Rules of Disengagement: What You Can Do To End Illegal Wars

By Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd, PoliPoint Press. Posted June 13, 2009.

During Vietnam soldiers and sailors were conscripted into the armed forces, whereas today we have an “all-volunteer” military. Many cite this difference when comparing the GI movement in the Vietnam era with resistance to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Yet much of the GI resistance to the Vietnam War came from volunteers, not draftees. The majority of dissenters and organizers were enlistees from working-class backgrounds. Young men with money and education had an easier time obtaining student deferments, conscientious objector status, and other deferments and exemptions from the draft. “Draftees expect shit, get shit, aren’t even disappointed. Volunteers expect something better, get the same shit, and have at least one more year to get mad about it,” Jim Goodman wrote in the Baumholder Gig Sheet, an underground newspaper produced by GIs in Germany during Vietnam. Today we have a “poverty draft,” where the bulk of those who enlist have few options other than joining the military. And the stop-loss program has created a “backdoor draft,” which keeps many soldiers in the military involuntarily even after their contracts expire.

As this book goes to press, official counts admit that 4,227 American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have been killed in Iraq, and 640 have been killed in Afghanistan. The military acknowledges that 31,004 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq, and 2,679 have been wounded in action in and around Afghanistan. Many more have returned from combat zones with undiagnosed injuries or illness. Over 1 million Iraqis have been killed.

More than 1.6 million men and women have served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both since October 2001. Deployments have grown longer, redeployment to combat zones has been common, and breaks between deployments are inadequate.

Soldiers, their families, veterans, and civilians around the country see rising death and injury tolls, news reports of atrocities and brutality in combat areas, and “victories” that evaporate overnight. They hear warnings about “perpetual war,” and “a long struggle” against some vague enemy, and they learn about legal experts and foreign officials who challenge the wars as illegal. These experiences raise questions for all service members and civilians: do we have a duty to carry out the wars and support them at home, or a duty to resist?

Copyright by Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd 2009.

Click here to buy a copy of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent

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Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.

Kathleen Gilberd has worked as a military counselor for over 30 years. She is co-chair of the National Lawyer’s Guild’s Military Law Task Force and a frequent contributor to its legal publication, On Watch.

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