Rules of Disengagement examines the reasons men and women in the military have disobeyed orders and resisted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It takes readers into the courtroom where sailors, soldiers, and Marines have argued that these wars are illegal under international law and unconstitutional under U.S. law.
Through the voices of active duty service members and veterans, it explores the growing conviction among our troops that the war is wrong. It then examines what they have done—and what readers can do—to resist and end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Marjorie Cohn has been a writer, teacher, and scholar for more than 15 years and a practicing attorney since 1975. She authored Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law (PoliPointPress 2007) and coauthored Cameras in the Courtroom: Television and the Pursuit of Justice. Her columns have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, AlterNet, Common Dreams, and The National Law Journal. She’s a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. Marjorie Cohn lectures worldwide and does frequent interviews for national and international media.
Kathleen Gilberd has worked as a military counselor for over 30 years, assisting conscientious objectors, soldiers fighting sexual harassment and racial discrimination, GI whistleblowers, soldiers and sailors accused under “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policies, and veterans unfairly denied benefits after “bad paper discharges.” Her writing and cases have made her a nationally recognized expert in military administrative law.
Ms. Gilberd is co-chair of the National Lawyer’s Guild’s Military Law Task Force and a frequent contributor to its legal publication, On Watch. She is co-author of Fighting Back, which was for many years the only legal manual on military policy on homosexuality, and a contributing author for the respected legal manual, Sexual Orientation and the Law. She serves on the national advisory committee of the GI Rights Network and has been involved in both national and local work in the National Lawyers Guild since 1977. She received a degree in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Praise:
“In Rules of Disengagement, Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd chronicle the inspiring resistance of GIs to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Such resistance proved vital in helping bring an end to the war in Vietnam and is still urgently needed today. Rules of Disengagement is a clear, bold, and timely call to action.”
—Anthony Arnove, Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal
“Rules of Disengagement describes acts of dissent from men and women who’ve served in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, providing an urgently needed guide to GI resistance. A must read for everyone in today’s military and for all those who support disengagement from illegitimate wars and occupations.”
—Camilo E. Mejia, Road from ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia
“The horrors of Abu Ghraib would have been concealed were it not for the courage of a single principled American military guard who released photos on the Internet. That one incident reveals the vital importance of protecting and expanding the right to dissent among those who serve in our military. Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd have provided heroic service in this book.”
—Tom Hayden, The Tom Hayden Reader and The Long Sixties
“Future generations will point to the words and actions of the courageous military resisters who held the line in protecting our nation’s dignity and democracy. This remarkable record of soldiers’ stories is evidence of strident opposition to the crimes of the U.S. government and to the effort by those in uniform to reclaim their own humanity and tell their truth.”
—Aimee Allison, conscientious objector, and producer/host, The Morning Show, KPFA
Reviews:
“Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent” by Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd. PoliPointPress/www.p3books.com/s.jordan@p3books.com. 226 pages soft cover, $14.95
Concern over the possibility of committing a war crime is a valid reason for disobeying or ignoring an order in the military, say the authors. In a book that should be “must” reading for all young people considering entering the military and their parents and other loved ones as well as those counseling young people about the military, Cohn and Gilberd methodically document what little potential enlistees and those already in service are told about their rights to avoid becoming potential war criminals.
Each chapter in its own particular way makes cogent points about illegal wars, their conduct and the liabilities of those involved in them. In the Introduction, the authors tell us that “Rules of engagement limit forms of combat, levels for force, defining what is legal in warfare and what is not. In the modern world, the rules of engagement are defined by an established body of international law and, for American soldiers, by U.S law as well.”
“When the government at the highest levels ignores these rules, when the conduct of a war and the war itself violate the law, as happened in Vietnam and is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers are forced into a legal and ethical dilemma. They must decide whether to abide by law and conscience—knowing the government does not—or to follow orders without regard to the law. ‘Rules of Engagement’ examines the legal and moral questions posed by these wars through the eyes of American soldiers, showing the effects the wars have had on the soldiers’ lives and those of their families.”
Whether you’re considering joining the military, know someone who is or has, or are deeply concerned with the moral and ethical issues of making and conducting war, this book is for you.—Will Shapira, Twin Cities Chaopter 27, Veterans for Peace, wshapira@comcast.net/651-493-7473.
Prepare to Disengage
By Elaine Elinson, Jul. 23, 2009, Daily Journal
During the Vietnam War, GI dissent was both documented and nurtured by a slew of underground GI newspapers. Papers like “Up Against the Bulkhead,” “Harass the Brass” and “About Face” were mimeographed and passed from base to base, hand to hand. These bold, clever, ragtag papers gave voice to the soldiers’ rage against the injustices of the military and offered advice on everything from filing for conscientious-objector status to organizing anti-war protests.
GI coffee houses, safe havens outside the gates of military bases in the U.S. and abroad, drew soldiers who needed legal counseling about sexual harassment, racism or disciplinary proceedings.
Civilian lawyers pored over volumes of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, quickly learning the convolutions of military law. The National Lawyers Guild launched the Military Law Project, creating a corps of attorneys to provide legal counseling to soldiers. The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors produced the useful “Military Counseling Manual.” Its pages were copied and recopied, smuggled into barracks and aircraft carriers and even handed to GIs on R&R in Hong Kong discos and discount stores.
In “Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent,” Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd distill all this information into one useful, practical and thought-provoking volume. Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego and president of the National Lawyers Guild (and a regular Daily Journal columnist), and Gilberd, who has been involved in military counseling since 1971, bring decades of experience in counseling soldiers, including work on high-profile legal cases against the military.
Cohn and Gilberd draw important parallels between GI war resistance during Vietnam and that taking place today.
During the 2004 election, candidate John Kerry’s war record became headline news because of the “swift boat” attacks. But many anti-war activists were reminded of Kerry’s heroic role off the battle field – when as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War he participated in the Winter Soldier hearings in Detroit in 1971.
Though the mainstream media gave very little coverage at the time to the 150 veterans, honorably discharged and many highly decorated, who gave testimony about atrocities that they and others had committed in Vietnam, the 27-year-old Kerry put the national spotlight on their experiences when he spoke at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee three months later.
“They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do,” Kerry told the senators. “They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wired from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam.”
In 2008, these stories were echoed when Iraq Veterans Against the War organized a similar event, called “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan – Eyewitness Account of the Occupation.”
“The testimony of soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan reveals that the military has not learned the sobering lessons of the Vietnam War, and that war crimes today are frighteningly similar to those committed 40 years ago,” the authors assert.
They conclude that, although resistance in today’s military may be under the radar, today’s soldiers are “disengaging” from the military in a variety of ways – often at great risk to themselves.
They cite the case of Petty Officer Third Class Pablo Paredes of the Bronx who, because he was convinced the war in Iraq was illegal, refused to board a transport ship carrying 3,000 Marines to Iraq. During his court martial in 2004, he stated that he had come “to an overwhelming conclusion supported by countless examples that any soldier who knowingly participates in an illegal war can find no haven in the fact that they were following orders, in the eyes of international law.”
The judge gave Paredes a lenient sentence, with no jail time. When Paredes left the military, he became an organizer in the GI movement, focusing on youth of recruitment age.
A more conventional way for anti-war soldiers to leave the military is to seek conscientious-objector status.
Ever since the Revolutionary War, military law has allowed soldiers to become CO’s; that right was expanded by Vietnam-era cases such as U.S. v. Seeger and Welsh v. U.S. that allowed CO status to be granted not only on traditional religious beliefs, but also moral or ethical grounds.
The first publicly known conscientious objector to the Iraq war from inside the military was Staff Sgt. Carlos Mejia. Mejia had served in the Florida National Guard for eight years before being deployed to Iraq in 2003. Mejia recalled how on a search-and-destroy mission, he had seen a small boy standing by the corpse of his father. The sight caused him to deeply question the role of the U.S military in Iraq, and all wars.
After a leave, he decided not to return to Iraq. “Whether we squeeze the trigger, give the order, or simply stand idle in the face of senseless missions that result in the killing of innocent blood, it doesn’t make a difference.
“It took the experience of war for me to see things in a broader perspective and realize that I was, deep down, a conscientious objector,” Mejia said.
Mejia was charged with desertion. He was represented by attorney Louis Font, a veteran who had faced 25 years in prison for his own opposition to the Vietnam War, before he obtained CO status and was honorably discharged.
With his CO application still pending, Mejia served nine months in prison. Cited by Amnesty International as a “prisoner of conscience,” he currently is chair of Iraqi Veterans Against the War.
Unfortunately, for many soldiers the road to disengagement from the military is even more difficult than the arduous task of applying for CO status or facing a court martial for resistance. The authors relate numerous stories of GIs who could not live with the physical wounds or mental anguish that came from being sent back into the war zone for numerous deployments. An Army psychiatrist estimates that 30 percent of soldiers on their third deployment have serious mental health problems. “Are we trying to bandage up what is essentially an insufficient fighting force?” asks a psychiatrist from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. The authors also document the high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide among veterans.
Though the main focus of the book is on dissent and disengagement, the authors describe other problems soldiers face. There are chapters devoted to challenging race discrimination, sexual assault and sexual harassment, and lack of adequate medical and mental health treatment.
Cohn and Gilberd advise the reader that this book is meant not as an abstract analysis but as a practical guide. They outline procedures for applying for discharge or noncombatant status as a CO and explain sections of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that can assist soldiers and their families seeking their rights. They also include a useful directory of organizations and resources for soldiers, veterans and lawyers, including the GI Rights toll-free hotline, which helped 40,000 soldiers in 2007 alone. Noting that because of multiple deployments, families of service members bear a greater burden than in previous wars, they also provide contact information for groups like Gold Star Families Speak Out and Guerrero Azteca Peace Project.
Many of the stories related in this book are chilling. But in a war where the administration forbade the publication of photographs of flag-draped caskets of the military dead, it should not be surprising that those who fight that war harbor many unrevealed and disturbing truths.
“Rules of Disengagement” is an important contribution to understanding what men and women in the military are enduring – and a useful volume to help them assert their rights.
Elaine Elinson is coauthor of “Wherever There’s a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California,” to be published in October by Heyday Books. During the Vietnam war, she toured Southeast Asia with FTA, an anti-war show for GIs.
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Book Review by By Elaine Elinson
Published Jul. 23, 2009, The Daily Journal, www.dailyjournal.com
Permission by Daily Journal Corporation. All rights reserved.
Resources:
GI Rights and Legal Help
GI Rights Network
National Hotline 877-447-4487
From overseas 415-487-2635
From Germany 06223-47506
girights@girightshotline.org
www.girightshotline.org
Military Law Task Force
of the National Lawyers Guild
730 N. First Street
San Jose, CA 95112
619-463-2369
info@mltf.info
www.nlgmltf.org
Center on Conscience and War
1830 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-483-2220
www.centeronconscience.org
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network
P.O. Box 65301
Washington, DC 20035
202-328-3244
www.sldn.org
(focusing on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy)
Military Women’s Support Groups
Miles Foundation
P.O. Box 423
Newtown, CT 06470
203-270-7861
milesfdn@aol.com
Service Women’s Action Network
info@servicewomen.org
servicewomen.org
Veterans Rights and Benefits
National Veterans Legal Services Project
P.O. Box 65762
Washington, DC 20035
www.nvlsp.org
National Organization of Veterans Advocates
1425 K Street, NW, Suite 350
Washington, DC 20005
877-483-8238
www.vetadvocates.com
Swords to Plowshares
1060 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-252-4788
www.swords-to-plowshares.org
(working primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area)
Black Veterans for Social Justice
665 Willoughby Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11206
718-852-6004
Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program
701 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 131
Washington, DC 20004
888-838-7727 or 202-628-8164
www.vetsprobono.org
(assistance with cases at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims)
Veterans Activist Organizations
Iraq Veterans Against the War
ivaw@ivaw.org
215-241-7123
www.ivaw.org
Veterans Against the Iraq War
201-876-0430
www.vaiw.org
Veterans for Peace
314-725-6005
vfp@igc.org
www.veteransforpeace.org
Veterans for America
www.veteransforamerica.org
(publishers of the online American Veterans and Servicemember’s
Survival Guide)
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
773-276-4189
www.vvaw.org
Other veterans resource groups can be found in the Appendix of the
American Servicemembers and Veterans Survival Guide, www.veteransforamerica.org.
Organizations of Military Families
Guerrero Azteca Peace Project
760-746-4568
gaztecaproject@yahoo.com
www.guerreroazteca.org
Military Families Speak Out
617-522-9323
mfso@mfso.org
www.mfso.org
Gold Star Families Speak Out
562-500-9097
www.gsfso.org
September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
212-598-0970
www.peacefultomorrows.org
Military Resistance Organizing and Support Groups
Courage to Resist
510-488-3559
www.couragetoresist.org
Iraq Veterans Against the War
ivaw@ivaw.org
P.O. Box 8296
Philadelphia, PA 19101
215-241-7123
www.ivaw.org
The Military Project
contact@militaryproject.org
www.militaryproject.org
(supports the GI Special online newsletter)
Peace and Justice Groups
United for Peace and Justice Coalition (UFPJ)
212-868-5545
www.unitedforpeace.org
Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER)
1247 E Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
202-544-3389
info@internationalanswer.org
www.internationalanswer.org
Code Pink
www.codepink4peace.org
Grandmothers for Peace
www.grandmothersforpeace.org
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
www.wilpf.org
American Friends Service Committee
www.afsc.org
National Network Opposing the Militarism of Youth
www.nnomy.org