Reading the Rules of Disengagement

[davidswanson]

Should soldiers follow illegal orders? Should they take part in illegal wars and occupations? And if they don't want to do so, what choices do they have? And what can we do to help them? These are some of the questions addressed in a new book by Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd called "Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent."


From: http://www.gregmooreart.com/portraits.html

This book addresses these topics as well as any I've yet seen. It draws from the latest actions taken by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and makes frequent comparisons to military resistance during the Vietnam War, examining how the laws and rules have changed. The book examines conscientious objection and refusals to participate, but also the exercise of free speech and other political rights while "serving" in the military.

In addition, it examines the current state of resistance within the military to racism -- both racism toward members of the military and racism toward foreign targets for killing, and the connection between the two. It takes a similar and insightful look at sexual harassment and sexual assault within the military.

The book also examines the provision of medical care to injured troops, or the lack thereof, and the hardships faced by military families, as well as the ways in which military family members are resisting illegal wars. This is an ideal book to hand to any young person who is considering enlisting in the military.


From: http://www.gregmooreart.com/portraits.html

But overwhelmingly the most powerful chapter is a short one that simply recounts the highlights of the Winter Soldier testimony presented by Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971 and by Iraq Veterans Against the War in 2008. No torture memo, no Red Cross report, no former vice president's fantasy approaches in horrifying sickness the events recounted by these men and women whom we send into these hells and charge with stoking the fires. Here are tales of murder, rape, and torture, people bound with copper wire and tossed from airplanes, families burned, ears cut off, heads cut off, children massacred, girls raped, tear gas and CS gas and skinning alive and crucifixion, genitals electroshocked, limbs hacked off, food poisoned, yanking fathers out of homes and beating them in front of their families, beating children, shooting random passersby, arming unarmed corpses with "drop weapons," prizes for those who kill by stabbing, slamming children to the ground, riddling apartment buildings with bullets, firing on all taxis, and worse than all of it: bombs dropped on houses. And to cap it off, the suicides of veterans upon returning home, as recounted by their grieving family members.


From: http://www.gregmooreart.com/portraits.html

War is hell and war makers behave as devils. Those within the military have ways out and examples to follow. It is not an easy path, but it is the only decent one.

The rest of us meanwhile, who have the privilege of following other roads freely have a fundamental duty to end the illegal orders so that soldiers no longer have to struggle to disobey them. We have a duty to force Congress to stop using our money to compel such crimes. Every war funding bill is a crime against humanity. And every crime against humanity committed by our nation is blood on all of our hands.

We can wash it away.

We must wash it away.

[timeforpeace]

1. Are you suggesting that this administration is warmongering?

[unhappycamper]

2. Well, if davidswanson isn't suggesting that, I am.

When you you escalate bodies on the ground (Afghanistan), when you have a war supplemental or when you continue on this insane path towards the forever war, I would call that warmongering.

[flakban]

3. I second that! (nt)

[davidswanson]

4. Heavens No!

I was just supposing out loud what we might do in some alternative universe where everything WASN'T perfect. Sorry for the confusion!

[bahrbearian]

6. Not War-mongering, Empire Building.

If we have to kill innocent people so be it.

[Time for change]

5. That book sounds like a must read

[Ozymanithrax]

7. The UCMJ requires soldiers refuse to follow illegal orders...

Though the issues are more complex than that. An enlisted man given an order can insist on that order being placed in writing. An officer that writes the order down and signs it has legally incriminated himself if the order was illegal. But once written down, the enlisted man or a junior officers had few alternatives than to legally follow the order. Being ordered to blow away an unarmed civilian, or attack a village that has not fired on US soldiers might be clear. Out on the battlefield things are rarely that sharply defined. An enlisted person that refuses to follow that written order can be tried by a courts martial.

AS for illegal war. The conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were approved and authorized by our congress. The occupation of Iraq was approved and authorized by Congress in accordance with out laws. That is the very definition of legal. Though there are other bureaucracies that may consider parts or all of these actions illegal, it is our own laws that matter in most cases. The military does not decide who to fight or when to fight. Once placed into combat by authorized members of our government they will find it very difficult to legally refuse.

Actions such as rape, murder, and torture are against military and civilian law. (Killing someone in war is not murder unless it meets other tests, such as a violation of the rules of engagement or the Geneva Convention.) Individual acts are treated as crimes by individuals. Most soldiers don't do these things just as most civilians never rape or murder their neighbors. When such crimes become a tactic of subjugation, which has been the classic use of rape and murder of civilians throughout history, they are war-crimes and those who set such policies are complicit in the crime if they can be brought to trial.

[Wednesdays]

8. K&R

:kick: