"The Olive-Drab Rebels:

Military Organizing During The Vietnam Era"

Matthew Rinaldi, Radical America Vol. 8 No. 3 1974

Introduction

"The morale, discipline, and battleworthiness of the U. S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States.

By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non-commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous. Elsewhere than Vietnam, the situation is nearly as serious."

So wrote Col. Robert D. Heinl in June of 1971. In an article entitled "The Collapse of the Armed Forces", written for the eyes of the military leadership and published in the Armed Forces Journal, Heinl also stated, "Sedition, coupled with disaffection within the ranks, and externally fomented with an audacity and intensity previously inconceivable, infests the Armed Services." This frank statement accurately reflects the tremendous upheaval which occurred among rank and file GIs during the era of the Vietnam war. Covered up whenever possible and frequently denied by the military brass, this upheaval was nevertheless a significant factor in the termination of the ground war, and helped to imbue a generation of working class youth with a deep-rooted contempt for America's authority structure.

An anonymous coward writes:

"The Flight to India:

The Jobs Britain Stole from the Asian Subcontinent 200 Years Ago Are Now Being Returned"
George Monbiot, October 21, 2003, The Guardian

If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of your work involves a computer or a telephone, don't expect to have a job in five years' time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour force overseas. All those concerned about economic justice and the distribution of wealth at home should despair. All those concerned about global justice and the distribution of wealth around the world should rejoice. As we are, by and large, the same people, we have a problem.

"How the Anti-War Movement is Blowing It"

Bill Weinberg, World War 3 Report

Raining on a parade--or, in this case, an anti-war march--isn't likely to
win one popularity contests. But somebody has got to raise the alarm. The
upcoming Oct. 25 march in Washington DC is being billed as a
revitalization of the movement which made history with coordinated
worldwide protests against the looming US-led assualt on Iraq Feb. 15. But
the new mobilization actually represents a dangerous step backwards for
the anti-war forces in the US.

renegado writes:

"Report on Condition of the Working Class in Iraq"
Ewa in Baghdad

The Most Powerful Men in the World, the Peroxide Spook and The 25c Armed Picket Line

Dodgy unions, ex-Baathist fascist bosses, spies monitoring the new ministries in Iraq and machine gun armed picket lines.

In the early morning rising smog, Baghdad's Daura Oil Refinery is a warping shadow. In a car, crossing the Tigris, the concrete suspension pillars of Daurra bridge axe my vision into rapid black and white box-frames; the smogged city; the Daura flame; the filfth river; the refinery warped. Nothing would be what it seemed today. I'm on my way to meet freshly 'liberated' and unionized workers, with an Occupation Watch delegation of US Labour Against the War and French Trade Union activists. Cameras click as our cars swerve through the rickety front gate and straight down a two-lane time-warp into a 1950s oil community nightmare.