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International Socialist Review Issue 42, July–August 2005
R E P O R T S
GI RESISTANCE
A victory for Pablo Paredes
By JUSTIN AKERS
“I BELIEVE the government has just successfully proved that any seaman recruit has reasonable cause to believe that the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq were illegal.” This statement, which could easily be mistaken for an ISR editorial, sprang from the lips of Lt. Commander Robert Klant, the military judge presiding over the recent court-martial of GI resister Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Pablo Paredes.
In a remarkable turn of events, Pablo Paredes, who was facing up to one year of prison stemming from his December 6, 2004, refusal to board his Iraq-bound ship, received a minimal punishment and a massive moral victory. The cautious sentence—two months restriction to base, a concurrent three months of “hard labor” (which amounts to some extra duties each shift), and the demotion of rank—reflects the strength of Pablo’s stance, a feisty solidarity campaign, and the military’s own hesitancy to punish disgruntled rank-and-file troops.
Since causing a minor tempest by refusing to board his ship, Pablo has eloquently framed his opposition to the war from a moral and political standpoint. With the help of his brother, Victor, and an array of supporters, he waged his own media campaign to counter the servile media, which had lined up a host of military “experts” to condemn his actions.
Pablo also tirelessly documented his opposition in flowing prose, circulated through progressive newspapers, e-mails, Web sites and Web logs. His personal indictments of the war have attracted attention beyond his immediate supporters. In an essay explaining his opposition, he points out,
I believe that even the loudest war hawk in the world, if confronted face-to-face with an [Iraqi] woman holding the lifeless body of a child whose blood dilutes in her mother’s tears, would weep and sob with guilt and compassion, and run not walk toward the light of resistance. Unfortunately, many have removed themselves so far from the realities of places like Iraq that they can use a warped sense of cost/benefit analysis to make decisions—such as how much money can be made versus how many American lives can be lost before public opinion shifts.
These sincere and poignant criticisms of the war have struck a chord with a growing minority of troops and military families being adversely affected by the war. It has been this unwavering opposition and clarity of purpose that has allowed Pablo to turn the tables on his accusers and turn his own trial into a referendum on the war instead of a war on resisters.
In the military system, the courts operate in despotic fashion. The military hierarchy controls the proceedings, handpicks the jury and judge, and can approve, disapprove, or amend a verdict on a whim. It is therefore not surprising that the conviction rate for accused GIs hovers around 97 percent.
Recognizing a priori the nature of military objectivity, Pablo’s defense was centered on one immutable fact, the illegality of the war. Standing before the judge, Pablo stated,
I believe as a member of the armed forces, beyond having a duty to my chain of command and my President, I have a higher duty to my conscience and to the supreme law of the land. Both of these higher duties dictate that I must not participate in any way, hands-on or indirect, in the current aggression that has been unleashed on Iraq.
In what amounted to a comedy of errors, the prosecutor attempted to challenge the claim that Pablo’s opposition to the war was based on its illegality. Accordingly, the judge—who had constrained discussion on the “political nature” of the war to that point—was forced to allow the defense a rebuttal. This, according to courtroom witness Lynn Gonzalez, “allowed just enough rope for the prosecutor to hang himself.” International law expert and antiwar activist Marjorie Cohn, testifying on Paredes’ behalf, argued that the war was illegal based on the violation of the UN Charter, and that the numerous examples of U.S. torture are breaches of both the Geneva Conventions and the war crimes statutes of the United States.
Therefore, Cohn posited, Pablo’s refusal was legally buttressed by precedents set at the Nuremberg trials and the U.S. military’s own codes of conduct. On cross-examination, navy prosecutor Lt. Jonathan Freeman then dug his own hole by expressing that such logic made all of the recent wars that the U.S. has engaged in illegal. The defense rested with mouths agape as the judge leveled his frustration at the ineptitude of the prosecution with the opening quote of this report.
While this exchange was largely symbolic, since the U.S. will never submit itself to trial by any international court, the exchange shifted the momentum of the case in Pablo’s favor. The outcome of the trial is politically significant. According to Pablo’s attorney Jeremy Warren, the judge’s statements and verdict unwittingly send the message that “A sailor can show up on a Navy base, refuse in good conscience to board a ship bound for Iraq, and receive no time in jail.”
Solidarity campaign
The victory cannot be truly understood without understanding what was happening outside the courtroom. A groundswell of support allowed for activists to organize a national campaign in short order. In the week leading up to the court-martial, solidarity rallies, teach-ins, and protests were organized in over twenty cities around the country.
In San Diego, activists organized their own trial outside the gates of the 32nd Street Naval Station, where Pablo was being tried. In this court-martial, activists put the war itself on trial. In stark contrast to Paredes’ trial on base, in the people’s trial the corporate media, war profiteers, and the ranks of bellicose generals and politicians were forced to take the stand. In what would likely transpire in a more rational world, they were found guilty by a jury of ordinary people.
Solidarity also poured in from other cities. Caravans came from L.A. and San Francisco. Several members of Gold Star Families for Peace, whose family members have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, and Iraq Veterans Against the War “testified” on Pablo’s behalf. Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, tearfully asserted “George Bush killed my son and many others...he should be tried for war crimes.” At a forum in support of Pablo, Camilo Mejia, another GI resister, electrified the room when he observed “In reality, it isn’t the only superpower in the world putting Pablo on trial. It’s Pablo putting the only superpower in the world on trial.”
Despite the limited national coverage, the solidarity campaign was able to transmit the details of Pablo’s struggle across the country through Web sites, speaking tours, and petition campaigns. Independent newspapers like Socialist Worker ran regular feature stories that included letters of solidarity from the likes of Howard Zinn and Dahr Jamail, as well as statements and interviews with Pablo himself. Petition campaigns collected more than 10,000 signatures from across the country. These acts of solidarity made it impossible for the military to keep this case under the radar screen and permit them to operate with impunity.
Similar support has emerged for ten-year veteran Kevin Benderman, a mechanic with the Third Infantry Division who refused to redeploy late last year for moral reasons, filing for conscientious objector status. The case was set back when a judge ruled that Benderman’s investigator was biased against him and ordered a new investigator and a new pretrial hearing for Kevin. Seemingly in retaliation, the army added larceny charges to the existing charges of desertion and missing a deployment, claiming that Kevin improperly received combat pay. But the army admits that its own accounting error was at fault, and that more than 100 soldiers at Kevin’s base alone were affected.
The new investigating officer strongly recommended dropping the larceny charge and advocated qualifying the desertion charge. Unfortunately, the army is insisting on proceeding with a special court-martial, for which Kevin could face a sentence of ten years or more.
The victory for Pablo and the pending court-martial for Kevin Benderman reflect a quandary for the war-planners: how to sustain the thinning ranks in the current war while accounting for the simmering disaffection of a working-class soldiery that is overstretched, maimed, and made to kill and be killed for empire? The light punishments for members of the 343rd Quartermaster Guard unit, who refused orders last year to deploy in the field, are not the result of an “enlightened military hierarchy” or an “objective justice system,” but a symptom of a deeper problem the military is facing.
The reticence of the military to push from the top for exemplary punishment is likely the confluence of two factors: harsh punishment could alienate other troops and with recruitment numbers at an all time low, bad publicity in the form of popular solidarity campaigns (when antiwar sentiment is high) could further discourage enlistment. That is why it will be important to build a defense campaign for Kevin Benderman similar to the one for Pablo Paredes.
In times of war, military planners, who are terrified of troop resistance and revolt, must constantly gauge the mood of their troops in the field. Like workers on strike, when troops resist war they demonstrate a power that can defeat the war-makers. By supporting those who speak out now, we can help give confidence to others who collectively have the power to stop this war.
Justin Akers is active in antiwar and cross-border solidarity work. He is the author of “A Draft in the Air,”(ISR 38, November–December 2004), “Farmworkes in the U.S.” (ISR 34, March–April 2004), and “Operation Gatekeeper: Militarizing the Border” (ISR 18, June–July 2001).
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