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A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–industrial complex due to a crisis of conscience. In some countries, conscientious objectors are assigned to an alternative civilian service as a substitute for conscription or military service.
Citizens of Israel have refused to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or have disobeyed orders on the grounds of pacifism, antimilitarism, religious philosophy, or political disagreement with Israeli policy such as its occupation of the West Bank. Conscientious objectors in Israel are known as sarvanim which is sometimes translated as "refuseniks", or mishtamtim.
Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with unauthorized absence (UA) or absence without leave, which are temporary forms of absence.
Camilo Ernesto Mejía is a Nicaraguan who left the United States Army during the Iraq War on conscientious objector grounds, was convicted of desertion and went on to become an anti-war activist. He is also the son of Carlos Mejia Godoy, Nicaragua songwriter.
Jeremy Dean Hinzman is an Iraq War resister who was the first American deserter to seek refugee status in Canada.
Archibald McColl Learmond Baxter was a New Zealand socialist, pacifist and conscientious objector.
The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) was a United States nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people avoid or resist military conscription or seek discharge after voluntary enlistment. It was active in supporting conscientious objectors ("CO's"), war resisters and draft evaders during the Vietnam War. Founded in Philadelphia in 1948 and dissolved in 2011, CCCO emphasized the needs of secular and activist COs, while other organizations supporting COs principally focused on religious objectors and/or legislative reform and government relations.
Ehren Keoni Watada is a former first lieutenant of the United States Army, best known as the first commissioned officer in the US armed forces to refuse to deploy to Iraq. In June 2006, Watada refused to deploy for his unit's assigned rotation to Operation Iraqi Freedom, saying he believed the war to be illegal and that, under the doctrine of command responsibility, it would make him party to war crimes. At the time, he was assigned to duty with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, as a fire support officer. He was brought before a court-martial in 2007 which ended in a mistrial; the Army subsequently discharged him under "Other-Than-Honorable-Conditions" (OTH) in 2009. An OTH discharge is the least favorable type of administrative discharge from the Army, and is reserved for a "pattern of behavior that constitutes a significant departure from the conduct expected of Soldiers of the Army."
Stephen Funk is a former United States Marine Corps Landing Support Specialist and Lance Corporal reservist. He was the first person to publicly refuse to deploy in Iraq.
Officers and enlisted personnel, in the U.S. Armed Forces and elsewhere, regularly take an oral oath to support and defend the primary convening document and/or the supreme leader of the nation-state. There have been countless cases throughout human history where commissioned military officers and enlisted personnel—as individuals or small groups—have chosen to question and disobey the orders of their superior officers or the supreme leader of the state.
Agustín Aguayo is a veteran of the Iraq War. After several failed attempts to attain conscientious objector status, he deserted his unit in Germany in September 2006 to avoid redeployment to Iraq. He was convicted of desertion by a court martial March 6, 2007 and served six months in prison. His trial led Amnesty International to declare him a prisoner of conscience.
A war resister is a person who resists war. The term can mean several things: resisting participation in all war, or a specific war, either before or after enlisting in, being inducted into, or being conscripted into a military force.
Joshua Casteel was a United States Army soldier, conscientious objector, playwright, and divinity student. He volunteered for the army in 2002 and conducted interrogations in Abu Ghraib prison.
Conscientious objection in the United States is based on the Military Selective Service Act, which delegates its implementation to the Selective Service System. Conscientious objection is also recognized by the Department of Defense.
GI coffeehouses were coffeehouses set up as part of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War era as a method of fostering antiwar and anti-military sentiment within the U.S. military. They were mainly organized by civilian antiwar activists, though many GIs participated in establishing them as well. They were created in numerous cities and towns near U.S. military bases throughout the U.S as well as Germany and Japan. Due to the normal high turnover rate of GIs at military bases plus the military's response which often involved transfer, discharge and demotion, not to mention the hostility of the pro-military towns where many coffeehouses were located, most of them were short-lived, but a few survived for several years and "contributed to some of the GI movement's most significant actions". The first GI coffeehouse of the Vietnam era was set up in January 1968 and the last closed in 1974. There have been a few additional coffeehouses created during the U.S. led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Courage to Resist (CTR) is an organization in the San Francisco, CA area and beyond formed during the early part of the Iraq War which began in 2003. CTR's mission is to support U.S military war resisters, including helping them with legal fees such as well-known resisters Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner. In 2018, CTR began encouraging soldiers to resist at detention camps and other immigrant operations of the U.S. military. CTR's principle slogans are “Supporting the troops who refuse to fight!” and "Towards a World Without War!" They support those “who face consequences for acting on conscience, in opposition to illegal wars, occupations, [and] the policies of empire”.
While the Republic of Korea's Constitution states that all citizens, regardless of gender, sex, political or religious affiliation, should be afforded equal treatment under the law, some scholars, such as Intaek Hwang, claim that the culture of militarism is so pervasive that Conscientious Objectors are stripped of the rights discussed in the Constitution when universal male conscription became the law in 1948. A Conscientious Objector is defined as "an individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience and or religion" by the United Nation's Human Rights Commission. Since the signing of the Conscription Law in 1949, stating that every male 18 years of age must serve in the military, Conscientious Objectors, when found, are arrested and subject to violent punishments.
The Pacific Counseling Service (PCS) was a G.I. counseling service organization created by antiwar activists during the Vietnam War. PCS saw itself as trying to make the U.S. Armed Forces "adhere more closely to regulations concerning conscientious objector discharges and G.I. rights." The Armed Forces Journal, on the other hand, said PCS was involved in "antimilitary activities", including "legal help and incitement to dissident GIs." PCS evolved out of a small GI Help office started by a freshly discharged Air Force Sergeant in San Francisco, California in January 1969. The idea rapidly caught on among antiwar forces and within a year PCS had offices in Monterey, Oakland, and San Diego in California, plus Tacoma, Washington. By 1971 it had spread around the Pacific with additional offices in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Okinawa, the Philippines, as well as Tokyo and Iwakuni in Japan. Each location was established near a major U.S. military base. At its peak, PCS was counseling hundreds of disgruntled soldiers a week, helping many with legal advice, conscientious objector discharges and more. As the war wound down, ending in 1975, the offices closed with the remaining office in San Francisco printing its last underground newspaper in 1976.
The Fort Lewis Six were six U.S. Army enlisted men at the Fort Lewis Army base in the Seattle and Tacoma, Washington area who in June 1970 refused orders to the Vietnam War and were then courts-martialed. They had all applied for conscientious objector status and been turned down by the Pentagon. The Army then ordered them to report for assignment to Vietnam, which they all refused. The Army responded by charging them with "willful disobedience" which carried a maximum penalty of five years at hard labor. The six soldiers were Private First Class Manuel Perez, a Cuban refugee; Private First Class Paul A. Forest, a British citizen from Liverpool; Specialist 4 Carl M. Dix Jr. from Baltimore; Private James B. Allen from Goldsboro, North Carolina; Private First Class Lawrence Galgano from Brooklyn, New York; and Private First Class Jeffrey C. Griffith from Vaughn, Washington. According to the local GI underground newspaper at Fort Lewis, this was the largest mass refusal of direct orders to Vietnam at the base up to that point in the war. Their refusal and subsequent treatment by the Army received national press coverage.
References
- ↑ Cohn, Marjorie; Gilberd, Kathleen (2009). Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent. NYU Press. p. 66. ISBN 9780981576923.
- ↑ Allison, Aimee; Solnit, David (2007). Army of None (First ed.). New York: Seven Stories Press. pp. 116–117. ISBN 978-1583227558.
- ↑ Contreras, Guillermo (2005-11-11). "Soldier loses court battle". MySA.com. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2024-01-25.
- ↑ Howlett, Charles F. (January 2013). "The Courts and Peace Activism: Selected Legal Cases Related to Matters of Conscience and Civil Liberties". Peace & Change. 38 (1): 6–32. doi:10.1111/pech.12001. ISSN 0149-0508.