"Our Lives, Our Rights" campaign for US soldiers

Neurotoxin · 2012-06-26, 01:33 PM

Our Lives, Our Rights - March Forward

Click the link. Discuss.

Vash02 · 2012-06-26, 03:39 PM

Leaving in 2014. Campaign won before they even started.

Saifoda · 2012-06-26, 04:51 PM

Sounds like a good way for a lot of Soldiers to get a dishonorable. Then again, that might be better than being deployed.

Neurotoxin · 2012-06-29, 01:58 PM

CutterJohn · 2012-06-29, 09:15 PM

I'd settle for a truth in advertising campaign on recruitment ads. If they couldn't sell the military as an awesome adventure to 18 year old kids anymore, perhaps there would be fewer people that join and become completely disillusioned.

But then I also want a draft. Not because I like the draft, but because its the only way to get people to pay attention. When everyone has some skin in the game, our use of military would be under much higher scrutiny, and frivolous use would not be tolerated.

But as for these guys? I have one question. What the fuck did they expect? The war and occupation have been going on for 10 years now.

ArcIyte · 2012-07-01, 08:52 AM

This is rich. They joined the US Military Welfare Complex and when their turn comes to go sit in a FOB they go awol?

First, I have nothing but ire for just about everything that's happened in the middle east. Wars and occupations brought on by misinformation and a ridiculous alliance with Israel.

However, they signed a contract. They were to follow the orders of their superiors, and in return they would be paid a wage/fully insured/given free college. It is a job just like any other (albeit a very dangerous one), and it was one they volunteered for.

Baneblade · 2012-07-01, 10:56 AM

They gave the rights to their lives away when they signed up.

Neurotoxin · 2012-07-02, 01:51 PM

Originally Posted by ArcIyte

It is a job just like any other (albeit a very dangerous one), and it was one they volunteered for.

I agree that the US has no place in the Middle East, and that Israel is just being used as an extension of the US military. I also agree with CutterJohn's statement that we shouldn't promote soldiers as being epic heroes, though a draft in America would pretty much spark a revolution in the streets (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

Any "job" that allows, requires, and demands that one perform activities that are above the law for ordinary citizens isn't just an ordinary job. Police and military are required to carry a firearm, and are trained to shoot-to-kill. That is no ordinary job.

Many of these folks would have taken normal jobs if they were available, and in some cases if they even had a proper education available. Many of them wouldn't have signed up if they got an honest assessment from recruiters. If it was an ordinary job they could quit at any time, and may only have to pay out for not completing a contract.

Normally people aren't exposed to cancer-causing agents without due warning, but soldiers are exposed to Depleted Uranium, of which they get one crappy little video that doesn't really tell them they'll have cancer and renal failure and other nasty stuff if they don't take their own life within 20 years of finishing service. Some parts of the military say attempted suicide rate isn't an issue, or just try to downplay the actual numbers, but last time I checked it was somewhere between 18 to 22 per day (about 3 a day are successful), active duty and veterans combined. What other jobs have as high a suicide rate in America?

When someone realizes they aren't going to spread freedom and democracy, but are just tools in another rich man's war to destabilize a foreign nation that posed no threat beforehand. Firebombing neighborhoods with white phosphorus, creating perimeters that force soldiers to fire on and kill children and elderly, using 360-degree rotational fire to ensure that everyone in sight is killed, raping civilian women and even raping fellow servicewomen. That is the US freeing a nation and spreading democracy? Are these things that any normal "job" or volunteer work would require, promote, or even allow?

American-style "democracy" (a representative republic ruled by corporate oligarchy, based purely on capitalism so nobody gets the goods they need without letting themselves be oppressed as laborers) is a terrible system to begin with, we shouldn't be smearing that shit all over the planet, but its far worse when it is meant to be deployed by a monstrous and barbaric military regime.

US had no business in the Middle East. US had no business in North Korea or Vietnam. US had no business in Somalia (1991, 1st place where the US started using Depleted Uranium). US had no business in Iran the last time, and the US doesn't belong there now. US has no business in Cuba, the only nation with which the US has a military base and NO diplomatic relations. US has no business spreading death and destruction under the guise of fighting oppression and installing democracy.

And so if the US has no business doing any of that, then why should any soldier who realizes that they are being used as tools in the world's most brutal regime not want to quit their job? If they are "volunteers" then it should be easy to quit. If it is a "job" it should be possible to quit. It is a contract to sign over one's basic humanity and suppress their personality in order to take the lives of already-oppressed people in foreign nations. I'm not religious, but that seems like a deal with the devil to me.

The thing that really stabs me is how many people I've seen make posts that they just enlisted or are going to be deployed. I wish I could get each and every one of them to agree to spend 15 minutes on the phone with the folks at March Forward, in order to at least get a fair assessment of the brutal horrors they'll be facing (or committing) on a daily basis. The number for the National Branch for March Forward is (213) 251-1025

ItsTheSheppy · 2012-07-02, 02:02 PM

I don't know. Seems to me that the entire idea of a disciplined military flies out the window once you have soldiers who can opt-out of orders that are given to them. It's not a perfect world. If it was, we wouldn't need armies.

This is why doing the research is useful before signing. Know what you're getting into. In some cases this leads to tragedy, and the US military is definitely at fault for misrepresenting what the military is all about ("It's like summer sports camp, with guns and sky diving!"), but it's not like the information isn't all there if you're willing to do the homework.

Neurotoxin · 2012-07-02, 02:33 PM

When someone is asked to commit a war crime, they should be able to decline.

ItsTheSheppy · 2012-07-02, 02:41 PM

Originally Posted by Neurotoxin

When someone is asked to commit a war crime, they should be able to decline.

Of course, there are always gray areas.

There's a wide gap between 'occupying a foreign country' to 'being told to shoot children in the country you're occupying'. If they can declare military actions like the ones we've been embarking on as war crimes, then the soldiers would have a legal stance from which to disobey orders. But from my meager understanding, I don't think it counts.

Neurotoxin · 2012-07-02, 03:30 PM

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military personnel need to obey the “lawful command of his superior officer,” 891.ART.91 (2), the “lawful order of a warrant officer”, 892.ART.92 (1) the “lawful general order”, 892.ART.92 (2) “lawful order”. In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.

US Military has been using depleted uranium since 1991. If you get an opportunity, watch "Iraq: The Lost Generation" to see one journalist's exploration into why the rate of successful healthy live births has dropped to a slim margin in areas where depleted uranium has been used. The film first starts with exploring the use of white phosphorus as the culprit, citing how it spreads everywhere and burns "military targets" and neighborhoods of civilians alive in their homes. Nuclear arms (depleted uranium, cold nukes as I call them), chemical weapons, mass incendiary devices, these are bad enough when they aren't being used on civilians. They have been used on civilians and enemy combatants alike, even from the very start of the invasions.

Know how when a no-fly zone is set up, all the airports and airstrips are bombed? Those include state facilities and commercial facilities, not just military facilities. That means its a bright sunny day, and all of a sudden you and the airport you worked in / were traveling from are now rubble (and you are dead).

If we were actually threatened by a sovereign nation, like a nation actually mobilizes a fleet of aircraft and ships and troop transports to attack America, the military would be reactionary and crush them without a second thought before the dust settles. The last time a foreign military mobilized a force like that against us was lil ol' Japan with Pearl Harbor. How much further did they get after that? And after America beat them, America dropped two fancy new bombs on them just so the rest of the world could witness US military might.

America doesn't fight "good" wars, American invasions attempt to install a style of government that lets us do business there more easily. The fight against Communism and Socialism (democratic socialism, as opposed to social democracy we see in Europe) and Theocracy (except where we support it, Saudi Arabia and Tibet if the CIA succeeded) has always been on the forefront of America's military agenda. When was the last time America attacked a "free-market" Capitalist nation?

Between the war crimes America does commit, the destruction and destabilization of foreign nations, the fact that we aren't really ever being attacked by a nation and it's military, and the fact that it is so plainly blindingly obvious that America's military is used to battle against anything that isn't good for Capitalism, that is more than enough justification for anyone who becomes a soldier to know that their job isn't protecting America but protecting profit margins at the expense of foreign civilians.

Now I'd spend more time looking up all of America's war crimes but I'm sure there is a comprehensive list somewhere.

Baneblade · 2012-07-02, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by Neurotoxin

When someone is asked to commit a war crime, they should be able to decline.

Technically they can, but realistically it is difficult to do so. I guess the true test is whether you have more trouble following the order or standing up to the entire chain of command.

Warborn · 2012-07-03, 09:43 AM

I am bothered by this. Afghanistan is America's war. Sorry to say, but for American soldiers to be protesting this war is something I have no sympathy for. Where are the German soldiers protesting in an organized fashion? Or the British? I don't remember any of my fellow Canadian soldiers wanting to refuse deployment to Afghanistan, either. These other nations followed the US to Afghanistan and suffered many dead and wounded as a result. I feel like at the very least, US soldiers owe it to their allies who've been killed or maimed on their behalf to man the fuck up.

Vash02 · 2012-07-03, 11:50 AM

wow Neuro, you just spilled out some real psychotic BS. Most of the stuff you claimed I'm guessing is either untrue or just mistakes, not intentional orders to slaughter civilians.