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CounterPunch
January
25, 2003
Collateral Damage
Draft
Resistance & the Anti-War Movement
by CHRIS CLARKE
Twenty-three years ago this month, after Nobel
Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter reinstated draft registration
in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I sent a letter
to the Selective Service System--cc'd to the US Attorney in Buffalo,
NY--politely informing them that I would be declining their offer
of registration. When the FBI finally came to my door two years
later, in Berkeley, California, I reiterated my intent to refuse
to comply with the draft laws.
I claim no special heroism for this stance:
hundreds of young males nationwide did likewise, as did thousands
of non-young or non-males trying to gum up the works of enforcement.
The sabotage was widespread. Lists of local registrants were
posted in public places in an attempt, anticipating the later
public service of John Ashcroft, to encourage friends and neighbors
to turn noncompliant men of that delicate age in to the relevant
authorities. This didn't work either. When I--ahem--obtained
the list that had been posted in the Alameda County courthouse,
serving Berkeley and Oakland, the law-abiding registrants named
therein included Ira Michael Heyman--then chancellor at UC Berkeley,
and who despite being decades too old to receive a draft notice
was evidently possessed of such patriotism that he registered
several times in different zip codes. Also among the East Bay's
stalwart obeyers of law was one "Pinhead, Zippy T."
Ah, but draft resistance in the 1980s
wasn't all fun, games and petty theft. People actually went to
jail for it. In 1983, eighteen young men were indicted on felony
charges stemming from refusal to register. Eleven were convicted.
A couple spent time in prison. The main reason I wasn't among
them, as far as I can tell, is that my Congressional representative
backed me up. Ron Dellums, at that time the Representative for
California's Ninth Congressional District in Berkeley and Oakland,
sent a letter suggesting to the abovementioned US Attorney, Sal
Martoche, that he spend his office's time pursuing the increasingly
violent local representatives of drug cartels rather than peace
activists.
So it was surprising to me to see one
of Dellums' Black Caucus heirs, Harlem's Rep. Charlie Rangel,
raise an apparently serious suggestion that the draft be reinstated.
I can't say I disagree with his intent. The old adage "Rich
Man's War, Poor Man's Fight" is as valid as it was when
the Wobblies first uttered it a century ago, aside from needing
one obvious update in this age of enlisted women and Condi Rice.
Statisticians have sometimes disputed the assertion that the
US military's lower ranks are overwhelmingly populated by African-Americans
relative to society at large. But no one disputes the military's
class disparity. Rich kids don't become grunts. The bulk of US
soldiers who actually risk injury are there because that was
the job available to them. Meanwhile, those who make the decisions
to go to war are unlikely to see their loved ones die in the
attendant hostilities, the pathetic story of Ted Olson notwithstanding.
So I find it understandable that Rangel
would say, as he did in a CNN interview, that "I think,
if we went home and found out that there were more families concerned
about their kids going off to war, there would be more cautiousness
and more willingness to work with the international community,
instead of just saying that it's my way or the highway."
How likely would G.W. Bush be to commit troops to Iraq if he
knew Jenna might be walking point in Bagdad?
OK, maybe that's a bad example.
Rangel's argument has holes in it large
enough to allow easy passage of a lemon-yellow Hummer H2 with
fully inflated tires. One could point out that the present crop
of warmongers found it easy enough to escape the clutches of
the Selective Service System before 1975. One could point out
that most pols already sacrifice their families on the alter
of career. One could point out that while the vast majority of
rape victims are female, no one is proposing laws that would
send one male in four to the NYPD basement for the Giuliani broomhandle
treatment. Some evils are better abolished than distributed evenly.
But forget the details: there's something
rotten at the heart of Rangel's pitch. Though he dresses it up
in terms of social contract and shared sacrifice that would make
even an unreconstructed communitarian fascist like Amitai Etzioni
retch, what Rangel is saying is "change your policies or
lose your children." He could help develop the growing number
of Americans who don't want to fight this war, but instead, he's
taking hostages. He isn't quite piloting a 737 into the Capitol
to make his point, but the difference is at this point one of
degree alone, and has a potential US death toll far outstripping
that of 9/11/2001.
Note to draft-age men in Harlem: don't
look to your Representative for support should you take a principled
stand when the draft board comes calling.
Chris Clarke is
the editor of Faultline:
the magazine of the California environment. He can be
reached at: cclarke@faultline.org
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