Forum and demo against military recruiting

I don't think it's very complicated. Our tax money, our resources, and our citizens are being used to murder people around the globe on behalf of an imperialist agenda which benefits a select few in the upper echelons of the corporations who run the show. This activity is evil by any measure. (That bullshit about if you are exercising some kind of freedom - thank a soldier, doesn't stand up to analysis Mr Pusillanimous Anonymous Commando.)

Partly by design, these wars are carried on in a manner that allows us to go about our daily lives without seeing the results or being reminded of the horrors and crimes. This recruiting station provides us a focus to express our revulsion at the War Machine. All these fine-line, parlor-style philosophical issues are trivial when considering the monstrous crimes against humanity that this recruiting office is party to.

I am a pacifist and oppose all wars but if I see some naiive young pawn of the warmaker's propaganda approaching my son to lure him into this death machine, I might not be so obviously identified as a pacifist.

So if we can keep the military out of CH, why don't we keep the cops lawyers and other slime that infest our fair liberal haven?

"And please don't dishonor those who choose to serve but, if they feel they must, instead ask them to serve with honor."

Nice.

I opposed the immoral war we waged in Vietnam. I oppose the immoral war we're waging in Irag. But I agree with Fred that if we try to ban an Army recruiting station in CH we begin to act like those who would like to ban the abortion clinics or would ban dissemination of birth control information. Peacefully protest in front of the recruiting stations; disseminate leaflets to expose the lies that the recruiters use; find ways to offer those who would be seduced to the army for the "career" it offers other opportunities for training or employment. But don't resort to the conservative tactic of silencing those who don't agree. And please don't dishonor those who choose to serve but, if they feel they must, instead ask them to serve with honor.

I have to agree with Fred Black.

What is this going to accomplish?

Educate young people considering military careers to also explore other options, or to ask tough questions of the recruiters, fine.

But we need a military and we need good people in it.

Here are some thoughts on military service by someone I know personally. Me.

There's too much swearing to post the whole thing here. Sorry for the blogwhoring.

Nice Ethan, I was going to mention that report. And that wasn't the worst of the recruiters' lies.

The Army must be getting pretty desperate. I've received two notices (one by mail, one thru email) offering me a big bonus if I sign up. And yes, they are fully aware I am 42, just under the threshold.

Brian, you have it backward. People from our area go to Durham to get their info, so you are not stopping anyone by making them drive five miles up 15-501 to Westgate Mall. The Army has the right to rent space on Franklin Street and you have the right not to like what they do. Not one person who is in that office has any control over poicy or to change what you view as an illegal war.

What were your feelings about people trying to keep an abortion clinic out of Chapel Hill? Are you not willing to "let" people make their own choices about stepping inside a recruiting office like others are willing to "let" people visit an abortion clinic?

This isn't about Bush or disagreement Fred. Its about preventing young men and women from being killed in an amoral and illegal war of occupation created for Corporate profit.

This is a very local topic because Chapel Hill, to my knowledge, doesn't have a recruitment station. I think a lot of people would like to keep it that way.

Just returned a couple of hours ago from the UNC ROTC Veterans Day program, so reading this is particularly disturbing. Bush or no Bush, war or no war, we would still recruit young men and women for military service. Why should those living in our community interested in discussing their options have to go to Durham?

Stand up to the new Army recruiting station? What does that mean? Is it that rights are only operative when you agree?

If you can read this article, thank a teacher!
If you are reading it in English, thank a soldier.

Ruby, I may have asked this before, but are you familiar with the expression "useful idiots" and how that term was used in history by which dictator?

Republican Commando
http://www.northcarolinarepublicans.org

If you can leave a comment on this blog, thank the OP editor!
If you can write racist comments, thank the first amendment.

In case you didn't see them, here are the editorials on the protest from the CHH and the CHN.

Two particularly incomplete editorials that focus on the red herring issue of forcing the center to close and ignore the 99% of the issue that truly matters. It is a convenient dodge to express shock and dismay at such intolerance as expressing a desire that the center be sent packing while choosing not to address the larger issues of an illegal war.

In their view, we should all tiptoe carefully around these issues so as not to risk the slightest appearance of offense against "the troops" or draw any meaningful connection between our children and the policies and goals they are being recruited to sacrifice for. In a society well-stacked against slowing down the war machine, these editorials are just another brick in the wall between the status quo and a citizenry that is increasingly disgusted with the Iraq & Afghanistan Occupations and the perversions of U.S. military power.

I'd like to read the editorial that these papers would write if a handgun shop were to open up downtown.

Dave Hart's CHN editorial about the protest came from a thoughtful and experienced perspective. Not incomplete.

If a handgun shop were to open up downtown, I'd probably get arrested for kicking and screaming.

One thing that The Rev. Martin Luther King and his staffers taught that when you call a protest, don't bundle too many issues together as the purpose. When this principle was violated, the effectiveness decreased. Those who led this protest should remember that lesson.

Mark, you can pound your keyboard until it breaks but that still won't validate your claim that this is an illeagal war. Dislike it all you want, but the case for it being illegal just doesn't stand up.

Contrary to what is being said by some of the protest leaders, recruiting is not being done to increase the Army's end strength, it is being done to replace those who are ending their term of service. And contrary to what was said by the protest leaders, the Army is more diverse than ever, socially, economically, and geographically.

Some might also want to ponder what might happen if enough folks don't volunteer or, if social reformers have their way - pay attention to what the Congressman from the 15th District of NY is proposing.

Fred,

You have a point about strategy and bundling issues, but on the other hand, those who were at the protest were not confused about the message - except for maybe a reporter or two.

At the risk of further stressing my keyboard - and simultaneously shooting fish in a barrel - let me point out something for which the word obvious might be an understatement: Bush and his henchmen lied to the Anmerican public to get us into the Iraq War. I believe that is illegal, but I'm not a Democrat either so I don't have their ability to understand advanced nuances of the complexities of what "is" is.

Mark,

This is from the group's call to action:
Join students, youth, and community members
(1) as we stand up to the new Army recruiting station,
(2) the continued occupation of Iraq, and
(3) U.S. threats against other nations.
(4) where members of the community will speak out against this new recruiting station, a blatant attempt to pull more youths and students into the U.S. war machine and the occupation of Iraq.

Then Tamara Tal says:
"Regardless, I am not debating the right of the recruiting station to exist and function in Chapel Hill. I am questioning the NEED for a new recruitment station in Chapel Hill."

and

"We have one of the largest functional armies in the world. Why do we need a larger one? Recruitment is expanding to increase troop numbers to sustain the Iraq war."

Not true. I call all of this confusing the message, and especially when the facts are just plain wrong.

And Mark, when you say, "Bush and his henchmen lied to the Anmerican public to get us into the Iraq War," the Congress that authorized it is also the one who can end it, not the American people directly. They have chosen not to interpret what they were given as a lie, I think they call it faulty intelligence. Sorry, sad but true, those soldiers in combat are legal under our laws.

Just in time for Christmas, from Aaron Nelson and the Chamber:

Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 5:15 PM
Subject: U.S. Army Recruiting Station Ribbon Cutting

Dear Chamber Board Members,

Please join Chamber Staff, Board, Ambassadors and community leaders for a ribbon cutting for the U.S. Army Recruiting Station on Friday, December 15th at 4:00pm. The station is located at 1502 E. Franklin Street in Chapel Hill (in the Applebee?s shopping center next to the new El Rodeo). Please let us know if you plan to attend. In the meantime, please feel free to stop by and introduce yourself to the gentleman at the station or visit their Web site at www.goarmy.com.

Thanks,
Aaron

OK, I get welcoming a new business to town and putting out the Chamber's glad hand but directing folks to the Go Army web-site? What's up with that?

If you're not so interested in hobnobbing with Nelson, et. al. on the 15th, there's an alternative:

Friday, December 15

Honoring Bill of Rights Day: Proclamations will be given by Orange County Commissioner Moses Cary, Mayor Pro Tem Bill Strom of Chapel Hill, and Mayor Mark Chilton of Carrboro, and volunteers will read of the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, Noon, December 15, Carrboro Century Center Fountain, Weaver Street, Carrboro. Information: 929-4053.

The community is invited to participate (within site of the WCOM Station)!

Thanks Peggy Misch for the heads-up.

I wonder who the community leaders will be that will be welcoming this "business" into town?

That's right, Mark. There were some in NC that felt that those who voted for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights ought to be run out of the state! Remember, NC and RI rejected the Constitution initially but changed their minds. Then, NC became the third state to ratify the Bill of Rights (December 22, 1789). It wasn't a done deal until VA voted on December 15, 1791, now called "Bill of Rights day". Interesting too that NC proposed other amendments that didn't make it. Twelve were actually presented to the states by two were not ratified, one concerning the ratio between population and House representation; the other regulating congressional pay.

Yep, some "business," Mark! I think all community leaders will welcome the "business" of celebrating the Bill of Rights!

PS: Glad also to see WillR on the Chamber Board!

Well, I guess as long as we're bringing democrcay to Iraq we might as well entertain the delusion that we're celebrating the BIll of Rights by welcoming an agency of the military-industrial complex into town.

Here's more great news for those who - while they may personally dislike the war in Iraq and get down on their knees every week at church - believe the more important struggle is getting a chunk of the war profits.

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/517655.html

Maybe this effort will help us lure some big-time "defense" company to help fund weapons research at Carolina North. Of course, we must insist that that they recycle, use compact fluourescent lighting, and have a bike rack.

"Maybe this effort will help us lure some big-time “defense” company to help fund weapons research at Carolina North"

Mark M, I've never heard UNC mention that it was interested in having weapons research at CN. Are you aware of such an intent on their part? They certainly might be interested in having biodefense research there but biodefense research involves developing vaccines and therapeutics against biological pathogens that occur in everyday life (for example, the latest oubreak of E. coli on spinach) but which might also be weaponized by terrorist groups. We know that this is possible because most of these biological pathogens were weaponized years ago in the late 60's/early 70's by our own government. It make sense to develop preventive measures/therapeutics for these agents not only because they might be used someday in a widespread manner but also because these same pathogens kill thousands of people throughout the world each year.

Are you opposed to biodefense research as well as weapons research?

Mark M--the e coli outbreak on the spinach fields that George mentions above has been associated with land application of biosolids. "The majority of all animal manure, as well as municipal sewage sludge (politely referred to as biosolids―human waste), in this country is spread on conventional crops. In most cases there is little regulatory oversight." "E. coli and other potent pathogens are known to migrate onto neighboring farms by contamination of surface water and groundwater and/or by becoming airborne through blowing dust from feedlots or farm fields where manure has been spread."
http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_2407.cfm

Do you want UNC to stop research into wastewater technologies? We don't live in a world where military research and health research, or even our everyday technologies, can be neatly segregated. "We have met the enemy and it is us."

An even more recent case of the potential dangers of these natural pathogens that might someday be used as weapons is described below. Note that most of the victims are children (not unusual for E. coli), half of the victims are hospitalized and two are suffering from a severe complication (hemolytic uremic syndrome) which is life-threatening and can cause permanent damage even when victims survive. With a 50 percent hospitalization rate just try to imagine what might happen if 1000 (or 10,000) persons were infected at one time.

15 Sickened In N.J. E. Coli Outbreak
TRENTON, N.J., Dec. 4, 2006(AP) An outbreak of E. coli bacteria has sickened at least 15 people, two seriously, in central New Jersey during the past two weeks, officials said Sunday.

Authorities had yet to determine how and where the victims, mostly children, became infected. Investigators focused on a Taco Bell restaurant in South Plainfield where 11 of the victims ate.

The restaurant, which has been closed voluntarily since Thursday, passed a health code inspection last week and tests were being performed on stool samples from 21 of its employees.

Authorities were still looking for a few other employees from the restaurant and hoped to have results late Sunday or Monday.

"We have taken every precaution, including temporarily closing the restaurant until the investigation is completed, as nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our customers and employees," said Rob Poetsch, a spokesman for Irvine, Calif.-based Taco Bell Corp.

Seven of the victims were in area hospitals Sunday night. Two had developed a serious condition called hemolytic uremic syndrome that can permanently damage the kidneys. Officials were also investigating four other cases of suspected E. coli infection.

"It's a significant outbreak and it's a serious disease," Middlesex County Director of Health David Papi said.

Two of the confirmed victims were adults, while the others mostly range in age from 7 to 14, Papi said. All the victims were from Middlesex, Monmouth and Somerset counties.

E. coli, short for Escherichia coli, is a common and ordinarily harmless intestinal bacteria. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the strain of E. coli that caused the New Jersey infections is often found in the intestines of healthy goats, sheep and cattle, and most infections are associated with undercooked meat.

It can be passed from person to person if people don't take steps such as thoroughly washing their hands.

E. coli may also be found in sprouts or green leafy vegetables such as spinach. Earlier this year, three people died and more than 200 were sickened by a strain of E. coli that was traced to packaged spinach grown in California.

Well, most E. Coli outbreaks are due to our industrilaized and perverted food supply system usualy related to cattle processing.

But to refocus:

We are witnessing how a society becomes militarized in the most profound sense. What the N&O is reporting on is a major stage of the addiction process. Worthy goals (economic development, job creation, etc.) are referenced to justify pursuing this money which is there because of our militaristic foreign policy. Once the war businesses get further entrenched in our economies, it is that much harder to free ourselves for a more sustainable future. The same dynamic is at work with the huge electrical utilities that pursue dangerous generating strategies yet are so intertwined in our political and economic systems that it no longer is a scientific or common sense decision to change direction - we have become addicts who will experience "illness" in the form of economic withdrawal symptoms when we make the transitions that are essential to human survival. The pushers are running the asylum. Look at how easily we rationalize becoming dependent upon them.

Mark M,

I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying but you didn't answer my question: "I've never heard UNC mention that it was interested in having weapons research at CN. Are you aware of such an intent on their part? "

It seems to me that you've raised this possibility on several occasions and I'm not aware that UNC has ever suggested or advocated such a use for CN.

Mark Schultz, the editor of the Chapel Hill News, went to a talk at UNC several months ago and a major focus of the talk was that UNC needed to target the large amounts of money that were being made available for military projects. He mentioned it in a column he wrote, but it went unreported in the news section.

Mark,

Thanks for the clarification.

Oops!. Hit the submit button too soon. Meant to say

Mark,

Thanks for the clarification. I suspect that they might have been referring to Biodefense projects since that is the one area of NIH funding that is actually increasing and DOD is still funding in this area as well. Of course I don't know that this is the case for sure but there certainly is a big difference between weapons research and biodefense research. I would hope that any of the University's interests lie in the latter.

Although that could be a slippery slope. We know that medical research designed to help our soldiers who were captured to survive torture were turned around and used by the U.S. torturers at Gitmo to inflict more pain with less observable damage.

Mark, just where do you get this stuff?

Mark M,

I can't comment on the accuracy of your statement "We know that medical research designed to help our soldiers who were captured to survive torture were turned around and used by the U.S. torturers at Gitmo to inflict more pain with less observable damage." What I can say is that my research is biodefense-related (I'm working on a therapeutic for intoxication by Shiga toxin, the toxin associated with pathogenic E. coli) and I am strongly committed to seeing that any fruits of this research be used to prevent and alleviate pain and suffering, not just in this country but worldwide.

The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.

The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.

One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: "It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn't know what they were doing."

He said British and US military intelligence soldiers were trained in these techniques, which were taught at the joint services interrogation centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands.
::
Many British and US special forces soldiers learn about the degradation techniques because they are subjected to them to help them resist if captured. They include soldiers from the SAS, SBS, most air pilots, paratroopers and members of pathfinder platoons.

A number of commercial firms which have been supplying interrogators to the US army in Iraq boast of hiring former US special forces soldiers, such as Navy Seals.

"The crucial difference from Iraq is that frontline soldiers who are made to experience R2I techniques themselves develop empathy. They realise the suffering they are causing. But people who haven't undergone this don't realise what they are doing to people. It's a shambles in Iraq".

Guardian

Frontline's sad tale.

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani -- the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- were used at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee.

WAPO

To name a few...

GeorgeC, very cool science.

What's your take on a siting a Level 4 facility at CN? Would you oppose it?

Don't you think the "bio" aspect of CN is getting harder to justify in light of the millions of State dollars flowing Kannopolis-way?

WillR,

How do you connect those news accounts you reference to Mark M's comment “We know that medical research designed to help our soldiers who were captured to survive torture were turned around and used by the U.S. torturers at Gitmo to inflict more pain with less observable damage.” Those techniques described do not sound like medical research to me - unless you want to use a very loose definition of medical research.

WillR,

Yes, I would oppose a BSL-4 facility on the CN site. It is too close to populated areas (especially given that we want housing on site) and the security involved would consume a large portion of the entire project.

Regarding Kannapolis, as it stands right now the research there is aimed much more at nutritional aspects of health. I think that there could be a lot of synergy between CN and Kannapolis if planners work on generating it earlier, rather than later. Having said that, Kannapolis may be a drain on the private and industrial research investment dollars that might have gone to CN.

Maybe Mark's referring to last December's New England Journal of Medicine article:

Dr. H. said that she had undergone Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training, a military program designed to teach trainees how to withstand abusive treatment and interrogation if they are taken prisoner. Some people familiar with the program have suggested that SERE-trained BSCT psychologists may have used the experience to help design coercive interrogation strategies. Military officials told us they had found no evidence that this has occurred. As a result of SERE training, "I now have a better appreciation of what detainees are exposed to," said Dr. H. "We are never taught any kind of techniques whatever" for harsh interrogation.

But many observers remain concerned about the potential misuse of SERE training, as well as the larger ethical and medical ramifications of involving psychologists and psychiatrists in interrogations. "Empirically, it would be very easy for people with that kind of training to import their work into other arenas," said Georgetown University ethicist Nancy Sherman, an authority on military culture who was a member of the group visiting Guantanamo. "The role of a psychologist on the other side of a one-way mirror — advising, consulting, helping build rapport — is extremely slippery."

Or maybe this DSept. 2005 New Yorker article titled: THE EXPERIMENT
The military trains people to withstand interrogation. Are those methods being misused at Guantánamo?

Since 2001, the critics say, medical and scientific personnel have played a role, largely hidden, in helping to design and monitor interrogations that are intended to exploit the physical and mental vulnerabilities of detainees. According to a former interrogator at Guantánamo who was interviewed at length by a lawyer, behavioral scientists control the most minute details of interrogations, to the point of decreeing, in the case of one detainee, that he would be given seven squares of toilet paper per day.

“It is both illegal and deeply unethical to use techniques that profoundly disrupt someone's personality,” Leonard S. Rubenstein, the executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, an advocacy group that has been critical of the Bush Administration, says. “But that's precisely what interrogators are doing, in order to try to get people to talk.”

Or this June, 2006 on SERE in Salon article titled Torture teachersAn Army document proves that Guantánamo interrogators were taught by instructors from a military school that trains U.S. soldiers how to resist torture.

Jane Mayer explored the evidence of a connection between the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape school at Fort Bragg, N. C., and real-world interrogators in a July 2005 piece for the New Yorker. Now Salon has the first hard proof of that connection, via one document buried among 1,000 pages obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through the Freedom of Information Act. A March 22, 2005, sworn statement by the former chief of the Interrogation Control Element at Guantánamo said instructors from SERE also taught their methods to interrogators of the prisoners in Cuba.

"When I arrived at GTMO," reads the statement, "my predecessor arranged for SERE instructors to teach their techniques to the interrogators at GTMO ... The instructors did give some briefings to the Joint Interrogation Group interrogators."

I am a graduate of SERE school. That is not medical research.

Jane Meyer wrote a comprehensive article last year in the New Yorker on the whole history of this stuff and the compliance by members of the medical profession in helping the government understand how to inflict maximum pain with least physical damage.

Here's a link to related info:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/29/torture/index_np.html

It's amazing that our media is so locked down that this isn't common knowledge.

Here's the Jane Meyer article:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6?050214fa_f...

Fred, the SERE techniques were reportedly designed by medical professionals.

Make that "some of..." Fred, are you saying you don't believe these techniques were "inverted" and used at Gitmo, etc.?