Forces Watch

ForcesWatch briefing: Questioning the presence of armed forces in schools

adminFW — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:45:25 +0000

May 2012

This ForcesWatch briefing is for parents, students and teachers concerned with military activities in their school. It looks at:

how and why the armed forces engage with schools and colleges
perspecitves on armed forces activities in schools and colleges
things to think about before raising concerns with the school
points and questions to raise with the school
alternatives to military-led activities
sources of more information

Download the PDF file

Why does the UK have the highest proportion of young infantry deaths in Afghanistan

adminFW — Wed, 02 May 2012 18:18:32 +0000

02/05/2012

ForcesWatch comment

The deaths of 6 soldiers recently in one incident was particularly tragic because of how young some of them were. Four of the six who died were under 21 years old; one was only 19.

Looking at the statistics of UK fatalities in Afghanistan, 67 under 21’s have been killed since 2001. That is 17% of the 404 total UK fatalities. Of countries which have lost more than 50 service personnel, the UK has by far the highest proportion of young people receiving fatal injuries. Under 21s make up 13% of US deaths, 9% of French deaths and only 3% of Canadian deaths while Germany had no deaths in the 18-20 age group.

In fact, the UK accounts for 20% of all 18-20 year old fatalities, despite making up only about 7% of all troops in Afghanistan. Of the 20 fatalities of 18 year olds, 11 have been from the UK and 9 from the US.

This is perhaps unsurprising. Soldiers from the UK start younger than almost all other coalition countries, recruiting youngsters only 16 year old. Canada, which contributed 3000 troops to Afghanistan but have now withdrawn from combat duties, also recruits 16 year olds but the vast majority go into the reserves. In fact, the UK is one of less than 20 countries worldwide to sign recruits up at this young age. No other EU country or UN Security council permanent member finds it necessary to do so.

A number of the other main coalition partners recruit 17 year olds including the US, France and Poland – the UK and all of these countries are out of step with international standards which have seen a growing number of countries increase their minimum age of recruitment to 18, under the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (part of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child).

Although the UK is a signatory to the UN protocol, it refuses to raise the minimum age of recruitment, arguing that if the armed forces are unable to enlist potential recruits at 16 and 17 year old, they would be ‘lost to the services’. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/AdvanceVersions/CRC.C.OPAC.GBR.CO.1.pdf

The UK is far from leading the way in prioritising children’s rights over state needs.

Furthermore, despite a general policy not to send soldiers into war until they are 18, the UK reserves the power to deploy younger recruits in certain circumstances and has done on occasion. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050684/UK-sent-children-Iraq-Afghanistan-despite-Government-ban.html?ito=feeds-newsxml) The United Nations has also called for this policy to be reviewed.

5 of the 6 soldiers who died in the blast in this one incident recently were from the Yorkshire Regiment. Research shows that, as infantrymen, they face a far higher risk of being killed or wounded than other parts of the armed forces (http://www.informedchoice.org.uk).

Furthermore, a far higher proportion of infantry soldiers who are killed are aged 18 or 19 than in the armed forces as a whole.

The researchers state that, “infantry recruits tend to be younger and from more disadvantaged backgrounds than those joining most other branches of the armed forces. Their educational attainment is also lower: provided that potential infantry recruits are fit and healthy, they need only the literacy skills of a five year-old to join. Many join straight from school with their parents' blessing and are posted to the front as soon as they turn 18.”

With some of the youngest soldiers exposed to the greatest threats, surely it is time to raise the age of recruitment so they can make an informed decision, as an adult, about the risks and the consequences they will face.

Veterans tell of their experiences and their turn to peace

adminFW — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:26:35 +0000

24/04/2012

ForcesWatch

On the 9 April 2012 the UK group of Veterans for Peace was launched. The movement has been long established in the US – ‘exposing the true costs of war and militarism since 1985’.

There are reasons why VfP UK has taken longer to start – the culture and regulations around speaking out are different in the US. It has also been more active in post WW2 conflict (notably in Central America during the 1980s) but also the US military is a massive institution, involving a huge number of people with around 11/2 million active personnel and a similar number of reserves.

However, after ten years of active conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, British ex-service personnel are starting to come together to voice their concerns about the conflicts and what it does to everyone involved.

Ten veterans attended the inaugural meeting. At the public launch they each spoke of what had led them to this point. Barry Ladendorf came all the way from San Diego where he is active in VfP. His chance meeting with Ben Griffin at a ForcesWatch event was instrumental in getting the UK group started. From his experience, the existence of a movement of veterans talking about peace gives others hope.

Barry emphasised that honouring the service of individuals does not have to mean supporting the wars they are engaged in. Veterans know better than anyone the chaos and devastation that war brings that lasts a lifetime. In the US, a third of the homeless are veterans, while the astronomical cost of war create a lack of public funds for welfare and basic infrastructure to help those who most need support. Suicide and mental health problems amongst veterans are at record high levels but inadequately acknowledged or addressed.

Also from the US, Gerry Condon spoke about people within the military resisting war, often in ways never heard about in the mainstream media. VfP support those in the military who act on their own conscience, despite the military’s lack of recognition of this. Soldiers like Bradley Manning who revealed that the killing of civilians in Iraq was more routine than admitted and is now facing extreme penalties and severe conditions of detention.

Ben Griffin experienced being prevented from speaking when an injunction was placed upon him at the request of the MoD. Ben left the SAS when he was no longer able to participate in what he was being asked to do in Iraq. He spoke of how involvement in groups like VfP could help veterans come to terms with their involvement in situations that haunt them.

Michael Lyons spoke of his recent detention for disobeying orders when he declared himself a conscientious objector in 2010. Mike, a medic in the Royal Navy, has been one of the few to persevere with becoming a conscientious objector despite the hurdles and obfuscation put in the way of those expressing ethical concerns. He spoke of how the support of others, including many people he didn’t even know, had been vital to getting through his court martial and his time in military prison.

Matthew Horne who served with the Scots Guards in Iraq spoke movingly of the distance from other people that is created between the solider and the ‘enemy’ through the use of derogatory names or the distance that modern technology allows. The humanity that is seen when close to someone is lost. Matthew spoke about how difficult some find it on leaving the forces if they don’t have employment and are left to face the consequences of their involvement alone, some taking their own lives in despair.

Scot Albrecht who served with the US air force in the UK during the 1980s told how he took courage from the actions of others. He read aloud The Price of Peacemaking by Daniel Berrigan. “War, by its nature, is total-but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial. So a whole will and a whole heart and a whole national life bent toward war prevail over the verities of peace.”

Rob Green a former Royal Navy Commander who served at Northwood HQ during the Falklands war spoke of the need for veterans to come together and the importance of VfP in this. He has just published a book about his aunt Hilda Murrell, an anti-nuclear campaigner murdered in 1984, a political conspiracy around the nuclear industry and the Falklands war.

Jim Radford who served in the Royal Navy sang two powerful songs including And the band played Waltzing Matilda whose line that there are ‘worse things than dying’ reflects the burden carried by those who survive. Danny Martin who served in the Royal Signals in Iraq read two of his poems reflecting on how he was recruited into the army (‘Acknowledgements’ see the poem here) and the everyday injustice of occupation (‘Haddock of Mass Destruction’).

War poems

adminFW — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:49:36 +0000

20/04/2012

ForcesWatch

Poetry about war is perhaps the most immediate way of understanding what it is to be involved, or caught up in, conflict.

The War Poetry website is a great resource, listing famous poets from the first world war alongside little known contemporary poets with much to say about modern warfare. Most of the poems on the site are written by people who have experienced conflict, many from Iraq, Afghanistan and the Falklands war.

Below is a favourite by Danny Martin. See here for more or Danny's poems.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Hollywood
When you showed me John Rambo
Stitching up his arm with no anaesthetic
And giving them “a war they won’t believe”
I knew then my calling, the job for me

Thanks also to the recruitment adverts
For showing me soldiers whizzing around on skis
And for sending sergeants to our school
To tell us of the laughs, the great food, the pay
The camaraderie

I am, dear taxpayer, forever in your debt
You paid for my all-inclusive pilgrimage
One year basking in the Garden of Eden
(I haven’t quite left yet)

Thanks to Mum and thanks to Dad
Fuck it,
Thanks to every parent
Flushing with pride for their brave young lads
Buying young siblings toy guns and toy tanks
Waiting at the airport
Waving their flags

Danny Martin

Visit the War Poetry website: www.warpoetry.co.uk

Are video games just propaganda and training tools for the military?

adminFW — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 20:49:37 +0000

18/03/2012

The Guardian

It's a shadowy and lucrative relationship. But just how close are video-game developers with various military outfits? And how does it affect the games we play?

It's Monday night, the kids are in bed, and I am trying to kill Osama bin Laden. I stalk through his Abbottabad compound and I aim my rifle at the first person I see, only to discover he's my brother in arms, aka "OverdoseRocks". So I walk downstairs into a prayer room, at which point my gun accidentally goes off. Then the mission is over. We were victorious.

Next, I join US servicemen during the 2007 surge in Iraq. For about three minutes I kick about a palm-lined boulevard, strafing apartment buildings. I am ambushed. In my dying moments, I am presented with an advert for a game in which I can embody a cheetah and kill an antelope, but I have had enough bloodshed for one evening.

I have been on the Kuma Games site, an online entertainment developer and, according to reports on Iranian television, an international distributor of military propaganda. Kuma produces a range of games, from second world war air-battle shoot-'em-ups for the History Channel, through to the carnivore-themed I Predator, a tie-in for the cable station Animal Planet. Yet it's the company's Kuma\War series of topical military games, as well as a more discreet line of Arabic-language first-person shooter games, that have piqued media attention. During a televised confession on Iranian TV, alleged US agent and former marine Amir Mirzai Hekmati said he had worked for Kuma, and it was a CIA front company.

Though his words cannot be regarded as the unvarnished truth, publicly available government documents indicate that Hekmati had been a Kuma employee, while Kuma's CEO, Keith Halper, admits to taking on military work. If his words are true, Kuma\War are only one of a number of bloody titles produced under varying degrees of military aegis.

Read the whole article

Seeking the roots of a U.S. soldier's shooting rampage

adminFW — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 18:30:05 +0000

12/03/2012

Reuters

In the search for an explanation of why a U.S. soldier left his base in Afghanistan at night and killed 16 civilians in their homes, some experts have raised the possibility that mental illness or a brain injury played a role in the massacre.

"We're going to look into all of that," General John Allen, who commands U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, told CNN on Monday, declining to comment further on the mental state of the soldier suspected in Sunday's attack. A U.S. official told Reuters that the staff sergeant had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a vehicle rollover in 2010 in Iraq, and was treated and returned to duty.

Experts caution against jumping to conclusions, but two facts are known. This was the sergeant's fourth deployment. And the risk of mental illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety-related disorders is generally higher during subsequent deployments than during a soldier's first.

"The more exposure there is to trauma the worse it's going to be," said Dr. David Reiss, a psychiatrist in private practice who has treated patients with PTSD. "Especially if someone is deployed repetitively, then the whole issue of expecting to go home, not going home, just amplifies it."

Read the full article

In Afghan Civilian Killing Rampage, U.S. Soldier May Have Gone 'Berserk'

adminFW — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 18:34:55 +0000

12/03/2012

Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. soldier who allegedly attacked and killed 16 Afghan civilians Sunday may have experienced a relatively rare state of mental derangement characterized by a blind killing rage, a disregard of pain and danger, and a total disconnection from his fellow troops, military mental health specialists said.

Officials in Afghanistan and at the Pentagon released scant details about the alleged shooter's background. He had served three tours in Iraq, they said, and arrived in southern Afghanistan in January to help support a small special forces team in Kandahar.

It's not clear what might have ignited his rage, said Dr. Jonathan Shay, a clinical psychiatrist who for decades has treated combat veterans with mental trauma. But he said what is known of the incident fits a pattern in which someone literally goes berserk.

Shay currently advises the Army and Marine Corps on leadership, trauma and mental health issues, and is the author of several books including "Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character."

Berserkers, he told The Huffington Post, "have this curious quality of icy and flaming rage; all they want to do is destroy, they want nothing to get in the way of their unmediated destruction and killing, and they are truly insensitive to pain. They are totally beyond the society of their own military forces and disconnected from them."

"It's a painful and destructive thing and usually fatal for the soldier. And it's fairly rare -- in 20 years I had only two patients who unmistakably had episodes of berserkness,'' Shay said. The term "berserk" is an Old Norse word describing the frenzied trance in which some warriors fought.

The link between combat stress and outbursts of violence was well documented even before troops began routinely serving three, four or more combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. But PTSD and violence among veterans has become more prevalent. A study conducted at the Puget Sound Veterans Affairs hospital in Washington, for instance, demonstrated high levels of anger and hostility among returning combat veterans screening positive for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The soldier in the Afghanistan shooting had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury in 2010 after a vehicle rollover in Iraq, CNN reported Monday night, citing an unnamed U.S. official. A temporary finding of traumatic brain injury is required by the U.S. military after troops suffer any possible concussion from a blast or other cause and does not necessarily indicate significant brain injury, mental health specialists said. CNN reported that the soldier was later cleared for return to duty.

According to a recent U.S. Army study, about 472,000 troops who served in Iraq or Afghanistan may have some form of PTSD.

Read the full article

Oldham school planned with all ex-forces staff

adminFW — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:11:19 +0000

26/01/2012

BBC

The first UK school whose teachers have all served in the armed forces is actively recruiting prospective pupils with a view to opening in 2013.

Captain AK Burki is handing out leaflets in a busy Oldham shopping centre for the school he hopes one day to run as head teacher.

"All the teaching staff will be composed of ex-servicemen and women," he tells passing shoppers.

"They will be able to bring a breadth of experience that only those in the armed forces can," he explains to a mother, who is concerned about her daughter's education.

It is a world away from the front line in Afghanistan, where Captain Burki completed a tour of duty in 2010.

"The elements of the armed forces we really want to instil in the pupils are the core values of the Army," says Capt Burki. "Courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment."

Read the full article

The education system is not the place for militarised training of children

adminFW — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:13:57 +0000

10/01/2012

ForcesWatch

Michael Gove is again talking about extending the cadet forces within schools (see article), this time with the support from the Schools Commissioner (and a senior advisor to the Education Secretary), in comments about broadening the curriculum within state schools (see article).

Before being elected, the conservatives ‘pledged’ to involve armed forces personnel more in schools to serve as role models for young people (see article).

In 2011, the Education Secretary announced that expanding cadet forces would instil a ‘spirit of service’ in young people (see article)– a turn of phrase that in itself suggests ‘the military spirit’ and the associated values that go along with it.

Why is the military considered uniquely able to develop a ‘spirit of service’ or promote a disciplined approach? Why does the Schools Commissioner regard Cadet forces amongst a small handful of activities that are seen as broadening the curriculum and offering more opportunity with state schools? Who is being served by children in schools doing drill in the school playground or taking part in adventure activities? There would seem to be many other opportunities available for young people to experience a more direct connection with the concept of ‘service’, through developing extra-curricular activities that engage with the wider community or through activities that reply on team work and shared responsibility. If, however, it is actually service to the country that is being promoted, encouraging the widespread development of cadet forces feels more about serving the needs of the military and state than those of children. Educational establishments are not the place for this.

The rhetoric around increasing military influence within schools is one of instilling discipline and values but it is based on assumptions that are weak – not only that those who have served in the military are more equipped than teachers and other figures of influence to deal with youngsters but that military values, the ‘military spirit’ is one that is appropriate within the educational system. Do parents look to the military as embodying values they wish their children to absorb? Do parents want their children to handle weapons and take part in militarised training? Those families and youngster who wish to be part of cadets are able to join a cadet force in a local town as they exist the length and breadth of the country and is already the largest youth organisation in the UK.

The foundation of the policy is actually located elsewhere. The 2008 report National Recognition of our Armed Forces included increasing and strengthening cadets forces in its recommendations to ‘encourage greater understanding and appreciated of the Armed Forces by the British public’. The MOD 2007 report Engagement with UK Schools report is explicit about it the value to the armed forces of activities in schools including to ‘provide positive information to influence future opinion formers, and to enable recruiters to access the school environments.’

The CCF, as well as other forms of military engagement with schools, are funded by the MOD. It is an investment for the future. Recruiting young people as supporters of the armed forces and, in the longer term, softening some of them up for actual recruitment into the services.

The military have extensive programme of engaging with children in schools already. They are keen to exploit their impressionability and activities within schools allows them access to young peoples minds within a system that children and parents can have little influence over. Such engagement focuses on the immediate benefits to the young person and tends to glamorise warfare and a life in the forces, rather than honestly dealing with the risks and challenges that will be faced, the ethical issues and the long-term effects of being involved in conflict.

Schools are already well equipped to provide experiences that foster responsibility and a disciplined approach, team building, leadership. With so much conflict in the world, surely the education system is the place to foster initiatives that counter conflict and violence and build peace, rather than promoting the old ‘traditional’ approaches to what young people ‘need’ that are designed to feed into ‘traditional’ ways of solving conflict, through military action rather than a more creative and critically aware response.

Gove backs cadet forces in schools

adminFW — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:25:25 +0000

09/01/2012

Press Association

Military-style cadet forces could be introduced to all secondary schools in a Government bid to boost standards and discipline.

Education Secretary Michael Gove told the Sunday Express he had met a cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and learned of the advantages the groups can bring.

Following the conversation, Mr Gove has told Children's Minister Sarah Teather to work with Defence Minister Nick Harvey on the project.

Schools Commissioner Dr Elizabeth Sidwell also backed the idea of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.

Mr Gove told the Sunday Express: "I met this amazing guy, a 17-year-old an Afro-Caribbean lad, who joined the cadet force and told me how it had transformed his life.

"He was the perfect advertisement for what it can do.

"I've tasked the Children's Minister to work with Nick Harvey at the Ministry of Defence to bring this to all schools and they are very keen to roll it out."

The CCF includes wings linked to the army, Royal Air Force and navy and is made up of youngsters aged 13 to 18.

It uses military orientated training to build self-reliance, resourcefulness, endurance and a sense of service to the community.

There are CCF units in more 200 independent schools and around 60 state schools but Dr Sidwell said they are "not the province of the middle classes, it's the province of every child".

Read the article