Military counsellors flooded by rising tide of resistance .sx SHELLEY ANDERSON .sx " Mr Bush has delivered 452,000 US hostages to Saddam Hussein .sx Now he wants them to fight their way out .sx " So read an advertisement placed by SANE/Freeze in the New York Times , 26 December .sx .sx During the Vietnam war there were hundreds of underground newspapers and coffeehouses outside US military bases that encouraged military personnel to oppose the war , many of them organised jointly by peace activists and soldiers .sx Churches and synagogues offered sanctuary to AWOL ( absent without leave ) soldiers , and peace groups employed military counsellors to advise soldiers about possible rights to discharge .sx The level of peace movement organisation is not now as high as at the height of the Vietnam war , but already the number of US military personnel applying for discharge as conscientious objectors nearly matches its Vietnam peak , according to Michael Marsh , who coordinates military counselling for the War Resisters League .sx Military counsellors in the US and Germany are being flooded with requests for help from US reservists and active duty personnel who see no reason to fight in the Gulf .sx The Central Committee for Conscientious Objection ( CCCO ) , founded in 1948 , is receiving over 100 telephone requests per day .sx The handful of counsellors associated with the Military Counseling Network ( MCN ) in Germany are receiving almost as many - by early December , MCN counsellors had helped prepare 75 claims , many of them based on conscientious objection .sx As of early December , over 2,000 applications for CO had been filed in the US .sx The Military Counseling Network is a small group of US and German peace activists who provide free legal aid to US GIs ( soldiers) .sx Until the Gulf crisis , MCN had counselled a few dozen people in its four year history .sx All that changed with the announcement in November that 100,000 of the 250,000 US troops stationed in Germany were being sent to Saudi Arabia .sx To handle the increased demand , MCN arranged for five counsellors to fly over from the US before Christmas .sx US applicants for CO status face a long and involved process .sx They have to answer in writing a series of questions before having interviews with a military chaplain , a psychiatrist and a 'hearing board' ( tribunal) .sx This board then forwards the application within 90 days to a higher board in Washington DC , which makes the final judgement .sx The whole process usually takes at least six months .sx One application recently rejected was that of Erik Larsen ( see November Peace News ) , a marine reservist .sx Erik has yet to be called out but has announced that he will refuse .sx US CO GIs go AWOL .sx In sharp contrast to its usual policy , since 25 October , the US Army is now refusing to accept CO application until the soldier is actually in Saudi Arabia .sx " How will they process CO claims in the middle of the Saudi desert ?sx " asks Louis P Font , a lawyer who works with Citizen Soldier , a group providing help to military personnel .sx " Are they planning a battalion of COs out there waiting to see what will happen with their claims ?sx " .sx Out in the Gulf , soldiers will , of course , have a hard time finding out about their rights and no support in making their claims .sx One US commanding officer in Germany recently threatened to court - martial a GI if he filed for CO status :sx the soldier didn't know this threat was illegal .sx In mid-October , the US Congress also passed the STOP-LOSS Act , which indefinitely freezes all discharges from the US military and cuts off most legal ways a GI can leave the military .sx Consequently the number of AWOLs is likely to rise .sx A member of DFG-VK N u rnberg ( one of the German WRI sections ) , reports that some 15 US soldiers have gone AWOL in the last few weeks ( of the 20,000 US troops stationed in the area , 12,000 have been reassigned to Saudi Arabia) .sx AWOLs face a harder time now than in the Vietnam war .sx NATO countries have legislation obliging national police to hand US AWOLs over to the US military and , unlike in the 1960s and 70s , Sweden will not be a haven for AWOLs .sx The Swedish government has revised its asylum policies anticipating a massive influx of Soviet refugees .sx ( Baltic draft resisters will , however , be given asylum in Sweden following the sending of Soviet paratroops into Lithuania .sx ) .sx Some WRI sections and other anti - militarist groups , however , have already declared their intention of harbouring any AWOLs or draft resisters who seek their help .sx A Swiss anti-militarist group has declared Geneva a 'protection zone' , while IRG - the French-speaking Belgian section of WRI - plans to set up a network of safe houses .sx Leonard Skversky , a Jewish conscientious objector stationed in Germany , went AWOL in December after the army refused to consider his claim until he was in Saudi sic !sx . A musician , he had been doing off-duty volunteer work in a Jewish old people's home near N u rnberg .sx There he met survivors of the Holocaust .sx " I had the opportunity to see the inhumane reality of what blind patriotism to one's country can do to a race of people " , he wrote in his CO application .sx Another soldier , who went AWOL when he was denied CO status , returned to base after he was promised he would not be sent to Saudi Arabia .sx He was promptly handcuffed and placed on a plane to Saudi Arabia .sx Many GIs in Germany first come into contact with the Military Counseling Network through their German wives or girlfriends .sx N u rnberg DFG-VK has organised a support group for these women which meets twice a week and a similar group is being organised in Frankfurt .sx The women have leafleted and conducted anti-war vigils outside military bases , placed ads in local newspapers , and spoken out at demonstrations .sx At least one wife has been harassed by Army officials because of such work .sx Also in the N u rnberg area , a GI underground antiwar newspaper has appeared .sx The first reports of resistance within the British Army also came from Germany , and once again At Ease , the British independent military counselling group , has a representative in Germany .sx The main source of resistance in Britain came just after Christmas .sx The UK Ministry of Defence appealed for reservists to volunteer for the Gulf .sx When too few reservists came forward , it began to call up reservists - all of whom were former professional servicepeople .sx At Ease was set up in 1974 in response to discontent in the British Army in Northern Ireland .sx For the past 17 years , it has had one session a week .sx Currently it consists of a rota of five counsellors in London and five in other parts of Britain .sx Suddenly , it faced an unprecedented demand , as did other peace organisations ( including WRI) .sx MP Tam Dalyell made a rather misleading claim that reservists could not be sent overseas , but he was referring to obsolete legislation .sx The UK Ministry of Defence won't release figures for reservists exempted from going to Saudi sic !sx : At Ease estimates there were some 30 COs but some of these were exempted on other grounds ( medical , compassionate or career) .sx Fears of conscription .sx In both the US and the UK - countries without conscription but with a heavy commitment in the Gulf - and now in Australia , fears are growing of the reintroduction of conscription .sx Michael Marsh at War Resisters League's New York office says most of the calls he gets about conscription are from mothers .sx He points out that the US military is authorised to call up a further million reservists but he doubts that anything like that number could be incorporated into the military structures .sx In Britain and now in Australia , anti - war parliamentarians and others have reported that conscription papers are already being printed .sx In view of the British establishment's pride in its professional army , reintroduction of conscription is far less likely than the resort to nuclear weapons - indeed some peace activists suggest the rumours are being used to soften up public opinion for the use of nuclear weapons .sx And what of Iraqi soldiers ?sx An estimated 100 soldiers left Iraq for Turkey during mid-November , when one Iraqi officer said that perhaps half the army would desert if war was declared .sx By January , the number in Turkey had reportedly risen to 500 - a bitter irony considering the thousands of Turkish war resisters in exile .sx ( In Turkey the theoretical maximum penalty for draft resistance is death .sx ) .sx The much-publicised defection of six Iraqi pilots complete with their helicopters seems to have been an invention .sx Odd , then that some 'newspapers' referred to them as 'top pilots' , while others had them confirming the reports of the execution of Iraqi officers following the invasion of Kuwait .sx Surviving the war at home .sx KEN SIMONS .sx How to respond to a war we didn't want ?sx Coping with life on the home front is a difficult challenge , both for people active in the anti-war movement and for those who are merely trying to come to terms with the enormity of what has happened .sx .sx Following are some of the areas where a critical attitude can be of major advantage in understanding and dealing with this war .sx Lies and disinformation , and press censorship .sx We were told a wagon-load of great big dirty whopping lies on the first day of hostilities .sx A sample ( I paraphrase from BBC news reports) :sx " The e lite Iraqi republican guard has been wiped out " , " The entire Iraqi air force was destroyed on the ground " , " All their missile launchers have been destroyed " , " None of our planes were lost " , and " We only bombed military targets " .sx But the disinformation and censorship industry did not begin on 17 January .sx There had already been frequent calls - from the media themselves - for self - censorship in order to 'protect our boys' .sx This went far beyond merely keeping operational details secret , encompassing also the suppression of bad news so as not to give comfort to the enemy .sx During the phoney-war phase of 2 August - 16 January , this was expressed as 'not sending Saddam the wrong message' , was regularly invoked against opposition politicians' statements on the military buildup , and was even brought in as an argument against the replacement of Margaret Thatcher as leader of the British Conservative Party .sx Anti-Arab racism , including such official acts as the imprisonment or deportation of Iraqi nationals , then Palestinians , and next - who knows ?sx Anyone from the Middle East ?sx Any Muslim ?sx Already fears have been expressed that some of those now detained could in fact be genuine refugees from Saddam's regime .sx On the more everyday level , schools have already been dealing with cases of victimisation of Arab children , people in Middle Eastern and Muslim dress have been harassed and assaulted , and there have been bomb threats ; in Britain , a Gulf-related firebomb attack left a Bradford mosque damaged .sx Within the antiwar movement - which , in Britain as elsewhere , includes many vehemently anti-Zionist groups - there was an anti-Israeli and sometimes anti-Jewish flavour to some of the slogans and positions taken , even before the involvement of Israel in the conflict .sx We must counter this as vigorously as we counter anti-Arab and anti-Muslim attitudes and acts .sx Children and war imagery .sx George Gerbner comments :sx " The Persian Gulf story is not the contained and happy violence to which we are accustomed .sx .. The pattern of screen violence and victimisation presents a mean world which arouses anxiety but also contains it .sx .. " But the Gulf war " does not stop at the final commercial .sx It interrupts and even preempts favourite programmes - clear sign of dire emergency .sx Win or lose .sx .. there is no clearly predictable happy ending .sx " .sx Gerbner goes on to recommend that war imagery should not be placed out of bounds to children - to do so would serve only to heighten the sense of things having gone out of control - but that parents should view and discuss such material with their children , so alleviating some of the most harmful consequences .sx Conscription .sx Not likely in Britain at present , we are assured from a variety of sources .sx However , if it is a long war , this issue will come up again .sx People concerned about this possibility can contact Box CO , Peace News , 55 Dawes St , London SE17 1EL ; a project is under discussion to register objectors regardless of whether or not conscription is introduced , and all ideas are welcome .sx