Just curious, based on a discussion over Memorial day, I’d like to ask a quick question.
If, for some (explainable) reason, your government approached you tomorrow and told you were needed in the fight on global terror. You would be compensated, your employment would be not lost on your return, and that the duration was indefinite but the need was great.
Would you serve?
If not, why not! and under what conditions might you say yes?
Do you mean something like an individualized, privatized draft? If I was drafted, i would go in a heartbeat. If there was a job that only someone with my skills could do, I’d go. I’ve thought often about signing up to help, but have been held back by other dreams and plans. One of these days, such plans may lose out.
Matt,
Yes, I was thinking of a individual call, “we need you” for your skills, contacts, or well, whatever.
When I was in High School, the selective service was still in place. In a social studies class, we were asked if drafted, would we go. I and only one other student raised our hands and said yes. That was just post Vietnam, and I imagine that my classmates attitudes were much colored by that (and we lived in a quite liberal county).
I wonder if those who said no, still would?
Oh, I just checked. I guess the selective service is still in place. I guess the other point is that the draft had only recently been disbanded.
Not sure exactly how the selective service functions apart from the draft, but it is still in place.
And yes, I would go. However, I suspect my qualifications would keep me far from any battle lines.
It depends what I was being asked to do. By and large, I’d serve. But if the “great need” was “we’re running out of people to guard Guantanamo Bay,” I probably wouldn’t.
“Great need” is too vague to make an intelligent moral decision on this issue.
Realistically, I would attempt to use my skills to serve the military in a non-combat role if possible. If I could not do that, and the war was relatively just, I would go.
Well, now I am over the age limit. But, no, I would not go. I come from a military family and automatically joined the U.S. army at 18, but 2 years later I left as a conscientious objector. I came to the conviction, which has only gotten stronger in the years since, that Christians are forbidden to kill or to do anything that would aid others in killing. More than that, I believe we are to be nonviolent activists for justice and active peacemakers/reconcilers in the world.
Also, I do not believe there is any “war on global terror.” Terrorism is a method and terror an emotion. Terrorism cannot be defeated by declaring war on it. Terrorism MUST be resisted, but the tools for doing so are not military. The “war on global terror” is a smokescreen for global military imperialism and the erosion of democracy for a slightly disguised martial law at home.
Michael,
Yes and no, on the global war on terror.
It has been remarked that lacking a friendly nation in which a terrorist organization can organize and shelter, the scope of terror drops by orders of magnitude. What we can do, is in no uncertain terms, reduce or remove the governments which actively allow and support terrorist organizations. This can be diplomatic, economic, and by force. If that is no longer the programme, then I’d agree that it is a smokescreen. However it is not automatically a smokescreen.
I am not saying that terrorism should not be fought. This may even sometimes take the form of military action, although, as a pacifist that’s not the route I recommend. I am saying that, at best, the “war on terrorism” was only a metaphor, like “war on drugs” or “war on poverty” for a much more complex set of engagements.
But this administration took its own metaphor literally. I do not know if this was intentionally so, but the result was to justify everything from invading Iraq to torture as part of ‘the global war on terror,’ when they often had little to do with that–and even more often created more terrorists than one started with.