13.12.2007

Support soldiers who want out

The war in Iraq and the threat to Iran are class issues, writes Cliff Slaughter, a supporter of Movement for Socialism. The anti-war movement needs to go beyond bigger demonstrations

I suggest that the current raging row at the top about funding of the armed forces can open our eyes to a real opportunity - one that we should have seen and grasped before.

The official figure of deaths of British soldiers in the present operations in Iraq and Afghanistan stands at 250. According to newspapers, for every soldier killed or injured in action, scores more return home traumatised by the horrific scenes they have witnessed.

A recent ministry of defence report says there has been "slippage" in the military's ability to "recruit, train, motivate and retain sufficient personnel". There are "worries that without proper funding the military is going to lose substantial numbers of troops, who are fed up with poor pay, accommodation and constant operations". I propose that we support the rank-and-file soldiers, campaign to encourage this "slippage" and give more "worries" to the class enemy.

A top-level report led by general Sir Richard Dannatt complains that troops feel "devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue". Soldiers are "'going sick' to get out of the army".

On military housing the ministry of defence report says (note some of the language): "Some estates are degenerating - in Germany it is reported that many of the neighbouring areas are occupied by immigrant families with hordes of children [sic]. This is of particular concern for wives when their husbands are deployed [on operations]."

Suicide

One comrade has described the rank-and-file soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as "economic conscripts" - they are drawn in the great majority from traditional working class areas (Glasgow, the north-east, south Wales). What is happening to them? "The number of troops who have committed suicide after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is equivalent to 10% of deaths suffered on operations" (The Daily Telegraph November 15).

The ministry of defence has disclosed that (up to December 2006) 17 serving personnel have killed themselves after witnessing the horrors of conflict. There are also fears that the number of suicides among troops who have recently left the armed forces could be significantly higher than 17. However, no records are kept once they leave the services.

Over the same period, 81 personnel who had not served on operations committed suicide and 14,000 Territorial Army members who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are not included in these figures. An estimated 300 Falklands veterans committed suicide, outstripping the 258 killed in conflict.

The Daily Telegraph reported: "A young soldier was so traumatised by the prospect of his first posting in Iraq that he took a fatal overdose. Kingsman Jason Chelsea cold not come to terms with the thought that he might have to 'shoot children'" (November 15).

These soldiers are being thrown into conflict in the service of the ruling class without concern for their lives. Top military officers are saying: "The lives of hundreds of soldiers could be lost unless the government starts to fund the military properly."

General Lord Guthrie says: "The military is about to break if [Gordon Brown] is not careful. By this I mean nobody will want to join the armed forces, and the operational consequence of this is a failure in Afghanistan. It could well mean that the Taliban actually win a battle and kill a lot of soldiers."

A senior NCO in Afghanistan told a reporter: "I am having trouble selling the armed forces as a career choice. But why let common sense and young people being killed for close to the minimum wage get in the way of politics?" The fact is that private soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq take home little more than £1,000 a month, while senior officers above the rank of brigadier now routinely earn six-figure salaries.

Soldiers serving in Iraq have had to witness torture carried out as routine policy. There is already a mountain of evidence of its use by the US forces, and the use of Saddam's torture methods and personnel - with American 'refinements' - are encouraged in the camps and prisons run by the Iraqi 'authorities'.

The Iraq ministry of the interior told New York Times Magazine reporter Peter Maass that "it does not allow any human rights abuses of prisoners that are in the hands of ministry of the interior security forces". But "in November 2005 173 Iraqis were discovered in an interior ministry dungeon, some tortured so badly that their skin was falling off, others with drill marks in their skulls and teeth and toenails removed."

Life makes you need to leave Glasgow, south Wales, the north-east for all this?

Why are they there?

It is surely good news that "More than 5,000 soldiers have left in the past few months and 2,000 are waiting to have their applications to quit approved."

Weapons of mass destruction? To this day, not one has been found. Iraq an enemy? But did not the US support Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war? To help the Kurdish people, brutally repressed by Saddam? But they totally ignored this when they supported Saddam against Iran. And they support the Turkish rulers in their attack on the Kurds. To promote 'democracy'? But they refused elections in Iraq because the shi'ites are in the majority, and they suppressed violently demonstrations calling for elections.

Naomi Klein writes: "The architects of the invasion...unleashed ferocious violence because they could not crack open the closed economies of the Middle East by peaceful means." Michael Ledeen, adviser to Bush's government, called it "a war to remake the world". In other words, the Middle East must be brought under the control of US capital and its state, in order that none of the economic resources and political/strategic areas of the world shall remain outside its domination.

Eight days after declaring an end to major combat in Iraq, president Bush announced plans for the establishment of a United States-Middle East free trade area within a decade. Two hundred state-owned firms were immediately privatised. The Halliburton Corporation, for example, soon had 50,000 employees in Iraq.

Even the schools were removed from state ownership and responsibility. The teachers, unionised, came under the hammer: 4,700 were sacked. The children disappeared from the schools - as of 2006, two-thirds of them stayed home. Next came the professionals. An estimated 300 of Iraq's academics have been assassinated by death squads since the US invasion; thousands more have fled. By February 2007, an estimated 2,000 doctors had been killed and 12,000 had fled.One in seven Iraqis have been forced to leave their homes.

British soldiers in Iraq are already outnumbered by their countrymen working for private security forces at a rate of three to one. Then companies employing these 'security' forces are paid by the British state: that is, by the taxpayer. The same goes for the US forces and the US government.

What exists in Iran, and what is being prepared for the people of Iran, is a brutal military dictatorship, no better than the brutal dictatorships it replaces. This is what the armed forces are there to impose, by whatever methods are deemed necessary.

Their presence must be opposed by all possible means, by a movement which seeks to support the people of Iraq and Iran against the invaders and against their own repressive rulers. And which supports those soldiers who are being exploited and sacrificed, who in their thousands want to find a way out of the war. Should they be left to make individual decisions to find that way out?

Protests not enough

Protests against the occupation and war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against the threat to Iran, are natural and essential, but are they enough? They will not 'stop the war', that is clear.

From our side, in Britain and the US, and in every country whose troops are in these war zones, we must surely look for ways to help those soldiers who do not want to be part of this barbarous war, this ruthless killing spree on behalf of capital and those who own it. We must actively, by all means at our disposal, actually support and encourage their opposition to the war. Is it not a fact that when a soldier opts out of the forces, he or she does more to 'stop the war' than a thousand protests?

There are millions of men and women who oppose the war and will support those soldiers who look for a way out of it. There are thousands of families who have lost loved ones or have sons in the army in Britain and the US who will welcome and join with a movement of support for the troops. They surely must not be left alone to voice their sorrows.

We should make contact with every movement in the US which opposes the war and supports those soldiers who 'vote with their feet' against it - and there are many. We should find ways of encouraging British soldiers to make links with US troops who feel the same as they do.

If we work in this way, will we not be condemned as traitors, as unpatriotic, as people damaging the morale of our brave troops, and so on? Yes, of course, but we will be standing in a proud working class tradition of solidarity and opposition to wars in which the sons and daughters of the working class are sacrificed in the interests of their exploiters.

Old-fashioned rhetoric? If you like, but I repeat: a real 'anti-war movement' will be more than protests, which will not 'stop the war'. We have to find ways of actually putting a stop to it. Bigger and bigger demonstrations, yes, but the war must be opposed, not just objected to.

First step! Support those soldiers who have started to do that, and the many others who want to do the same. Find ways of bringing together all those families and individuals who want it ended. Organise in the unions whose members are responsible for communications, transport and supplies to bring their members into contact with soldiers and their organisations to look for ways of protecting any who want out of the war.

Such initiatives by the unions could be a step towards finding ways for the organised working class here and in the US to truly help and organise aid to the people of Iraq and Iran.

Am I saying that soldiers should object to 'doing their duty', that they should not be doing what they are ordered to do? Yes, I am, conscious of the fact that thousands of them are already convinced of this. Let us help them.