Military resister to highlight Vermont anti-war rally

I'm posting this article from antiwar.com because it dovetails nicely activities to place anti-war referendums on spring elections ballots and the Vermont secession movement. Such antiwar referedums are going to be on several Wisconsin ballots as well. I think it is a better way to gauge public opinion than just asking the local town or village board or city council to weigh-in on their opinion of the war, which they would feel most unqualified to do. But a public referendum is a different story and there is historical precedent that such soundings of public opinion do have an effect. Take the American Revolution for example. In Great Britain at that time, most people could not vote and the parlimentary boroughs were basically bought and paid for by aristocrats and other powerful interests (that's where the term "rotten borough" comes from). Yet the British people made their voices heard through petitions to the King and Parliment and through voting on resolutions opposing the war, which ultimately brought the war to an end when the popular backing for it collapsed which trickled upward into Parliment and caused the fall of the North government after Yorktown. The same can happen here and credit the Green Party for truly effective acitvism on their part. Just another example of beating the powers that be at their own game.

- Sean Scallon

Military resister to highlight Vermont anti-war rally
By Shay Totten Vermont Guardian
posted February 8, 2006

MONTPELIER — Hundreds of Vermonters are expected at a demonstration Saturday in front of the Statehouse to demand that Vermont’s elected representatives call on Pres. Bush to immediately remove all troops from Iraq.

The 2 p.m. rally will feature Pablo Paredes, a Navy Petty officer who, in 2004, refused to board an Iraq-bound ship because he did not believe the invasion of Iraq was justified. Eventually, his case went to court, a judge ruled in Paredes’ favor, and he was given an honorable discharge from the Navy. He is now trying to register as a conscientious objector.

Paredes, who grew up in the Bronx, NY, and currently lives in California, told the Guardian that is looking forward to being in Vermont, and has been watching the progress of last year’s Town Meeting Day resolutions.

Last year, 48 towns voted in favor of some form of the measure calling on the state to examine the impact that the large call-up of Vermont National Guard troops has on Vermont, its resources and its families. Legislation was subsequently introduced in the House and made its way to the House floor before a fractured vote channeled it back to committee, where it remains.

“I, as many others who work for peace, have noticed the absence of true democracy in our country best represented in the outcome of the recent town meetings, here in Vermont,” said Paredes in an e-mail interview. (The full interview appears at the bottom of this article.)

“I followed this story and the overwhelming response of the apologetics for war was, ‘Well, it doesn't mean anything; these resolutions are nonbinding to the state.’ [T]here can be no excuse for the state of Vermont going against a near unanimous call of these town meetings. But this is the reality of representative democracy. It very rarely represents people who don't have economic influence over it.”

In early January, Vermont Says Not to War, a coalition of veterans, soldiers’ families, labor activists, civil libertarians, faith-based organizations and anti-war activists, kicked off a campaign in favor of strong legislation the states, “Vermont and its citizens call on the president to bring all the troops home now and take care of them when they get home.”

Protest organizers are also calling on Vermonters to pledge to undertake acts of nonviolent civil disobedience as a way to pressure lawmakers into taking up the resolution.

VG: What general message do you have for Vermonters, and how can they make a difference?

PP: I think I would be presuming a great deal to tell Vermonters about how they can make a difference. The fact is, America could learn much from Vermonters. The reality is that in states as big as New York and California, which are the two that I can speak of with some personal experience, the effect of the war is so diluted in the massive populations that there's a great deal of apathy. In a more perfect system it would be those who are most affected by war who had the greatest say in waging it, but in our reality the "representatives" on Capitol Hill, none of whom have what Gold Star Families and Military Families Speak Out call “Skin in the Game,” they make the big decisions or more frankly their sponsors make the big decisions. Our brand of democracy is a farce, and so when I hear our president, elected by the Supreme Court, talk about spreading democracy I am less than enthused.
But to return to your question: I don't think I'm here to give advice. I'm here to learn and to highlight the Vermont experience for the rest of the country. If the masses see what war does to communities and families, then the apathy will begin to wear off. Since my public refusal to board the war vessel in 2004 ,I have made it my mission to bring the reality to mainstream America. I aimed, maybe ambitiously, to show the country there was dissent in the ranks in my protest, and I aim here to take part in the Vermont process, which sheds light on the effects of this war on everyday communities. I will also be trying to shock and awe everyday people with some actions surrounding the third anniversary of the invasion, soon.

VG: The rally organizers are calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops. Do you think this is logistically possible, and how would you propose it happen? In other words, does "immediate" mean all at once or a phased pullout over a period of months?

PP: Immediate is a very lucid word. There is no misinterpreting it. The fact is corporate big bucks don't only own influential shares in our government and in the companies who most profit from this war, but they have mass media monopolized as well. So they've framed the argument and we have to stick to the proposed framework and not question it.
Well, I refuse. I say the framework is racist. The argument most commonly made is the famous “power vacuum” theory. "No, lord no, we can't pull out now in one shot because we will leave a massive power vacuum and fundamentalist would be sucked into power.” Nonsense. To say that the oldest civilization in existence with the largest oil reserves in existence cannot settle their own differences without our imposing martial law is simply and unavoidably racist. The history of Catholics and Protestants is by far bloodier than Sunnis and Shiites, and yet it is our nation telling this country that they are incapable of settling their differences without our mitigating capabilities a la F-18.

The reality is, we refuse to walk away from having the largest possible influence on the petroleum-richest territory on the planet, and that is the reason we invaded; it is the reason, no matter how faulty our rationale was for invading, we are still there; the reason, no matter how bloody it gets, the corporate-owned government of the USA will never leave Iraq. With no reservations I advocate for immediate withdrawal, meaning troops out yesterday. If a humble U.N. peacekeeping force is necessary in the direct aftermath to quell the chaos that our presence has caused, that's one thing, but our presence has never and will never be a peacekeeping or attenuating force.

VG: What has been the impact of your decision to not board the ship — have others followed suit in other ports? Have you heard from other servicemen and women who support your move?

PP: I have received considerable support. To give a sense of the atmosphere: The friend who drove me to base the day of my protest and completely supported it was a Navy Seal. My letters of recommendation for conscientious objector boasted an Annapolis selectee and a communications officer, even the chief testifying against me at the court martial said it was a brave act.

The judge, incidentally, said that the prosecution had proven in cross examination of an international law expert that soldiers had reasonable cause to believe the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal to fight in. He then gave me the lightest sentence he was capable of handing me. It was short of judicial activism. Of course, our obedient media did not feel such comments from a military judge worth reporting. But, in short, I'd say that the spectrum of opinion is wide as it is in civil society, and so I had much support up and down the ranks but there was also much opposition.
As far as other actions, there have not been massive numbers of public protest but the number of desertions got so big the Pentagon now refuses to keep records, much like they banned hospitals in Iraq of keeping count of the civilian casualties. These types of statistics are unfavorable and so they are suppressed.

VG: Why did you enlist in the service originally? What sold you on the service, and what advice do you have for teens/parents who are weighing such an option today?

PP: Since leaving the service I've researched the methods, monies and strategies employed by recruiters. Knowing the budgets, the tactics and the ruthlessness, I'm surprised the military is struggling to meet quotas. The fact is, the budgets are unreal; the tactics are abusive, and the objects of such attacks are impressionable teenagers.

It starts with militarizing the school environment. The recruitment handbooks say things like: Become the coach of a school team; this way the kids look up to you.
Classrooms are occupied, cafeterias are the trenches, and now there are humvees and tanks in the yards. Twelve years of such a steady dose of indoctrination, coupled with war spending that cripples a national budget’s ability to provide affordable education, and topped off with sign-on bonuses that begin to muddy the line between soldier and mercenary, and you have me signing on the dotted line.
Of course, even with all that you still don't sign over your soul to fight in wars of aggression. You pledge to support and defend the Constitution, and wherever challenged. I welcome the opportunity to argue that refusing to fight against the sovereign state of Iraq is exactly that.

My advice is: always, in all things, to consider the source of your information. Too many of us take the recruiters at their word. These are people who put a premium on getting you to sign on the dotted line. If they miss their quotas it's back to the trenches for them. So seek better sources of info or balance it out.
There are anti-war groups and Veterans for Peace that make information available that your recruiter would keep from you. Seek these groups out and take up the issues they raise with the recruiter; see what sorts of arguments the recruiter has. My guess is they wont be very convincing. The most common complaint at boot camp is, "My recruiter told me ... .”