Pentagon insists schools turn over student names
By Matthew L. Schwartz
Buffalo, N.Y.
The U.S. armed forces have kicked up their recruitment
tactics recently.
With the passage of the new education bill--"No Child Left
Behind"--the Bush administration is threatening to revoke
schools' their federal funding unless the schools make student
demographics available to the Pentagon. This information
includes students' home address and telephone numbers,
generally held to be privileged information.
U.S. officials complain that 15 percent of the schools are
"problems." In other words, the school administrators won't
hand over information to the Army, even if this means risking
desperately needed federal funding.
High school administrators are providing these names to the
armed forces and military recruiters are setting up near high
school campuses.
Student rights are being trampled under the guise of
offering students a chance to "tour the world" and "pay for
college." What the Army doesn't tell these students is that
they will receive low pay for the privilege of going halfway
around the world and killing children their own age. Meanwhile
Wall Street will reap the benefits.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Education Secretary
Rod Paige Army sent a letter last month saying they are
"presenting military opportunities to our young people for
their consideration." In fact, these soldiers may be commanded,
just as the troops were in Afghanistan, to violate
international laws and treaties and expose themselves to
indictments for war crimes.
The Army tells young people that they will be there to
introduce "democracy" and "remove weapons of mass destruction"
from the countries they invade. Democracy--this from an
administration that stole the last election by disenfranchising
so many Black voters. This from an imperial military power with
the biggest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction on the
planet.
Recently, a Blackhawk helicopter made a guest appearance,
circling low during homecoming at the John F. Kennedy High
School in Plainview, Long Island, N.Y.
High school senior Ben Mayer told Workers World: "I didn't
see the need for it. It wasn't really doing any damage, but it
didn't need to be there as part of the procession for the
football game."
How much power does a school principal or student council
wield to call the Army and ask the brass to send over a
military gunship? Isn't it more likely that the Army contacted
the school?
What is clear is that if the sheer number of students who
attended the historic Oct. 26 anti-war protests means anything,
high-school and college-age students are coming out against
this Pentagon war despite the Army's invasive recruiting
tactics.
Even greater numbers can be expected to come out if the
United States attacks Iraq or if the brass enact a draft.
Reprinted from the Dec. 5, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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