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Posted October 8, 2003
Ask Eric
I would like to know if its possible to go through the military as conscientious objector without getting activated for war? I would like some ideas on how to write a conscientious objector statement?
I am interested in 3 months basic training in national guard for the physical improvement, positive attitude, teamwork, job training and outdoors. I would like to apply the job training in the parks. I would like to try a MOS of security that could be applied to working as park service helper and or environmental work.
Is there a noncombatant status or way of refusing taking arms in a war? I have not signed any agreement with the military yet. I probably won't sign unless I am fairly sure I would not be activated. I don't believe in war.
Managing Editor Eric Garris replies:
The
best place to find out the answer to this and related questions is the
Central Committee on Conscientious Objectors:
http://www.objector.org/.
Most accurate analysis I have yet read on the Israeli strike against Syria.
I became a monthly contributor during your pledge week. Keep it up!
Justin Raimondo replies:
Thanks, Diane, for your comments – and many thanks for signing up for our monthly pledge program! This is the most important fundraising effort we run, and I encourage our readers who have not yet done so to follow Diane's good example.
I love this website and will continue to support it. One suggestion to JR: quit smoking, or at least, drop the cigarette from your photo.
Justin Raimondo replies:
How do you know it's a cigarette.....?
Justin Raimondo cites Perle & Company's "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" as providing the roadmap for peace that Israel is really following. However, "A Clean Break" outlines this strategy:
"Israel can make a clean break from the past and establish a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership based... by stressing that Israel is self-reliant, does not need U.S. troops in any capacity to defend it... Such self-reliance will grant Israel greater freedom of action and remove a significant lever of pressure used against it in the past. ...To reinforce this point, the Prime Minister can use his forthcoming visit to announce that Israel is now mature enough to cut itself free immediately from at least US economic aid and loan guarantees at least, which prevent economic reform..."
So far, the break is anything but clean, as Sharon's strategy for securing the realm has been on OUR dime.
~ S. Ashfield, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
One point not touched on is the timing of the recent attack on Syria, especially with respect to the UN Security Council.
At the moment the Bush Administration is engaged in a rather ambivalent attempt to engage international support (both military and financial) for the occupation of Iraq. This is already very difficult as the administration is extremely loathed to surrender any control over Iraq to anyone else, and the rest of the world is going to be very reluctant to contribute anything unless there is a very considerable transfer of control.
Central to this process is a new UN resolution. Originally it was intended to have this passed before Bush's speech to the UN on 23 September. However this deadline was missed. It remains important to have a resolution prior to the start of the Iraq Donor's Conference on 23 October. Having such a resolution and its precise wording may be important in whether the conference is successful or is an embarrassing flop. (I have been expecting an embarrassing flop for some time. This seems to be getting more, not less, likely.)
Given the importance of the US maintaining support in Security Council for the best possible resolution with as close to unanimity as possible, this really is not a good time for the US to veto a resolution condemning Israel for an unjustifiable attack on a current member of that council.
There has to be the suspicion that Sharon is deliberate sabotaging Bush's attempts to engage the U.N. I think he hopes that once he has wrecked all diplomatic possibilities, the US will (reluctantly) go along with his plans for all-out war on the Arab world in general.
If Ran Cohen doesn't believe Jews when they speak out against anti-semitism why doesn't he believe the Defense Minister of Syria is anti-semitic when he says "The Mossad planned the ramming of the two hijacked planes into the WTC as part of a Jewish conspiracy" and the Syrian Ambassador to Turkey says he has "proof" that 4000 Jews didn't show up for at the WTC on 9/11/01 and the hundreds of other articles saying the same thing.
Arab leaders continually urge killing all Jews.
In Latvia a magazine's cover story was entitled "Jews rule the world." The British magazine The New Statesman runs a cover story entitled "A Kosher Conspiracy."
Speech after speech by ... Muslim Arabs advocates killing Jews anywhere they can be found.
In the United States there are over 100 organizations dedicated to hating Jews.
I could provide literally tens of thousands of current quotes urging hatred of Jews and calling for the imprisonment or murder of the Jews. Space and time prevent the listing in one place of all lies about Jews and urging serious action, including mass murder of Jews be taken.
I don't believe that you cannot be aware of all of the lies and activities urging hatred Jews.
Is it that if you come out on the side of the haters you will show them "I'm a good one" and will not be subject to whatever they do against Jews. Whatever your motivation, you seek to deny reality. Extreme denial of reality is mental illness or dishonesty.
Ran HaCohen replies:
Indeed, denial of reality is mental illness or dishonesty, but this applies also to your reading of my column.
I never claimed anti-Semitism did not exist. Your examples from Syria and the Arab world simply echo what I myself wrote about "countries where anti-semitism is still thriving today – mostly poor Muslim countries".
I don't know what Latvian magazine you are talking about, but it would only be fair to mention that Latvia's President Ulmanis publicly apologised for his country's participation in the Nazi slaughter of Jews, http://www.adl.org/presrele/Mise_00/3091-00.asp, and clearly condemned neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination. Just a couple of generations ago anti-Semitism was mainstream, and tolerance was marginal; now it has reversed.
As for the "kosher conspiracy" in The New Statesman, intellectual honesty should have made you mention its editor's apology as well. Again, this affirms my claim: up to World War II, probably no editor would have bothered to apologise.
In short, nothing of what you say refutes or even contradicts a single word of my column. It seems to be more convenient for you to confront arguments I never raised, like that anti-Semitism does not exist, than to face my actual assertions about the abuse of alleged anti-Semitism.
Before the neocons beat me to it, Ran HaCohen is obviously a self-hating Jew. The cook who undercooked Uncle Leo's hamburger on Seinfeld – beyond doubt an anti-semite. And if you laughed at that joke, my friend, you'd better scrutinize your own attitudes and get your mind right.
Ran HaCohen replies:
Sorry I forgot to mention this. Loyal to the racist principle, that Jews and non-Jews deserve different insults, the parallel of accusing Israel-critical non-Jews of anti-Semitism is accusing Israel-critical Jews of "self-hatred". Never understood this one, I admit: I don't hate myself, and if hating some Jew is enough to earn the title, then those accusing me of "self-hatred" sound pretty hateful towards me, so they deserve the title themselves.
So because I'm permitted to vote and maybe even run the country I should be grateful and know in my little Jewish heart that anti-Semitism is gone forever? Thank god. It sure is great to be a Jew these days isn't it? We can walk and talk amongst the rest of the world. We can be just like everyone else. How lucky can you get?
I was sure some anti-Semites lurked around out there but according to Ran HaCohen it's just my imagination. I, like all other Jews (every one of us, we are all the same) are too caught up in pretending anti-Semitism exists.
I know nothing about Ran HaCohen's bio and he doesn't know anything about me. Yet he can write about Jews over reacting to or "abusing" what they perceive as anti-Semitism when he doesn't know every Jew or what we have personally experienced. I might have agreed with some of his article if he didn't come across as such a self-righteous arrogant.... I don't need to be told when anti-Semitism exists or when it doesn't. I'm not that much of an idiot that I can't figure it out.
I think these days most religions and races are a little sensitive, maybe at times overly sensitive to what they think might be racism. But that's the way it is. Because the truth is that racism and anti-Semitism still shine brightly in this world whether some want to believe it or not.
I sure hope Ran HaCohen is Jewish. Is he?
Ran HaCohen replies:
(1) I never wrote that anti-Semitism was gone forever. Nevertheless, true and false accusation of anti-Semitism (just like actual and alleged Palestinian terrorism) are abused to silence justified criticism of Israel's occupation atrocities.
(2) You are right to point out a flaw in my research in that I didn't get to know every Jew personally before writing. There are about 13 million of us worldwide, I promise to get to each of them if given enough time. Meanwhile, if you personally do not abuse anti-Semitism, I am happy; check your rabbi, Jewish community, Jewish newspaper etc.
(3) When you say "the truth is that racism and anti-Semitism still shine brightly in this world", it really sounds like anti-Semitism is your sunshine. That's what I meant when I said that anti-Semitism became the single most important element of Jewish identity.
I consider the sentence "Jews may believe... but they are all united by their unlimited belief in anti-Semitism" in itself to be one of the most insulting things I have ever read. A terrible slur on Jews.
And "a few generations ago" Jews in America were doing just fine. As they have been, unless I missed something, since, or before the Revolutionary War.
anti-Semitism just could not be their overweening context, or would they intermarry in such large numbers, or make every effort to become integrated into American culture and society?
The article distresses me. Not every Jew can be manipulated with the anti-Semitism bogeyman.
Finally, I wish you would write more often
Enough of the simple generalizations, back up your statements with facts. Most Macedonians live by "verezija" i.e. running up tabs at local stores and cafe's. NGO's might have some effect in Skopje or maybe Tetovo but as far as the rest of the country is concerned NGO's are few and far between. Yes 40% are officially unemployed, but what percentage are employed by the NGO's? Is their salary above the mean salary of employed Macedonians? How long do typical NGO jobs last in Macedonia? Please, I would like to see more concrete evidence of the damaging effects of NGO's. At least it provides people of Macedonia with a paycheck, which they can invest /spend any way they deem necessary.
Christopher Deliso replies:
While you raise some good points, I have to disagree with your characterization of the effect of NGO's. By no means is their influence consigned to Skopje and Tetovo. I know of several instances of NGO corruption and/or enrichment in places like Kriva Palanka, Negotino, some villages and especially Kumanovo. Why don't I report on the specific details of these incidents? Frankly, because it is not in my interest. I live in Macedonia – one enormous village ruled by the village mentality – and I know that many of these unsavory characters would feel no qualms in responding to my investigations in violent ways.
For this reason I feel it is good enough to acquaint the reader with the general picture, rather than go into details that would mean absolutely nothing to foreign readers, but would just end up endangering myself and others here.
Finally, I don't believe that having access to any source of income at all is necessarily beneficial for the people; the psychological effects of reliance on handouts will have a disastrous effect. It is besides the point as to what percentage of people are employed by such organizations; it is sufficient for one per family or per extended family. And it doesn't matter either what length of time one is employed for; gains can be made quickly in some cases.
Of course, this does not mean that all NGO's are evil or that all people who work for them are corrupted. There have clearly been some benefits economically, however I fear that the ephemeral and uneven quality of their presence does not augur well for general long-term economic growth.
"Open Warfare: Bush vs the Intelligence"
It is really a wonder to me why Cheney isn't in prison right now. Nice article.
"Further, the process of transformation even if it brings about revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."
- from the PNAC's manifesto: "Rebuilding America's Defenses."
Sure looks like the PNAC's "new Pearl Harbor" worked pretty good.
Ivan Eland replies:
Thanks for your nice comment. Yes, you are right. The neo-cons should have said that even with a new Pearl Harbor, transforming U.S. defenses would require many years of high spending on the military!
I read with interest your article, I have to admit more out of the curiosity when the ex-Yugoslavia is in question.
There is not any major complaint, thank you. But never the less you cannot escape already familiar cliché; "But this is the Balkans, after all". Again cliché; "old resentments" (they are rather of the newest date). Anybody who read the history will not see the wars among ourselves. Our problems were foreign occupiers and our love for the freedom. The enemy occupiers invented such cliches as "Balkans" once when they gotten bitten up and chased away from our lands. Unfortunately they always come back in one form or another and history repeats again and again.
Alan Bock replies:
Good point, and in fact I remember doing a few columns back in the late 1980s that pointed out that for decades ethnic /cultural Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Kosovars, Albanians and others lived side-by-side reasonably peacefully, even intermarrying fairly often, noting that it was ambitious politicians like Milosevic (and others) who stirred up and intensified ethnic hostilities to promote their own power. Unfortunately, these often ill-intentioned efforts to divide people often work, and then create, as you note, recent resentments and grievances to add to the real and imagined ancient ones.
True enough, you caught me in a cliché I still think the Balkans are more fractious than most regions, but you've got me thinking about the reputation being due more to resistance to being artificially "united" by outside imperialist powers than a tendency to shed blood just because of intra-Balkan disputes. And it's worth considering whether being fractious, resisting unity, is really such a bad thing. In a world where international relations were more commerce than politics, proud regionalism would be almost entirely constructive and interesting. Unfortunately, politics and the desire for conquest still seem to be predominant.
I believe you unfairly denigrate us fundamentalist Christians in this article. Some of us fundamentalists were against the war from the first and are now even more firmly against the war. Fundamentally war is not Christian. Also Christians are opposed to lying and getting lied to.
Villains don't just hide behind the flag, the children, the old, the infirm etc. Some villains hide behind the cross some behind the Star of David and some behind the crescent as well. A Bible verse is instructive, "by their fruits you will know them". Just as it doesn't make sense to blame all Jews or all Muslims for the Palestinian mess, it doesn't make sense to blame me for George Bush.
I voted for Harry Brown last time and will probably have to vote for Howard Dean this time even though his socialism is as misdirected as the Pax Americana of George Bush.
Justin Raimondo replies:
You are absolutely correct, and I apologize if anything I wrote was taken to mean that fundamentalist Christians are necessarily pro- or antiwar. This war is most emphatically un-Christian, and thanks for helping me set the record straight.
Bravo to Justin Raimondo for his column on l'affaire Plame. But I have a different hypothesis about the intentions of the leakers. I agree with Mr. Raimondo that it is more than a case of discrediting Wilson by implying his assignment was a case of nepotism. But neither do I think simple retaliation and intimidation were behind the leak.
The neoconservatives have been in a running battle with the State Department and the CIA, whose policies toward the Middle East the former regard with suspicion. They see many of these policies as the products of "Arabist" specialists insufficiently solicitous of Israeli interests. The neocons are also disdainful of the traditional, treaty-based, carrot and stick approach to nuclear nonproliferation favored by the beltway establishment, and prefer a more aggressive policy of preemptive"counterproliferation."
I suspect the leak was designed simply to create the impression that Wilson's mission was not a neutral and independent endeavor, but a partisan job, instigated by the beltway political "enemies" of the neocons in an attempt to scuttle the war on Iraq. The perceived enemies in this case are nonproliferation specialists in the CIA. The leaker sought to discredit Wilson by closely connecting him with this group. The fact that the close connection was through marriage is incidental.
Of course, pointing out such a connection would be unlikely to have much of an effect on most Americans. But the leakers may have reckoned that the readers of a prominent conservative columnist like Robert Novak could be influenced by insinuations that Wilson represented a cabal of liberal, Arab-friendly, nuclear proliferation "softies" in the CIA, out to torpedo the hardheaded Bush administration (and Israeli) approach relying on military muscle and preemption.
We probably won't know for sure what the ultimate effect of the leak is until we find out exactly what job Ms. Plame was performing for the CIA.
~ Dan Kervick, Bow, New Hampshire
Sounds like the old "chicken and the egg" argument. Do the 80% who watch FOX News believe any or all of the three misconceptions regarding Iraq BECAUSE FOX News pushed these views as propaganda (which they did, of course), or because they already held these beliefs and watch FOX News to reinforce them? Same for the NPR/PBS crowd – did they not believe the misconceptions because they watch PBS/NPR, or because they already thought the business with Iraq was pure hooey?
Recently published Intro Psych textbooks (for instance, Morris and Maisto's "Understanding Psychology" published by Prentice Hall, at http://www.prenhall.com/morris) conclude that September 11, 2001 put this nation into a state known as "Post-traumatic Stress Disorder". This has a close relationship to "cognitive dissonance", in which two cognitions conflict: though it is well-known that most Americans mistrust politicians and government in general, most Americans (I call them the mythical 70%, since prior to Iraq War II, 70% of Americans supported the war) seem to trust Bush, et. al. Another example: it is also well-known that most Americans don't believe everything they read in the papers or hear on TV, but again, most Americans seem to believe what the media propagandists claim regarding Saddam /al Qaida /bin Laden connections.
Is the media to blame, or is the fact that most Americans want to believe (or at least justify the invasion of) Iraq had ample connection to 9-11 to blame?
~ Deborah Lagarde, CE, Media Issues (http://www.suite101.com/articles.cfm/media_issues)
I am an avid, daily reader of Antiwar.com. However I must protest Charley Reese’s article “Perfumed Prince.” I find it biased and deceptive since he is using an old quote from David Hackworth about General Clark without providing reference to a more recent article by Mr. Hackworth. Please follow this link to read Hackworth’s more recent sentiments.
Mr. Raimondo's "The Neo-Jacobins," hit the nail on the head as far the neoconservatives are concerned. Raimondo slices and dices these Trotskyists. Why are they Trotskyists? Because as the article points out so well, whether they were ever officially Trotskyists or not – and a not-so insignificant portion of them have been – their ideology is pure Trotsky. As Trotsky disagreed with Stalin about "socialism in one country," so do the neocons when they smear, er, I mean, debate their paleoconservative and libertarian critics.
I do believe, however, that a case can also be made that the neocons have a significant amount of Leninism in them as well. Being Leninists, they believe that war is the highest point of capitalism, as one can easily see by reading the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. As Raimondo has pointed out before, the Leninism sparks an innate desire to see all others in the "conservative movement," as it were, to be purged and sent to the gulag. Commissar Frum will continuously patrol the "conservative movement" in an endless effort to purge any criticism of the neocons' mad plans for the world domination and perpetual war.
Being both Trotskyist and Leninist, the neocons oppose their ideological cousins, the Mensheviks. The Mensheviks can be seen as the Democratic Party. The Mensheviks, who desired to keep "socialism in one country" and believed that Russia could never experience a truly socialist revolution before a capitalist revolution occurred – since Russia was a feudal society and to go from feudalism to socialism was something that Mensheviks found simply incongruous, believing the bourgeois revolution was the quintessential key to successful socialist revolution – found themselves as the despised enemies of Leninists. The Leninists figured that if the revolution could spread to Germany and the heart of Europe, it would be a success nevertheless.
In this way we can see the Leninist /Trotskyist neocons as being so revolutionary that they will simply bypass the agonizingly slow process of having a collectivist globalism in the form of the United Nations, NATO, WTO, etc., something the Mensheviks believe will ensure the inevitable collectivization of the world through a slow, insidious process. The neocons can't wait for something like that to happen. No, America must proceed with "permanent revolution," as Mr. Ledeen has said, copying Trotsky, and create the new world order of global "democracy" through ardent force. As Clinton's numerous interventions showed, the Mensheviks – or "Democrats" – do not disagree with the end result of the neocons per se but they do disagree on methods, much like the Leninist-Menshevik split. The Mensheviks will use force when it benefits the collectivization process, like in Kosovo just as the Leninists cheered on the bombs. One side will slowly envelop the world in globalist institutions whose mission just happens to be of a collectivist end game. The other will attempt to remake the world through "unilateral" destruction of Islamic nations.
Those are our choices in 2004. A Leninist or a Menshevik. Wow, would George Washington and Thomas Jefferson be proud of us.
Follow the Money
Ninety days in Iraq, 1200 inspectors, $300 million, and no WMD.
That comes to $250,000 per inspector, each on a budget of almost $3000 per day.
We're not talking fancy instruments or five star hotels here, folks, just inspectors in the desert looking for mirages.
Don't know about you, but I have a feeling I'd easily get by in Iraq on $3000 a month.
Since there's nothing to be found out there, who gives a beep that I'm not properly trained?
Heck, on that daily budget I'll even bring my own camel, laptop, and cool shades.
While I'm there, can I sign up for the $87 billion jackpot as well? Saves on the airline ticket.
I'd
like to call your attention to my daily-updated graph of US military deaths
in the Conquest of Iraq. I hope you find a way to use it.
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html
~ Ed Stephan