OntheWilderSide

    By Camillo Mac Bica
    t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor    

Counter recruitment is a strategy for bringing attention to deceptive recruitment practices and to the immorality and illegality of the war in Iraq. Its ultimate goal is to discourage enlistment into the military, primarily through counseling and educating prospective recruits and by denying recruiters access to our schools and to our children.

    Let me begin by saying that counter recruitment is motivated neither by hatred of America nor hatred of the military. Rather, it is inspired, first and foremost, by love, like that of a responsible parent who realizes that, besides praise and approval, sometimes love and responsibility require providing direction and even correction to a child who has gone astray. Further, it is motivated by an awareness of a moral and civic responsibility to oppose immoral and unjust wars, and by a sensitivity and concern for the plight of war victims and for the young men and women who are dishonestly recruited into the military and asked – no, required – to fight, kill and die unnecessarily.

    Although it is beyond the scope of this essay to argue the issue at length, the preemptive invasion of Iraq, a sovereign nation, is clearly a violation both of international and moral law, based as it was on misinformation, faulty intelligence and lies. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein was not the mastermind behind the events of 9/11, nor was he harboring al-Qaeda terrorists. Further, since it was never intended as a war to save the Iraqi people from mass slaughter, there was no ongoing or imminent genocide. Neither can it be justified as a humanitarian intervention. It is a war not of necessity, nor of last resort, but of choice.

 http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030707M.shtml

Filed under: Anti-War, counter-recruiting, Global Warming, international politics, media, Peace, Political Websites, reform, social & economic justice, To Study Up On Nonviolence, US Politics Tagged: | Uncategorized, Working Families Party