This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.


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 ;