IN MARCH, THE National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service sent recommendations to Congress for changes to the Selective Service System, the military draft. For people of conscience, the issues at the heart of our concern were the expansion of Selective Service and the draft and protection of the rights of conscientious objectors (COs). Conscientious objectors are defined by the Defense Department as those with “a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief.” Some consider draft registration to be participation in war and a violation of their conscience.
During the commission’s two years of public hearings and debate, religious communities and peace organizations advocated for the commission to recommend that the Selective Service System be put into deep standby, as it was between 1975 and 1980. Short of that, we advocated for a process for COs to make their objection to war known at the time of registration with a “CO check-off box.” The commission ultimately rejected that option, stating that though it “would probably require minimal expense,” it would cause “confusion, during a draft, for those who indicated their intent to file for conscientious objector status.”
Though religious and civil society organizations argued vigorously for abolition of the draft as the best way to protect rights of conscience, the commission instead recommended extending the burden to women. In its final report, the commission claims not only that women have a valuable contribution to make toward national security, but also that women’s participation in the draft is for women’s own benefit: “That women register, and perhaps be called up in the event of a draft, is a necessary prerequisite for their achieving equality as citizens, as it has been for other groups historically discriminated against in American history.”
This would seem to us less an argument for equality than one for complicity in militarism. It implies that women will attain gender equality by being forced to register for the draft and participate in militarism, as the commission asserts was the case for “other groups historically discriminated against,” likely referring to discrimination by white people against people of color.
People of color serve in the U.S. military in disproportionate numbers and have served in every war since the nation’s founding. Military participation has not led to equality. On the contrary, history and our modern world are full of examples of Black and brown veterans and service members who are denied the rights and equality enjoyed by their white counterparts.
During U.S. drafts, tens of thousands of COs, many still living and now approaching or well past retirement age, performed an involuntary term of service, just like all others who were drafted. But because the service they performed was nonviolent, they are denied the benefits and equality the commission promises. Their discrimination is based not on race or gender, but on religion and belief.
The commission report was released in the middle of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Its disproportionate focus on militarism and nationalism, predicated on—and wholly uncritical of—the use of military force as a legitimate foreign policy tool, amounts to a lost opportunity when such a pandemic has laid bare the powerlessness of a $738 billion military budget against a deadly and virulent disease. While our culture of militarism exists and while the legitimacy of military violence goes unchallenged, true equality for all is unattainable.
Maria Santelli is the executive director of the Center on Conscience and War in Washington, D.C., an 83-year-old organization working to defend the rights of conscientious objectors to war.
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