Black Marine refuses to fight in Gulf war

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Tahan K. Jones, a Black Marine corporal who lives in Oakland, Calif., released the following statement to the press in December.

I, Corporal Tahan K. Jones, have declared my opposition to war by filing a conscientious objector claim with the United States Marine Corps. I believe that military solutions should not be utilized to solve international problems and crises. War is a tremendous waste of resources, human lives, and money that should be used to solve our fiscal and economic crises at home.

I can not be part of an institution that sacrifices the lives of young men and women for cheap oil. Blood is still more precious than oil. I believe that it is totally immoral and senseless to squander resources that should be allocated for human needs (such as affordable housing, education, healthcare, protecting our environment, repairing our infrastructure, jobs, and economic development) and waste these resources for organized mass violence.

I came to the conviction of conscientious objection after examining the Vietnam War, the invasions of Grenada and Panama, and reflecting on the war and military experiences of veterans. From my perspective as an African-American male, Black soldiers have been used as cannon fodder as part of United States foreign policy that relies on military aggression.

Black soldiers died in disproportionate numbers in Vietnam. While Black soldiers have given their lives, limbs, and sanity on foreign soil, Black people at home are victimized by police brutality, disproportionate unemployment, high infant mortality, lack of decent and affordable housing, decreasing life expectancy, escalating incarceration rates, high drop-out rates, and AIDS. The money that is being used for war and destruction could be better spent to improve the quality of life for African-Americans and the majority of the people of this country.

If a shooting war breaks out in the Middle East, African-American women will come home in body bags in disproportionate numbers, as their male counterparts did in Vietnam. I believe that it is immoral and hypocritical that African-Americans are asked to make the ultimate sacrifice for a nation that refuses to enact a Civil Rights bill to end employment discrimination.

The military training and indoctrination I received from the U.S. Marine Corps was based on racism, sexism, and de-humanizing of other human beings. The suffering of the people of Panama is a result of this callous disregard for human life and basic human rights. The invasion of Panama caused the senseless death of thousands, that included civilians and women and children who were poor and Black like me! There are now 10,000 refugees in Panama nearly a year after the invasion.

I feel ashamed to be a part of an institution that is so hypocritical that it would justify its invasions of Grenada and Panama and condemn another country for its intervention. The United States government ignores international laws concerning its military aggression and calls for their enforcement when their interests are involved.

I believe that President Bush has the responsibility to U.S. servicepeople and their families, taxpayers, the people of Iraq, and to humanity to pursue all avenues that would avoid bloodshed. War is never a solution to international problems; war causes more problems than it solves.

the Middle East, based in Chicago, have attracted the same broad range of political forces.

In short, in virtually every major city in the country, and in many areas where the antiwar movement was formerly barely visible (such as Mississippi, Georgia, Kansas, and Utah), groups have come together to march and rally in Washington and San Francisco against what is seen as an imminent war.

Local demonstrations on Dec. 1 of 10,000 and 7000 in Boston and Seattle respectively (as compared to 500 and 400 in the same cities on Oct. 20) are but one measure of the growing power of the movement.

Over 5000 mobilized in Chicago on Dec. 8 (as compared to a few hundred in midOctober) and 750 marched through the streets of Milwaukee, Wisc., on the same date.

Organizers of the city-wide coalition in Los Angeles report weekly protests ranging from 1200 to 2000.

Without doubt, these protests demanding the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, are the largest and most impressive local protests since the era of the Vietnam War.

As a rule, the antiwar activists have rejected the government's thesis that U.S. intervention and war are justified to compel a withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

Whatever the views of the constituent groups in the movement on this issue, they have proved to be subordinate to the demand of "Bring the Troops Home Now!"

Similarly, past illusions in the peacekeeping nature of the United Nations have diminished in the face of the carte blanche given by this body to U.S. war aims.

Role of Zionism exposed A deepening understanding of the plight of the Palestinian people is yet another gain for the nascent antiwar movement. The stonethrowing youth of the Intifada have inspired young people worldwide in their fight for a Palestinian nation.

In the process, they have increased international awareness of the historic role of Zionism in the Middle East; they have opened the eyes of a new generation to the original injustice done to the Palestinian people in 1947—when their nation was carved up to form the Zionist, apartheid state of Israel.

The broad unity achieved around the Jan. 26 national actions has not been complete, however. One component of the struggle, led by the New York-based Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle East, is organizing its own national protest in both Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, on Jan. 19.

Initiated by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, this group played a key role in calling the Oct. 20 regional protests against U.S. intervention in the Middle East.

The Coalition also supports the demand to "Bring the Troops Home Now." Ongoing efforts to unify the Jan. 26 and Jan. 19 protests have not proved successful, and it is certain that many have been somewhat disoriented by the different dates.

Nevertheless, the deep and mounting antiwar sentiment in the country is certain to attract major forces to both events, with the Jan. 26 actions serving to culminate the first round of mass oppositon to Washington's war drive.