GI SPECIAL 3D57A:

Announcement:

GI Special will resume publication on or before January 5, 2006. The interruption is necessary to make time available for organizing work for the Military Project.

"People Need Not Be Helpless Before The Power Of Illegitimate Authority"

[Based on a statement by David Cortright, Vietnam Veteran and armed forces resistance organizer.]

In the final analysis the stationing of American forces abroad serves not the national interest but the class interest of the corporate and political elite.

The maintenance of a massive, interventionist-oriented military establishment is based on the need to protect multinational investment and preserve regimes friendly to American capital.

Imperialism is at the heart of the national-security system and is the force fundamentally responsible for the counterrevolutionary, repressive aims of U.S. policy.

Only if we confront this reality and challenge it throughout society and within the ranks can we restore democratic control of the military.

Of course nothing can be accomplished without citizen involvement and active political struggle.

During the Vietnam era enlisted servicemen created massive pressures for change, despite severe repression, and significantly altered the course of the war and subsequent military policy.

To sustain and strengthen this challenge we must continue to build political opposition to interventionism and support those within the armed services, including national guard and reserves, who defy the goals and program of Empire.

The central lesson of the GI movement is that people need not be helpless before the power of illegitimate authority, that by getting together and acting upon their convictions people can change society and, in effect, make their own history.

The Military Project

Contact@militaryproject.org

Funeral for Spc. Toccara Green, Aug. 25, 2005 in Baltimore. Green was killed in Iraq. Green is Maryland's first woman soldier killed in combat. (AP Photo/Chris Gardner)

Paris 1871:

The Soldiers' Verse,

Recovered By Max Watts

Les rois nous saoulent de leur fumes

Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans!

Decretons la greve aux armees

Crosse en air, rompons les rangs!

S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales

de faire de nous des heros

Ils sauront bientot que nos balles

sont pour nos propres generaux !

C'est la lutte finale

groupons nous et demain

L'Internationale sera le genre humain

Veterans, Camp Casey, Crawford, Texas

Photo: Ward Reilly, Veterans For Peace

Declared Bill Ehrhart, a marine in Vietnam:

"In grade school we learned about the redcoats, the nasty British soldiers that tried to stifle our freedom....

"Subconsciously, but not very subconsciously, I began increasingly to have the feeling that I was a redcoat. I think it was one of the most staggering realizations of my life."