Will we ever learn?
by Mike Ferner
During the Vietnam war, there was a vibrant, courageous resistance movement within the military itself. Young men and some women did anything they could to end the killing. They demonstrated, sabotaged military equipment and fragged their officers. They also published dozens of underground newspapers, one of which was put out by the crew of the carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, cheekily called Kitty Litter.
Going through some dusty files the other day, I saw the November,
1971 issue ("Cost: $PRICELESS"), which included the article "Indochina
War Is Not Over." It examined
Nixon's "Vietnamization" strategy of replacing U.S. troops
with South Vietnamese. For the same reasons as today, raining death from
above was a necessary part of the process.
The swabbie who wrote that article 42 years ago could have easily written the
same thing today -- word for word -- and therein is serious food for thought for
today's peace movement. (Emphases and
spelling errors in the following excerpt were in the original.)
"It's quite clear that no American
government will ever again be able to put a large conscripted army in the
field. For years American troops have been in silent mutiny in Vietnam.
They are refusing to fight. They have become aware that the government
has lied to them, it has fooled them and tricked them and conscripted them to
fight a war they intensely oppose. As the soldiers saw what was happening
in Vietnam,
they realized that the Vietnamese were not their enemies. They began to
select enemies within their own ranks. In 1970, 209 officers were killed
by their own men.
The message became clear to the Makers-of-War. They could not commit
massive ground troops to an unpopular war. So, if you are a Maker-of-War,
what do you do? Do you say, "this country is based on democratic ideals
and since 73% of the people want out of Vietnam, we are going to end the
war now?' Not if you are a Maker-of-War.
You get other people to fight that war. You give them the weapons and you
train them and"replace the ground troops"as long as Mother's sons are
not coming home in plastic bags there will be no domestic opposition to
continuing that war.
In a special issue of the (Teledyne Ryan) Reporter, a trade magazine of the
Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical Corp., was devoted to a discussion of the Remotely
Piloted Vehicle (RPV). Launched from an aircraft carrier, these aircraft,
piloted remotely by technicians in the safty and comfort of the mother ship,
can carry a variety of weapons and perform a number of functions.
Receiving data from electronic sensors dropped by other RPVs, the RPV can be
guided automatically to a target. Only the so-called enemy gets
killed. There are no POWs, and if a civilian, woman or child is its victim,
there will be no warrior, conscience struck, to expose the murder to the
American people. It's a way to fight wars without having to draft
Americans, or to convince folks back home that the war is just, or, for that
matter, even having to tell them much about what is going on.
The advantage of this weapons system to the Makers-of-War is that a handfull of
specially trained, highly paid technocrats can rain death on millions of people
from sanctuaries 50 miles off shore.
Teledyne Ryan is bold enough to say almost this very thing. "In summary,
the future of Remotely Piloted Vehicles is as bright as it has ever been.
The lower cost, political acceptability, low risk of life and versatile
mission capabilities of RPVs make them very attractive candidates in a world of
shrinking budgets and unpopular military operations.'
Two generations later, some observations:
1) Drones are not new.
2) How far has the movement come in 42 years if we are once again focusing on the particular evils of drones?
3) Does this teach us anything about our strategy or lack thereof?
To be sure, drones are a malevolent manifestation of the Empire's capabilities. We revile them for all the right reasons. Shining a light on them can be a good tactic. I don't argue we ignore them.
But what does it say about us, about our ability to work successfully for social change, if today we think we're doing something significant by campaigning against drones, 42 years after they caught the attention of the G.I. resistance movement? If in the intervening decades since 1971 we had been more conscious and strategic about our organizing, might we be further down the road of social change by now?
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