Travis
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> It's a fact of life that some have more agency than others regarding
> the Iraq War, being more directly involved in war-making than
> others. Let's say that 4,000 civilian Americans refuse to pay taxes,
> following the advice of the War Registers' League (cf. <http://
> www.warresisters.org/how_to_resist.htm>). That will have little
> tangible material impact on the war-making capacity of the US
> government (if the tax resisters in question are poor, they may not
> be paying much tax even without tax disobedience). If 4,000 Army
> soldiers refuse to reenlist, however, that will have far more impact
> than 4,000 (or even 40,000 or 400,000) civilian tax resisters.
>
> <blockquote>The Army announced in October that, for fiscal year 2005,
> the active-duty Army recruited 73,373 new soldiers, 6,627 short of
> the goal of 80,000 (i.e., 92% of the goal); the Army Reserve accessed
> 23,859 soldiers, 4,626 short of the goal of 28,485 (i.e., 84%); and
> the Army National Guard gained 50,219 soldiers, 12,783 short of the
> goal of 63,002 (i.e., 80%).
>
> <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ayers011105.html></blockquote>
>
> That's very good.
>
> Reenlistment has not gone down as much as fresh recruitment.
>
> <blockquote>Soldiers are re-enlisting at rates ahead of the Army's
> targets, even as overall recruiting is suffering after two years of
> the Iraq war.
> The high re-enlistment rates would make up about one-third of the
> Army's projected 12,000-troop shortfall in recruiting, although the
> re-enlistments won't address some key personnel vacancies, such as
> military police and bomb-disposal experts.
>
> (Dave Moniz, "Soldiers Re-enlist beyond U.S. Goal," USA Today, 17
> July 2005, <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-17-soldiers-
> re-enlist_x.htm>)</blockquote>
>
> Soldiers ought to be encouraged not to reenlist. Soldiers who refuse
> can make a bigger difference than civilians.
>
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> <http://montages.blogspot.com>
> <http://monthlyreview.org>
> <http://mrzine.org>
>
>
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