young Marines Article Count:  1

Art & Cultural Activism Article Count:  1

The Militarization of U.S. Culture Article Count:  23

  https://www.nnomy.org/militarizedculture | Versión en español

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks to Department of Defense personnel, with President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 2021. (DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando)

Though the United States of America shares with other nations in a history of modern state militarism, the past 78 years following its consolidation as a world military power after World War II has seen a shift away from previous democratic characterizations of the state.  The last forty years, with the rise of the neo-conservative Reagan and  Bush (2) administrations, began the abandonment of moral justifications for democracy building replaced by  bellicose proclamations of the need and right to move towards a national project of global security by preemptive military force. Even with the return of eight years of the, so called, Liberal Obama administrations we saw the further erosion of long held human right protections with the suspension of habeas corpus and the increased usage of extra-judicial drone bombing killings of claimed combatants in multiple conflicts worldwide. Now with the Trump and Biden administrations, these programs have increased unbeknownst to the general public as the mainstream media silenced and normalized perpetual wars.

In the process of global military expansion, the US population has been subjected to an internal re-education to accept the role of the U.S. as consolidating its hegemonic rule internationally in the interest of liberal ideals of wealth creation and protectionism.

U.S. Air Force airmen acting as extras during the filming of the 2007 film Transformers at Holloman Air Force Base. A camera operator on an ATV can be seen filming them on the right.The average citizen has slowly come to terms with stealthily increasing campaigns of militarization domestically in media offerings; from television, movies, militarized video games,  and scripted news networks to reinforce the inevitability of a re-configured society as security state. The effect has begun a transformation of how, as citizens, we understand our roles and viability as workers and families in relation to this security state. This new order has brought with it a shrinking public common and an increasing privatization of publicly held infrastructure; libraries, health clinics, schools and the expectation of diminished social benefits for the poor and middle-class. The national borders are being militarized as are our domestic police forces in the name of Homeland Security but largely in the interest of business. The rate and expansion of research and development for security industries and the government agencies that fund them, now represent the major growth sector of the U.S.economy. Additionally, as the U.S. economy continually shifts from productive capital to financial capital as the engine of growth for wealth creation and development, the corporate culture has seen its fortunes rise politically and its power over the public sector grow relatively unchallenged by a confused citizenry who are watching their social security and jobs diminishing.

Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team members, some armed with assault rifles, preparing for an exerciseHow increasing cultural militarization effects our common future will likely manifest in increased public dissatisfaction with political leadership and economic strictures. Social movements within the peace community, like NNOMY, will need to expand their role of addressing the dangers of  militarists predating youth for military recruitment in school to giving more visibility to the additional dangers of the role of an influential militarized media, violent entertainment and play offerings effecting our youth in formation and a general increase and influence of the military complex in all aspects of our lives. We are confronted with a demand for a greater awareness of the inter-relationships of militarism in the entire landscape of domestic U.S. society.  Where once we could ignore the impacts of U.S. military adventurisms abroad, we are now faced with the transformation of our domestic comfort zone with the impacts of militarism in our day to day lives where we are witnessing militarized police forces in all our cities.

How this warning can be imparted in a meaningful way by a movement seeking to continue with the stated goals of counter-recruitment and public policy activism, and not loose itself in the process, will be the test for those activists, past and future, who take up the call to protect our youth from the cultural violence of militarism.

Counter-recruitment poster.The "militarization of US culture" category will be an archive of editorials and articles about the increasing dangers we face as a people from those who are invested in the business of war. This page will serve as a resource for the NNOMY community of activists and the movement they represent moving into the future. The arguments presented in this archive will offer important realizations for those who are receptive to NNOMY's message of protecting our youth, and thus our entire society, of the abuses militarism plays upon our hopes for a sustainable and truly democratic society.

NNOMY

 

 

 

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And our work to demilitarize our schools and youth.
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Revised / 11/04/2023 - GDG

 

Resources Article Count:  48

The Resources section covers the following topics:

Social media Campaign Resources Article Count:  42

 

NNOMYpeace has organized the following resources for our own staff of activists to promote our campaigns on different social media platforms. Many are formatted for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds. 

We also welcome those activists inside our network of groups doing Truth in Recruitment and Counter-recruiting activism to utilize there resources for their own social media channels.

If you are not a group associated to NNOMYpeace, and would like to utilize these resources on your own channels, we encourage your groups to integrate to NNOMY on our National Directory of Youth Demilitarization Groups to help support the national community of youth demilitarization groups to know you and the scope of your activism. You can share your information to list your group by submitting an organizational form at the following LINK.

We have distributed the following graphics by campaign. Click on the categories below to see those that support different campaign themes by NNOMY

__________________________________________

 

Divest “Your Body” from the War Machine Article Count:  1

The Divest “Your Body” from the War Machine graphics are campaigning resources for social media for the Divest campaign that NNOMY is collaborating with CodePink. NNOMY focuses on asking youth to "Divest of their Bodies" from military service with the war machine. These are strictly to be utilized with counter-recruitment only and not with TIR.

Winning The Peace: A National High School Intervention Article Count:  2

These social media resources are to be utilized with the "Winning the Peace" campaign in cooperation with the palm cards developed by War Resisters League and the support website created for smart phones, "What Everyone Should Know Before Joining the Military / Lo que deberías saber entres de enrolarte en las Fuerzas Armadas (FF.AA.) ,"  to answer questions for youth about what military service really involves for them.

Know about Groups doing Youth Demilitarization Nationally Article Count:  1

These social media resources focus on groups nationally and regionally that take part in some form of youth demilitarization activism. That can include themes such as Truth in Recruitment or Counter-recruitment activism or participate in outreach to schools as veteral or antiwar speakers. Those using them should be cognizant of the limits that your location and context present before you decide to select the appropriate images and appeals for your use.

Misc. Social Media images Article Count:  1

The Misc. social media image resources category are designed around various appeals encompassing general counter-recruitment messages and antiwar themes. They should be utilized judiciously with attention paid to the moment and situation of which they are applied. Some of these may be themed along specific important dates in the peace calendar of on specific subject relating to militarization especially those themes that effect youth. Those found in this category are not specific to a campaign.

Social media Campaign Resources Article Count:  1

Back to School Against War & Militarism! Get the 2018-19 Back-to-school Kit for Counter-recruiting and School De-militarization Organizing from The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth and find out how you can help keep our youth safer and send a message to school officials and your government... military recruiters should be monitored in local high school and minor-aged youth deserve a balanced narrative on military service! Act Now to activate in your child's public school against Pentagon intrusions into our community youth.

Eliminate Selective Service for Everyone Article Count:  14

The "Eliminate Selective Service for Everyone" campaign category addresses the antiquated Selective Service system and the demand for its elimination. With the issue of women now being qualified for combat duties including fighting, the issue has been brought before the congress and senate of the United States to require women to register, like men, in the years when young adults are typically drafted into the services to fight wars if the draft needs to be re-initiated in the event of a national crisis where there are not sufficient troops to meet the troop requirement.

This campaign, "Eliminate Selective Service for Everyone," asks for the elimination of this demand based on it being a violation of basic and internationally recognized human rights protocols including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

https://nnomy.org/selectiveservice

Costs of War Article Count:  2

The "Costs of War" campaign category came from the Watson Institute for International Affairs website of Brown University in Providence, RI. This institute has made their research into the economic, social, political, and human costs of U.S. wars their research focus. Their mission statement explains the following:

The Costs of War Project is a team of 50 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, which began its work in 2010. We use research and a public website to facilitate debate about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the related violence in Pakistan and Syria. There are many hidden or unacknowledged costs of the United States’ decision to respond to the 9/11 attacks with military force. We aim to foster democratic discussion of these wars by providing the fullest possible account of their human, economic, and political costs, and to foster better informed public policies.

This campaign, "Costs of War," asks for the public to be aware that our post 9/11 foreign policy has an effect on the U.S.'s international relations that are increasingly coming under question domestically and internationally and how those policies align with the stated goals of the U.S. State Department and its allied governments..

https://nnomy.org/costsofwar

Workshops Article Count:  3

NNOMY Peace produces workshops to assist groups in understanding the tactics of military recruiters in the school and the community and create community and strategies for groups envolved in youth demilitarization efforts.

Counter-recruitment Resources Article Count:  1

NNOMYpeace produces printable and viewable resources to support the practice of Truth in Recruitment and Counter-recruitment activism.

Book Reviews Article Count:  5

Project PASS Article Count:  1

NNOMY Network News Article Count:  12

News reports from the groups associated to the NNOMY Network including Social Media.

CR Reports Article Count:  4

Reports from counter-recruitment groups and activists from the field. Includes information about action reports at recruiting centers and career fairs, school tabling, and actions in relation to school boards and state legislatures.

CR in the News Article Count:  8

David Swanson Article Count:  6

David SwansonDavid Swanson is the author of the new book, Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, by Seven Stories Press and of the introduction to The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush by Dennis Kucinich. In addition to cofounding AfterDowningStreet.org, he is the Washington director of Democrats.com and sits on the boards of a number of progressive organizations in Washington, DC.


Charlottesville Right Now: 11-10-11 David Swanson
David Swanson joins Coy to discuss Occupy Charlottesville, protesting Dick Cheney's visit to the University of Virginia, and his new book. -  Listen

Jorge Mariscal Article Count:  2

Jorge MariscalJorge Mariscal is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and the son of a U.S. Marine who fought in World War II. He served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and currently teaches at the University of California, San Diego.

Matt Guynn Article Count:  1

Matt GuynnMatt Guynn plays the dual role of program director and coordinator for congregational organizing for On Earth Peace, building peace and nonviolence leadership within the 1000+ congregations of the Church of the Brethren across the United States and Puerto Rico. He previously served a co-coordinator of training for Christian Peacemaker Teams, serving as an unarmed accompanier with political refugees in Chiapas, Mexico, and offering or supporting trainings in the US and Mexico.

Rick Jahnkow Article Count:  8

Rick Jahnkow

Rick Jahnkow has worked for two San Diego-based anti-militarist organizations, the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities and the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft. Rick Jahnkow, one of both organization’s founders, first became active organizing draft resistance and opposition to the Vietnam War. He can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Counter-recruitment and school demilitarization work in the U.S. has gone through several cycles of expansion and contraction during the last few decades. The first expansion was during the early 1980s when it was supported by a small number of national organizations, such as the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), War Resisters League, Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) and National Lawyers Guild. Most grassroots activities at the time were carried out by chapters of these organizations and a number of independent community peace groups (including COMD and, eventually, Project YANO).

Many counter-recruitment organizers in the 1980s came from the Vietnam-era anti-draft movement, so it was common for them to include draft counseling information as they also worked to counter the presence of military recruiters in schools. This dual emphasis was encouraged by the return of Selective Service registration in 1980 and the government’s various efforts to coerce young men into compliance. Frequently, organizers saw no distinction between the issues of recruiting and Selective Service registration, which had both positive and negative consequences. It was positive in the sense that fear of a possible return to the draft fueled more youth-focused organizing and helped increase awareness of recruiting and militarism in schools. But on the negative side, the frequent focus on Selective Service kept many activists from fully comprehending that economics had become the primary factor driving the militarization of young people, and that draft counseling was not an effective approach to the problem. Another negative consequence was that as concern about conscription diminished in the late 1980s, the overall level of counter-recruitment work also fell considerably.

Fortunately, those groups that did continue to organize deepened their analysis and developed more appropriate and effective organizing approaches. For example, they focused on addressing the “poverty draft” by compiling and distributing literature on alternatives to enlistment. At the same time, they sought to either eliminate recruiters from schools or at least secure equal access to give students alternative information. As the tactics evolved and improved, there were a number of important achievements. For example:

The principle of equal school access for counter-recruiters was realized in many places, thanks to a combination of effective organizing and a few successful lawsuits decided in the late 1980s. The broadest legal precedent for equal access came in a 1986 ruling won by COMD in the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

  • Solid research produced high-quality tools for grassroots organizing, including a professionally produced slide show that eventually evolved into a powerful educational DVD, “Before You Enlist,” which is used widely today.
  • In many places, school policies were passed that severely curtailed, or completely banned, recruiter access to students.
  • Opportunities for successful cross-community and cross-issue organizing developed that had not been available to the traditional U.S. antiwar movement.

Read More

 

Media:

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Group affiliations:

Special Collections & University Archives:

  • Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft Records
    1979-2021 Bulk: 1980-1987
    http://scua.library.umass.edu › category › social-change › draft-resistan…
    Draft resistance – Special Collections & University Archives
    Formed in 1979 in the wake of a congressional vote on reinstating the draft, the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD) was formed by San Diego-based anti-war activists Bill Roe, Hoppy Chandler, Norm Lewis, Fritz Sands, and Rick Jahnkow.

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Pat Elder Article Count:  13

Pat ElderPat Elder was a co-founder of the DC Antiwar Network (DAWN) and a member of the Steering Committee of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth, (NNOMY).  Pat is currently involved in a national campaign with the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom project, Military Poisons,  investigating on U.S. military base contamination domestically and internationally.  Pat’s work has prominently appeared in NSA documents tracking domestic peace groups.

 

Documents:

audio  Pat Elder - National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth

COMMUNITY ACTION Article Count:  2

Starbase DOD Article Count:  1

Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Article Count:  1

Network Actions Article Count:  5

EVENTS & CONFERENCES Article Count:  4

NNOMY periodically participates in or organizes events(e.i. conferences, rallies) with other organizations.

CR Activist Reports Article Count:  13

CR Discussion List Article Count:  1

NNOMY in the News Article Count:  6

News articles reposted about NNOMY. Includes news reports about our work with associated groups and conferences.

National CR Database Article Count:  1

GI Resistance Article Count:  1

Conscientious Objection Article Count:  1

NNOMY National Conference Article Count:  11

Materials/Training Article Count:  1

Model Programs Article Count:  1

Providing Guidance Article Count:  1

School Policies Article Count:  6

EN ESPAÑOL Article Count:  2

JROTC Article Count:  1

JAMRS Article Count:  2

Equal access Article Count:  2

Opt Out/Student lists Article Count:  2

NCLB Article Count:  5

MILITARISM & WAR Article Count:  6

FOR ENLISTED PERSONNEL Article Count:  1

FOR PARENTS Article Count:  1

CONSIDERING ENLISTING? Article Count:  1

Know Your Rights Article Count:  2

GI Bill & Benefits Article Count:  1

Alternatives by State Article Count:  1

NNOMY Article Count:  13

ALTERNATIVES TO THE MILITARY Article Count:  3

Recruiter Abuses Article Count:  2

Truth in Recruiting Article Count:  1

Facts About Recruitment Article Count:  1

Facts & Figures Article Count:  1

COUNTER RECRUITING ESSENTIALS Article Count:  4

The Counter-recruitment Essentials section of the NNOMY web site covers the issues and actions spanning this type of activism. Bridging the difficult chasms between religious, veteran, educator, student, and community based activism is no small task. In this section you will find information on how to engage in CR activism in your school and community with the support of the knowledge of others who have been working to inform youth considering enlisting in the military. You will also find resources for those already in the military that are looking for some guidance on how to actively resist injustices  as a soldier or how to choose a path as a conscientious objector.

Steering Committee Article Count:  1

Articles Article Count:  266

John Judge Article Count:  5

John Judge was a co-founder of the Committee for High School Options and Information on Careers, Education and Self-Improvement (CHOICES) in Washington DC, an organization engaged since 1985 in countering military recruitment in DC area high schools and educating young people about their options with regard to the military. Beginning with the war in Viet Nam, Judge was a life-long anti-war activist and tireless supporter of active-duty soldiers and veterans.

 

"It is our view that military enlistment puts youth, especially African American youth, at special risk, not only for combat duty, injury and fatality, but for military discipline and less than honorable discharge, which can ruin their chances for employment once they get out. There are other options available to them."


In the 1970's the Selective Service System and the paper draft became unworkable, requiring four induction orders to get one report. Boards  were under siege by anti-war and anti-draft forces, resistance of many kinds was rampant. The lottery system failed to dampen the dissent, since people who knew they were going to be drafted ahead of time became all the more active. Local draft board members quit in such numbers that even I was approached, as a knowledgeable draft counselor to join the board. I refused on the grounds that I could never vote anyone 1-A or eligible to go since I opposed conscription and the war.

At this point the Pentagon decided to replace the paper draft with a poverty draft, based on economic incentive and coercion. It has been working since then to draw in between 200-400,000 enlisted members annually. Soon after, they began to recruit larger numbers of women to "do the jobs men don't want to". Currently recruitment quotas are falling short, especially in Black communities, and reluctant parents are seen as part of the problem. The hidden problem is retention, since the military would have quadrupled by this time at that rate of enlistment, but the percentage who never finish their first time of enlistment drop out at a staggering rate.

I began bringing veterans of the Vietnam War into high schools in Dayton, Ohio in the late 1960s, and have continued since then to expose young people to the realities of military life, the recruiters' false claims and the risks in combat or out. I did it first through Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization, then Dayton Draft & Military Counseling, and since 1985 in DC through C.H.O.I.C.E.S.

The key is to address the broader issues of militarization of the schools and privacy rights for students in community forums and at meetings of the school board and city council. Good counter-recruitment also provides alternatives in the civilian sector to help the poor and people of color, who are the first targets of the poverty draft, to find ways to break into the job market, go to a trade school, join an apprenticeship program, get job skills and placement help, and find money for college without enlisting in the military.

John Judge -- counselor, C.H.O.I.C.E.S.
 
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Videos
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Researching Pop Culture and Militarism - Selene Rivas Article Count:  7

 

https://nnomy.org/popcultureandmilitarism/

Selene Rivas presents for the International Week of Action Against the Militarisation of Youth a series of brief articles exploring how the U.S. citizenry has been normalized to accept a permanent state of militarism through popular culture: Movies, video games and comic books. From Monday, November 20th and continuing through Sunday the 26th of November, 2017, a new segment of this series of short articles will be featured each day. Select from the articles below.

You can find out more about the Week Of Action at War Resisters' International.

Edward Hasbrouck Article Count:  5

Edward Hasbrouck grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He considers myself primarily a political activist. Hasbrouck began his resistance to the violence of illegitimate authority as an elected but nonvoting student representative to the local school board and as an activist for peace, disarmament, and students' rights. His first book was a handbook for high school students on their legal rights co-authored in the summer of 1977, between high school and college, as an intern for the student service bureau of the Massachusetts Department of Education. He majored in political science at the University of Chicago until leaving school to pursue direct involvement in political activism.

 

 

Conscription of young people to fight old people's wars is one of the ultimate expressions of ageism, and for me, resistance to an ageist draft was first and foremost a component and continuation of the struggle for youth liberation. The religious and authoritarian justifications for conscription and war are remarkably similar to the religious and authoritarian rationales for violence against children and for slavery. - Edward Hasbrouck

In 1980, after a five-year hiatus, the U.S. government reinstated the requirement that all young men register for military conscription with the Selective Service System. In 1982, Hasbrouck was selected for criminal prosecution by the U.S. Department of "Justice" (specifically, by William Weld and Robert Mueller) as one of the people they considered the most vocal of the several million nonregistrants for the draft. As one of 20 nonregistrants who were prosecuted before the government abandoned the enforcement of draft registration, Hasbrouck was convicted and "served" four and a half months in a Federal Prison Camp in 1983-1984. The high-profile trials of resistance organizers proved counterproductive for the government. These trials served only to call attention to the government's inability to prosecute more than a token number of nonregistrants, and reassured nonregistrants that they were not alone in their resistance and were in no danger of prosecution unless they called attention to themselves.

 

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NNOMY is Funded by

The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)
is supported by individual contributions and grants from the Craigslist Charitable Fund and the AJMuste Foundation for Peace & Justice
 
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