Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2007

 



—Michelle Gutiérrez
    

The Christian right’s move to erode the landmark decision in Roe v. Wade as generated critique and fear by many. The 1973 Supreme Court decision gave women the right to terminate pregnancy in the pre-viable state by banning state laws that prohibited abortion. Since then, stipulations on abortion have been made on the state level, but generally Roe v. Wade has made tangible improvements in women’s reproductive choices and safety nationwide. Back alley abortions seemed to be a thing of the past. But, with the composition of the Supreme Court changing and a resurgence of “pro-life” advocacy, a ban on late-term abortion has passed and many states are debating the circumstances in which minors can have access to an abortion. Many women indeed fear that we’re heading back to the days when women’s reproductive choices will include a coat hanger and going to an unsafe abortion facility. But, if we are alarmed by the encroachment on women’s reproductive rights, we should pause and think about a population of Americans who have not been able to benefit from the Roe v. Wade decision at all. For women associated with the military, either as spouses or soldiers, there aren’t many reproductive choices to erode.

Women in most societies contend with gender inequality and inequality based on sex and sexuality, but for women in the military, much of this is experienced ten-fold. While there is sexism in civilian society, for female soldiers there is a greater threat of harassment and rape. Furthermore, if abused, women must make their way through hierarchies and bureaucracy that can make reporting abuses sometimes futile or even detrimental to one’s career and even safety.  The “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy makes things even more difficult for both straight women and lesbians in the military, since accusations of being lesbian are sometimes used as leverage for men who make unwanted sexual advances on women. For civilian women married to men in the military, there are other challenges: the constant moves, raising families alone, fear, worry, limited time to establish one’s own career, loneliness and isolation. And of course, there is greater incidence of family violence and abuse. Put simply, women associated with the military have it hard, even harder than women in civilian society.

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From Draft NOtices, April-June 2007


Film Review: G.I. Jesús | watch preview

— Jorge Mariscal

With the exception of John Wayne’s The Green Berets (1968), the long U.S. war in Southeast Asia produced no high-profile Hollywood films during its ten-year duration and only a handful of mainstream films immediately after the war’s end. As the U.S occupation of Iraq enters its fifth year, we already have a wide range of superb documentaries and two fictional films — Home of the Brave by veteran film maker Irwin Winkler and G.I. Jesús by Belgian writer-director Carl Colpaert.

G.I. Jesús (2006) chooses an unexpected angle on the debacle in Iraq by focusing on the issue of non-citizens serving in the U.S. military. The protagonist, Jesús Feliciano (Joe Arquette), is a Mexican-American whose immigration status is never made clear. Although early in the film he tells his wife, “I killed a lot of people to make us legal,” his flawless English and Chicano style suggest he is not a recent immigrant.

According to Department of Defense figures, some 60,000 immigrants were on active duty in the U.S. military at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. Were Jesús in fact “illegal” or undocumented, it would mean he had joined the Marines under false pretenses since technically only citizens and legal permanent residents are accepted for enlistment.

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From Draft NOtices, April-June 2007

 



— Kathy Smith
    

The Navy is refusing to mitigate the harm to marine mammals when it uses sonar for training exercises off the coast of Southern California. The Navy contends that Coastal Commission restrictions are not valid because their training takes place more than three miles off shore, beyond the scope of the commission’s authority.

Joel Reynolds, an attorney in the Los Angeles office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, stated that “the Navy’s rejection of the common sense protective measures . . . is an attack not just on whales and other marine life off our coast, but on the commission itself.”

The issue at hand is the decibel rate of sonar, which commission officials want lowered because whales can be harmed by sonar transmissions that the Navy generates. The Navy’s use of sonar has caused the beaching of whales and dolphins because they surface (breach) too fast and suffer decompression sickness. A congressional report was released last year stating that the Navy’s sonar exercises were responsible for six cases of mass death and stranding of whales in the past decade. The Navy counters these facts by saying that pollution and starvation can cause marine animals to breach.

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Ninth CIRCUIT COURT RULING: CONFRONTING MILITARISM BY USING EQUAL ACCESS TO HIGH SCHOOLS

When the military comes to your local high school, you have a legal right to give students an opposing view. This has been the position taken by federal district courts in Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois and two federal appellate courts. The most broadly-worded decision came from a case that COMD took to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the 1980s. Here is the background:

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