IRAQ: Hundreds of U.S. Soldiers Emerge as Conscientious Objectors; link to SA war resistance campaign

NEW YORK, Apr 15 (IPS) – Although only a handful of them have gone public, at least several hundred U.S. soldiers have applied for conscientious objector (CO) status since January, says a rights group.

The Center on Conscience and War (CCW), which advises military personnel on CO discharges, reports that since the start of 2003 – when many soldiers realised they might have to fight in the Iraq war – there has been a massive increase in the number of enlisted soldiers who have applied for CO status.

SEE REPORT BY Gabriel Packard from Interpress Service Agency

In 1987 following the lead taken by Dr Ivan Toms, David Bruce, Kevin Wilkinson, a group of 15 South African conscientious objectors refused to do military service in the Apartheid war machine. After the End Conscription Campaign was banned in 1988, hundreds of white South African war resistors refused the call-up, and conscription into the War in Angola and Civil War raging in South Africa’s Black Townships

HISTORY OF THE END CONSCRIPTION CAMPAIGN

WIKIPEDIA VERSION http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Conscription_Campaign

Refusing to bear arms: a world survey of conscription and conscientious objection to military service

6 comments
  1. it’s easy to talk about the army but you where never there, when you where sleeping peacefully, there where men protecting your ass on the border so don’t talk if you never being there.

  2. Your whole argument above is a total waste of time and space. The old SADF no longer exists and white boys who fought in that war are no longer recognised – I could go further and say that the same white boys who grew up to become the white men who formed the backbone of the economy in the eighties and nineties are now rapidly becoming obsolete for a second time.

    David is perfectly entitled to make any comment he likes due to a constitution that now recognises free speech. That fact that you played little soldier boy for a few months of your life does not make you a better person or give any credence to your comments.

    Yes, I do agree that you also have the same right to make statements of your own – it just pisses me off when it is blatantly obvious that there are absolutely no intelligent thought processes going on behind your blurtings.

    Move on up to the 21st century troopie!

  3. You right it does’nt exist any more which is a good thing, and this country has moved forward for the better, but when it happened those concience objectors ran away like cowards, which pisses me off.

    I never said his not intitled to his comment i believe in free speech as well, but you can’t blog about something and then expect no comments or critism.

    btw where were you ?

  4. …screwing your women and stealing your jobs.

  5. I deserted from the SADF — failed to arrive for induction and my ride to Potch, and was technically AWOL until the morotorium was announced in 1994. No I don’t buy that “sleeping safe” nonesence. Were kids sleeping safe in the townships knowing that the SADF could raid at any time? Was my generation able to conduct studies on campus free of interfearance from shambock wielding cops? No. I never went to the army, and supported Johno Handlers call for a “just war”.

    While I could not accept the armed struggle, I could not reject it out of hand. The time might still come when we will have to overthrow the foreign invader, and the best means of defence is a people’s militia, not a standing army.

  6. When I get hold of your eyes again, I’m going to squash one of them!

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