Counter-recruitment

The military recruitment debate is heating up. With unemployment for Black men currently standing at 50 percent in New York, Harlem -- and CCNY in particular -- is bound to be a priority target for military recruiters. “Counter-recruitment” has become a national issue (see “Counter-Recruiters Shadowing the Military,” USA Today, March 7), and it’s working. Between these efforts, and widespread anger about the war, recruitment is down. According to a March 6 Reuters report, “The regular Army is 6 percent behind its year-to-date recruiting target, the Reserve is 10 percent behind, and the Guard is 26 percent short.” The military newspaper Stars and Stripes reports that African-American recruitment is down 41 percent since 2000. (...) Bush claims that his occupation of Iraq represents “democracy is on the march” in the Middle East. Will that include the right to protest? Certainly not for the 100,000 Iraqis killed by the U.S. since the March 2003 invasion, or the more than 1500 dead American soldiers. Blood and oil don’t mix and they don’t create democracy. Here in the U.S., high school and college student activists all over the country can take up the fight for peace and democracy and organize to kick recruiters out of their schools. Like the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro 45 years ago that challenged segregation in dozens of communities across the nation, you can get started opposing the recruiters at your school with just a few friends. Getting the military out of our schools and replacing them with real educational opportunities is our generation’s fight. No one will do it for us. We owe it to ourselves, the Iraqis, and the American soldiers dying for a lie.

To find out what you can do to help, write to cityfreespeech@earthlink.net and SFSUfreespeech@gmail.com or go to CAN’s website www.campusantiwar.net

Military Recruiters Target Campus Activists
by Hadas Thier and Katrina Yeaw
March 16, 2005
ZNet