GI Resistance

Meet The US Soldiers And Bureaucrats Defecting Over Gaza

November 12, 2024 Chris Lombardi, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Gaza, GI Resistance, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Resignations, US military

As the crisis in the Middle East rages on, a growing movement is confronting U.S. funding of Israel’s wars — including a perhaps-surprising number of those once charged with enforcing U.S. policies. Some are military veterans, while others worked for the State Department and other federal agencies. Such resistance is critical to any nonviolent revolution, says Erica Chenoweth, co-author of “Why Civil Resistance Works.” Chenoweth describes such “defections” as foundational to any hope of real change; dissent by the government’s enforcers — security forces, civilian bureaucrats — show cracks in a regime’s powers.

Air Force Academy Graduate Deconstructs A Military Mindset

November 3, 2024 2d Lt. Joy Metzler, USAF, Popular Resistance. Educate! GI Resistance, Palestine, US military, Veterans for Peace

Somewhere around the age of 20, I sat in a large auditorium at the United States Air Force Academy with a thousand other cadets and cheered at footage of real drone strikes on real people, laughing along with everyone else as we watched little, pixelated figures run for cover that we all knew was futile. When I look back on that event, I wonder what part of me I had to sacrifice to find humor in the loss of life. In many ways, it’s thanks to the Air Force Academy that I currently have an anti-war stance. I was given the tools to examine my military service and foreign policy in a couple mundane, core classes: law and ethics, though my ethics course has stuck with me the most, ironically enough.

Veterans For Peace Applauds Israeli Soldiers Who Refuse To Fight In Gaza

October 23, 2024 Veterans For Peace. Resist! Anti-War, GI Resistance, Israel, Palestine, Refuseniks, Veterans

Veterans For Peace applauds the Israeli military reservists who are calling for a ceasefire and the release of hostages, and who say they will not participate in genocide. You are doing the right thing. Your courageous stance may be answered by official threats and even imprisonment. But you will never regret refusing to kill innocent Palestinian men, women and children. Palestinian Lives Matter. Yet Palestinians are being systematically slaughtered before the eyes of the world. The ongoing US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza is unacceptable. It is a stain on human history. And it must be ended. Veterans For Peace has consistently called for an end to the genocide in Gaza, for a permanent ceasefire, and most importantly, for an end to US arms shipments to Israel.

US And Israeli Military Resisters Reach Out To US Service Members

August 20, 2024 John Catalinotto, Workers World. Organize! Gaza, GI Resistance, Israel, Palestine, Refuseniks, US military

Israeli and U.S. military resisters held a zoom news conference Aug. 15 to publicize a call to active duty U.S. service members to declare their opposition to the Israeli massacres in Gaza – and U.S. complicity with what many people consider genocide. In Israel, there is an establishment-manufactured consensus supporting the criminal war and a massive group of fascist settlers. The individual Israeli “refuseniks” who participated in the news conference were those who had earlier declared themselves Conscientious Objectors to participating in the ongoing military occupation of Palestinian lands. They refuse participation in the current genocide and encouraged U.S. service members to also take this position.

Gaza Blowback: A Crisis Of Conscience In The Military Can Impact Foreign Policy

June 29, 2024 Greg Stoker, MintPress News. Resistance Report Foreign Policy, Gaza, GI Resistance, Israel, Palestine, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

The unprecedented live-streamed violence in Gaza has forced a crisis of conscience for many government employees. From the State Department to the military, individuals have taken rebellious action to remove themselves from participating in a blazingly obvious campaign of controlled famine and collective punishment. Tonight on State of Play, we interview two conscientious objectors from the United States Air Force and reflect on military retention rates, the recruiting crisis, and the lessening of military capacity due to increasingly unpopular foreign policy actions. Will the younger generation’s lack of jingoistic zeal be a potential brake for US belligerence?

US Soldier Reveals Why Aaron Bushnell Self-Immolated

March 11, 2024 Mnar Adley, MintPress News. Resist! Aaron Bushnell, GI Resistance, Human Rights, Israel, Palestine, Protests, Self-immolation, US Imperialism, US military

One week after Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire in an extreme act of Protest for Palestine – the world has been awe-struck by his galvanizing act of courage, with his last words being Free Palestine. Across the world, including in Yemen and Gaza, Bushnell is being memorialized as a martyr for Palestine as Israel continues its genocide in Gaza that has left over 30,000 people dead. His protest was not only moving but stood in stark contrast to the empty rhetoric given by so-called liberal politicians who’ve done very little to stop Israel from continuing its war on civilians.

These Israeli Youth Are Burning Their Draft Orders

May 26, 2023 Oren Ziv, +972 Magazine. Resist! GI Resistance, Israel, Palestine, Refuseniks

On April 1, in the midst of one of the weekly mass demonstrations in Tel Aviv against the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul plans, a group of around 10 teenagers gathered to burn their military draft orders, after announcing that they would refuse to serve in the army in protest of the occupation and apartheid. This symbolic act gained a great deal of attention, perhaps buoyed by the recent wave of refusal threats by hundreds of reservist soldiers as part of the protest movement against the government. From conversations with several of these high school students and young people, it is clear that the protests against the judicial overhaul and the political awareness that it has brought about has accelerated the process of radicalization.

Antiwar Sentiment In The Military Is Stronger Than Ever

August 20, 2021 Meagan Day and Mike Prysner, Jacobin. Resist! GI Resistance, US Imperialism, Veterans, Wars and Militarism

Iraq War veteran Mike Prysner has been an antiwar activist for fifteen years. He has been arrested demonstrating outside the Capitol building, helped active-duty soldiers refuse orders to fight in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and organized grieving families who’ve lost enlisted or veteran loved ones to war or suicide. Prysner founded the organization March Forward! in 2008. Today, he’s an antiwar journalist, having cowritten and produced multiple documentaries for the program The Empire Files, hosted by his wife, Abby Martin. He’s also a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. As US troops withdraw from Afghanistan, Jacobin’s Meagan Day caught up with Prysner to talk about why the United States stayed in Afghanistan so long, despite knowing it was losing the war and destroying countless lives.

Fortress On A Hill: ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’

November 6, 2020 Danny Sjursen, Fortress On A Hill. Resist! GI Resistance, Podcast, US military, Wars and Militarism

Chris Lombardi, editor at Democratic Left Online, stops by the podcast to discuss her new book “I Ain’t Marching Anymore: Dissenters, Deserters, and Objectors to America’s Wars”. It’s an amazing history of military dissenters, conscientious objectors, and their hard, but determined path of dissent. She will be hosting a live stream on Nov 10, 2020, at 4pm PST. Click here to register for the event! Journalist Chris Lombardi has been writing about war and peace for more than twenty years. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Guernica, the Philadelphia Inquirer, ABA Journal...

Scheer Intelligence: The Unbearable Violence Of Being American

July 24, 2020 Robert Scheer, Scheer Intelligence. Educate! GI Resistance, Military Industrial Complex, Podcast, Veterans

America’s military industrial complex and multiple presidential administrations have funnelled several generations of soldiers through unwinnable wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq seemingly without qualms. What has emerged from these tragedies are thousands of traumatized young Americans bringing home wars and leaving behind millions of innocent civilians killed, wounded and forced to become refugees. But some of these former soldiers also came home with an urgent new perspective to share with their compatriots.

How A Working-Class Soldier Turned Against “Forever Wars”

July 22, 2020 Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon, Popular Resistance. Educate! Book Review, GI Resistance, US military, Wars and Militarism

When it comes to debate about US military policy, the 2020 presidential election campaign is so far looking very similar to that of 2016. Joe Biden has pledged to ensure that “we have the strongest military in the world,” promising to “make the investments necessary to equip our troops for the challenges of the next century, not the last one.” In the White House, President Trump is repeating the kind of anti-interventionist head feints that won him votes four years ago against a hawkish Hillary Clinton. In his recent graduation address at West Point, Trump re-cycled applause lines from 2016 about “ending an era of endless wars” as well as America’s role as “policeman of the world.” In reality, since Trump took office, there’s been no reduction in the US military presence abroad, which last year required a Pentagon budget of nearly $740 billion.

SOS! Save Our Sailors And Soldiers! Stop The Spread Of Covid-19

April 17, 2020 Bob Witanek and Richard Moser, Popular Resistance. Create! COVID-19, GI Resistance, US Empire, US military

US military rank and file soldiers and sailors are being ravaged by an invisible enemy — the same enemy that is killing civilians across the country – COVID-19. This presents a quandary for the US military: do they prioritize readiness to launch wars and continue the many imperialist objectives the US is pursuing in places like Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Yemen, the Asian Sea, Europe, Africa, Latin America, etc. . . . or do they take seriously the wholesale threat of COVID-19 to the lives of US GIs and sailors? The Pentagon is suppressing the breadth of the infection of its rank and file forces and mostly disregarding any real effort to minimize their casualties. The US does not want the rest of the world – that it constantly bullies, invades, bombs, and threatens - to know that it is militarily vulnerable right now due to the depleted morale and health of the rank and file.

A GI Rebellion: When Soldiers Said No To War

August 25, 2019 Steve Early, BeyondChron Educate! Anti-War, GI Resistance, Vietnam

As we approach the 50th anniversary of both the Moratorium and Mobilization, it’s worth recalling one critical anti-war constituency whose role was less visible then and remains little-acknowledged today. Fortunately, three Vietnam-era activists have just published Waging Peace in Vietnam (New Village Press, 2019), which gives long-overdue credit to anti-war organizing by men and women in uniform, and their civilian allies and funders.

Susan Schnall Has Been Resisting War Since Dropping Antiwar Leaflets From A Plane

August 25, 2019 Courage to Resist Educate! Anti-War, GI Resistance, Militarism and War

While on active duty, Lt. Susan Schnall dropped antiwar leaflets over five military installations and an aircraft carrier from a small plane, held a press conference, and lead a mass peace march while in uniform. She’s been resisting war ever since. “It became more and more obvious to me as I took care of these guys and physically got them better that I couldn’t heal them psychologically, and I certainly couldn’t heal their souls. And I thought, “I’ve become a part of the military. I need to do something about this, and we need to end this war. I understood that there would be repercussions."

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