Rulers talk about the draft
I. Puppets in place
II. Draft of ex-soldiers already under way
III. Military recruiting and race/nationality
IV. How rulers think about personnel shortages
I. New puppets in place, same old national oppression of Iraqis
On June 28th, the United $tates stopped trying to
be the direct government of Iraq. Bush's colonial
official L. Paul Bremer III handed power over to
Iraqi puppets who have no sanction from the Iraqi
people of any sort.
We at MIM are aware that many of our readers had
given Uncle $am a break till June 30th, because
for many months, the Bush administration was
talking about the June 30th "hand-off." Many
including naive supporters of the Republicans
believed that Bush would leave Iraq on June 30th
in order not to have the issue hanging over the
presidential election in November.
It is important
to be able to distinguish rhetoric about "hand
overs" like that from the military realities of a
given invasion. This invasion was never about
just capturing Saddam Hussein or even weapons of mass destruction,
which is why the troops are still there.
Without the troops the U.$. political control would
collapse.
Draft-age people should now see that the u.$.
military continues to occupy Iraq despite the
hand-off to Iraq puppets who are dependent on U.$.
troops for "security." In fact, Bush continues to
talk about sending more, not fewer troops.
II. Draft of ex-soldiers already under way
Not only that, but of great significance is the
fact that Bush called up former troops based on a
clause in their contracts that makes it possible
to call them back to duty once they have left the
military services. As MIM told our readers
he would back in May, Bush called up the Individual Ready Reserve.
MIM Notes considered that maybe
Bush only called up a few people in states he has
no chance of losing in November, but that is not the case,
because Bush called up former troops in 48 states
of the United $tates. For example, "Twenty-five
former National Guardsmen and 171 former Army
soldiers in Louisiana are being recalled to active
duty. They are among about 5,600 retired and
discharged soldiers being involuntarily returned
to active duty for possible service in Iraq or
Afghanistan in the first substantial call-up of
the Individual Ready Reserve since the 1991
Persian Gulf War."(1)
The fact that Democratic presidential
candidate John Kerry blasted Bush for the
"back-door draft"(3) that prevents "volunteers"
from retiring shows that there is a very important goal
involved here for Bush. He surely knows
that 70% of the public opposes a draft right
now(2) and his call-up and stop-loss orders do not help Bush's chances
among military personnel--except for
those most itching to fight. Even if the IRR members
do not object, Bush had to have known how much
media his "stop-loss" and IRR call-up measures
would have generated.
Bush is politician enough to know in advance that
his call-up of the Individual Ready Reserve would
potentially cost him in elections in November; yet Bush still
went ahead. So, we stop to consider three separate
but possibly overlapping things that Bush may think he
is gaining for that price: 1) creating a public opinion
atmosphere of sacrifice for the "War on Terror"
that also helps his election chances 2)
scraping the bottom of the barrel because he
really needs to to prop up his puppets in Iraq 3)
faking a crisis to give the military a much higher
profile and justifications for expanded budgets; although
this latter could also backfire by funding personnel at the expense of weapons
systems according to some bourgeois analysts of
imperialist financing.
With regard to the budget, Bush is the type of Reagan Republican who claims to
oppose the draft and not care about deficit-spending
to benefit the military. However, while Bush may
himself believe in opposing the draft while supporting
higher military spending, in fact, his actions make
the draft more likely, whatever his intentions.
Bush may believe that Reagan proved that deficit-spending
"doesn't matter," but Congress may decide he is wrong.
At some point, having a large military budget in front of it
to pay for "volunteers" may cause the Congress to want
to go whole hog and get non-volunteers, perhaps for less
money per soldier, perhaps more. There will be arguments
about it both ways. Part of the equation will be how to
snooker the public into giving more to the military by
way of taxes. Some would say that with a national service
requirement, volunteering for combat would increase based
on a certain analysis of Vietnam which boils down to the
enthusiasm of youth and how to bring it out.
III. Military recruiting and race/nationality
The New York Times claims in a July
3rd story that a bill for a draft by
Senator Ernest F. Hollings and Black House Member
Charles Rangel has no support from Republicans.(2)
That's not exactly right.
In April, Senator Chuck Hagel (Republican Party
Nebraska) not only changed position to raise supporting the draft
but suggested a mandatory two year military service
on the "Today" show. Hagel also
raised the same reasoning as Rangel--that it would
spread the burden of fighting by class more
evenly.
More important is the reasoning the rulers
themselves use when it comes to whether a draft is
necessary: "'You have drafts when you can't get
the requisite numbers,' said the chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee, Representative
Duncan Hunter, Republican of California. 'There is
not now indications that you can't get the
requisite numbers. But we watch those numbers
every month.'"(2)
The numbers show that recruiting is falling about
10% short of goals. Those numbers would be different if
there were an attack on u.$. soil from Iraqis, and
not just some propaganda from Cheney about links
between 911 and Saddam Hussein. The importance of
"those numbers every month" revolves around
military pay and also ideological ardor for the
war among the military itself. If the bourgeoisie
succeeds in "educating" the public to its view of
international affairs, the enthusiasm for fighting
will be greater. Mostly by default, 17 and 18-
year-old Amerikans have no education about the
Third World, except from military service abroad.
A portion at any time will be ignorant and
adventurist enough to go fight for whatever the
government says. The question is whether that
portion is enough for the imperialists' current
plans and future aggressions. The military
recruiting/retention statistic or portion of youth
willing to "serve" would not be the same for
all political contexts and historical periods.
In recruiting at this time, speculation abounds
that recruits will be disproportionately
desperate sorts. Sergeant Everett Best recruits this way: "'I
tell them straight up. Miami is the biggest war
zone we've got,' he said. 'Every time you turn on
the TV we see someone shot.'"(4) It's comments like
these that leave part of Amerika realizing that
the military takes advantage of the ignorant among
us and this in itself creates a political basis for
the draft among some of the more fair but
nonetheless bourgeois-minded who seek to oppress and
exploit Iraq but not a particular group of Amerikans.
Sergeant Michael Bass, "uses simple
figures. Nine people from southern Florida have
died in Iraq, compared with 338 murders in the
Florida region last year: 'They have a better
chance in the army than on the streets of Miami.'"(4)
We should all be clear that this is fallacious reasoning--
the same underlying mathematical
method error underlying claims that say Hitler was relatively harmless compared
with Stalin and Mao as the idiotic
Black Book of Communism says. In actual fact, despite the
u$a's murder rate so disgraceful for such a rich country,
urban areas such as southern Florida are safer than serving
in Iraq.
We cannot compare 9 with 338 the way Sergeant
Michael Bass did. We have to take as many people
living in southern Florida and put them in Iraq to
have a fair comparison. Miami by itself has
370,000 people. Less than half that would be the
total troops of the u$a in Iraq. Hence, we cannot
do a literal comparison, because the number of
southern Florida soldiers exposed to murder in
Iraq is much smaller than the total number
of people exposed to murder in southern Florida.
We have to do a calculation for how many people
die per 100,000 per year both in Iraq and southern
Florida. The united $tates had 866 deaths in 466
days in Iraq. That would be 678 deaths in 365
days. That's approximately 484 per 100,000 troops
in Iraq one year. Now we take the sergeant's 338
figure. That is 338 deaths for all the population
of southern Florida, when Miami by itself is over
370,000. That means that there are much fewer than 91
murders per 100,000 in southern Florida once we
account for the rest of the population of southern
Florida and not just Miami. That 91 number
should be compared with the 484 deaths in Iraq per 100,000 troops.
"Hostile fire" accounted for 657 out 880 (a more
recent toll than the 866 above) deaths. We don't really
see any reason to separate "friendly fire" deaths.
Moreover, "accidents" also need scrutiny,
to see if there is a higher "accident rate" in Iraq,
given the equipment that soldiers use compared with their
environments at home.
In daily life we need to use math to have what is
called "a sense of proportion." Everett Best tries
to fool his recruits into thinking they are 37
times better off in Iraq than Miami by comparing 9
with 338. By only obtaining the population of
Miami and doing some division we see that in fact
people are more than 5 times better off in Miami
than Iraq when it comes to exposure to death. If
we do a little more research, we find that Miami
had only 65 murders in 2002 and 66 in 2001.(5)
Using the 2002 figure, that is less than 18 per
100,000 people per year dying of murder in Miami.
So in fact, one could be seen as more than 26
times better off in Miami on this score, so
Sergeant Michael Bass would
seem to have it exactly upside-down.
Nor is this a problem just with some lower-level
recruiters. "Defense Secretary" Donald Rumsfeld
started the ball rolling with the military
recruiters by talking about the murder rate in
Washington DC. When he was under fire for
casualties in Iraq in June 2003, Rumsfeld himself
implied that Iraq is safer than Washington DC. Fox
News and frontpagemag.com took this to refer to
all violence in Iraq, and excluded violence by
u.$. soldiers or people in civil war to come to a
ridiculous conclusion that order is fine in
Baghdad when in fact the total u.$.-caused deaths
in Iraq fully equal what Saddam Hussein was doing
per year by the imperialists' own wild estimates
of Saddam Hussein's violence.(6) When we consider
that the frontier-mentality Amerikkkans installed
Saddam Hussein to begin with through aid from the
CIA, we can see that violence traces back to the
Amerikans in any case.
Alas, for the 18-year-old Black man of DC, Iraq is
a marginally safer place than DC if we assume that
Blacks are not a disproportionate share of the
casualties out of the soldiers in Iraq.
DC usually leads in murder each year, but the
situation is only slightly better for Blacks
in Detroit, Baltimore and New Orleans.
There are
two separate questions here. Blacks had 14.3% of
the casualties in Iraq at one point,(7) compared
with 12.8% of the U.$. population. That is
relevant when we talk about why Blacks should have
their own nation and not sacrifice their youth to
imperialism. When it comes to the DC question
though, that particular ratio is not quite
relevant, because Blacks are a disproportionate
share of recruitable young people and the
military.
In fiscal year 2002, whites were 66.96% of
recruits and Blacks were 15.71%.(8) Of the groups
"white," "Black," "Hispanic" and "other,"
"Hispanic" is the only under-represented group in
the recent military recruits based on the 18-24 age group pool.
On the whole, DC is much safer (for the average
Amerikan thinking about being a soldier) than Iraq
since DC's murder rate as a whole is only 45.8 per
100,000 compared with the 482 per 100,000 death
rate for troops in Iraq. That Iraq figure is even more than 10 times worse
than the victimization of Black men inside U.$. borders.
Black men suffered homicide at a rate of 37.5 per 100,000
in 1999.(9)
The real relevant factors
here are age and gender. When we look specifically
at 18-year-old Black men considering DC or Iraq,
there is not much difference. Ditto Baltimore,
Detroit and New Orleans.
As their excuse for slavery or theft in the case
of whites or out of stupidity by people of other
races, the racists are always ready to say that
Blacks are genetically inclined to crime against
themselves and others. The truth is that white
national oppression in places like the u$a and
southern Africa are responsible for high crime rates.
If we look at a
place like Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), at 4.07
per 100,000 in 2000, (10) the murder rate is lower
than in the u$A, including by Blacks, of Black victims
and total u$a including whites. The highest murder
rates in Africa are found in the last countries to
de-colonize, places where there is a high proportion of whites
nearby so that they still exploit and rule the
Blacks up-close. The sooner Blacks in southern Africa take
control of their economic destinies, impose
socialism led by a party of Marx, Lenin & Mao and
the sooner they break with the settler bourgeoisie, the sooner problems such
as high murder rates will decline to normal.
It is easy to see why the "Secretary of Defense" harps on the
DC murder rate. He uses it to meet his recruiting goals
which would tend to fall short in the cities otherwise.
There are other people exaggerating Black crime
who are also having the effect of driving recruits
into the military. We speak of the Black
bourgeoisie talking about the country with the highest
imprisonment rate and an imprisonment rate of
Blacks higher than under Stalin in peace time.
There are many ready to say Blacks and Amerikans
generally "deserve it." Bill Cosby (11) is only
the latest in the news to exaggerate Black crime
to the benefit of military recruiters: "'The
incarcerated? These are not political criminals.
These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola.
People getting shot in the back of the head over a
piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are
outraged, saying, 'The cops shouldn't have shot
him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound
cake in his hand?'"(12) Yes, Cosby is justifying
police murders of Blacks and creating a certain
image when the majority of the incarcerated are
there for non-violent offenses. Although we agree
with his "work hard" and "stay in school" message,
with leaders like Cosby the Black nation is going
no where. In the current context, what Cosby
(with Jesse Jackson cheering him on) is doing
serves as the Black face for Rumsfeld.
It comes down, again, to a sense of proportion.
Without a sense of factual proportion, we cannot
pinpoint the correct cause of a problem. Black
youth aged 17 to 24 were about 12.8% of the Black nation
in 2000. Youths 17-24 were 32.7% of the homicide
victims among Blacks--2060. 2060 people out of
approximately 4.55 million people died in
homicides.(13) That's about 45 homicides in the 17-24 age group per
100,000 people. Black wimmin will be averaging about 15 per 100,000 in the
17-24 age group and the Black men will be averaging approximately
75 per 100,000. That's not even close to 484 per 100,000--
even for Black male youth.
Rumsfeld is telling Blacks that they have a choice of
being oppressed here or in Iraq. Bill Cosby leads toward incorrect
solutions such as volunteering to go to Iraq to be oppressed there.
We should not exaggerate urban crime or even Black oppression to make it
sound like going to Iraq is paradise. Blacks and Iraqis share the
same oppressor, so going to Iraq will not solve anything.
IV. How rulers think about personnel shortages
The Washington Post dipped directly into the subject
of over-extended U.$. military commitments
touched on in the documents that founded our organization
in 1983. "Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army's vice chief of
staff, said forces are 'absolutely' stretched
thin. . . .
"Some lawmakers said yesterday that they fear the
military is dangerously close to being broken.
Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), the committee's ranking
Democrat, said he believes that the military is
wearing its soldiers out. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.)
said he believes the military is 'using people
pretty hard right now' and needs to consider
expanding, an idea the Pentagon has resisted
because it would raise the military's budget.
"'We are also concerned that insufficient force
structure and manpower are leaving the services to
make a decision that I liken to eating the seed
corn,' committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.)
said."(14)
USA Today is also heating up the issue.(15) In contrast,
we at MIM warn people not to think that u.$. imperialism
is about to fall any minute. Uncle $am always has more
plans for global repression and he will get himself
into yet more trouble--which is another reason
the draft will come about unless there is a desperate
anti-militarist movement.
U.$. imperialism has more political
reserves and more cards to play. Amerikan youth should
cut Uncle $am off at the pass by stopping the draft, criticizing
those who make serving in the military sound better than life in the u$a
and opposing the imperialists' war on Iraq and "war on terrorism."
Notes:
1. http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/070704/opi_edi2001.shtml
2. "Military Draft? Official Denials
Leave Skeptics" New York Times 3Jul2004, p. 1.
3. Kerry's "back-door draft" comment made into numerous media.
Here is one story from South Carolina with a good overall
sense. http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/news/opinion/9129117.htm
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1258593,00.html
5. http://ci.ftlaud.fl.us/police/statucrcities2000.html
6. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11315 ;
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C105954%2C00.html ;
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/iraq/bushvshussein.html
7. http://www.imdiversity.com/Villages/African/politics_law/hutchinson_black_deaths_iraq.asp
You can count the faces for yourself here,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/casualties/facesofthefallen.htm
but that won't tell you what race/nationality the dead soldier considered him/herself
and it is not always easy to tell.
Let us know if you do a count.
8. http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2002/appendixb/b_03.htm
9. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2002, Table No. 289.
10. "United Nations Survey" "7th Survey" http://www.unodc.org/pdf/crime/seventh_survey/7sv.pdf
11. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/02/national/main627156.shtml
12. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/02/national/main627156.shtml
13. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2002, Table Nos. 14, 15, 288 & 289.
14. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35283-2004Jul7.html
15. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-06-30-oplede_x.htm ;
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-07-05-reservists-duty_x.htm ;
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