Moral Injury and Nonviolent Resistance: Breaking the Cycle of Violence in the Military and Behind Bars

by Alice Lynd, Staughton Lynd

Overview

When ordinary people have done, seen, or failed to prevent something that betrays their deeply held sense of right and wrong, it may shake their moral foundation. They may feel that what they did was unforgivable. In this thoughtful book culled from a wide range of experiences, Alice and Staughton Lynd introduce readers to what modern clinicians, philosophers, and theologians have attempted to describe as “moral injury.”

Moral injury, if not overcome, can lead to an individual giving up, turning to drugs, alcohol, or suicide. But moral injury can also demand that one turn one’s life around. It offers hope because it indicates resistance to the use of violence that offends a sense of decency. Within the military and in prisons—institutions created to use force and violence against perceived enemies—there have arisen new forms of saying “No” to violence. From combat veterans of America’s foreign wars to Israeli refuseniks, and from “hardened” criminals in supermax confinement in Ohio to hunger strikers in California’s Pelican Bay prison, the Lynds give us the voices of those breaking the cycle of violence with courageous acts of nonviolent resistance.

As we become more awake to the horrors that we as a society have done or failed to prevent, and when we become aware of what conscience demands of us in the face of recognizable violations of fundamental human rights, we may take heart from the exemplary actions by individuals and groups of individuals described in this book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629633794
Publisher:	PM Press
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Alice Lynd was a draft counselor and trainer of draft counselors during the Vietnam War. In 1968, she published We Won’t Go: Personal Accounts of War Objectors. She later became first a paralegal and then a lawyer. After retirement from practicing labor law in the wake of plant shutdowns, she became an advocate for prisoners sentenced to death and/or held for years in solitary confinement at Ohio’s supermaximum security prison.

Staughton Lynd is a historian, lawyer, activist, and author of many books and articles. Howard Zinn hired him to teach at Spelman College, a college for black women, during the early 1960s. He was coordinator of the Freedom Schools in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. As an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, he came to be unemployable as a university professor and became a lawyer. In Youngstown, Ohio, he fought for and lost the fight against plant shutdowns and for worker/community ownership of the mills. When Ohio built its supermaximum security prison in Youngstown, Staughton and his wife Alice, spearheaded a class action that went to the Supreme Court of the United States, establishing due process rights of supermaximum security prisoners.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Moral Injury 1

Ordinary People 2

Brian Willson 2

Camilo Mejía 3

Jeremy Hinzman 3

Rory Fanning 3

George Skatzes 4

Todd Ashker 4

In the Military 5

The Cycle of Violence 8

Behind Bars 8

This Book 10

Acknowledgments 14

Part I In the Military

Chapter 1 Moral Injury and the Making of a Conscientious Objector 17

The Nature of Moral Injury 17

What Causes Moral Injury? 22

What Are the Consequences of Moral Injury? 26

What Is Needed? 31

The Making of a Conscientious Objector 33

Jeremy Hinzman, during Basic Training 33

Geoffrey Millard, Briefing on the Way to Iraq 34

Geoffrey Millard, in Iraq 35

Camilo Mejia, in and after Iraq 36

Chapter 2 International Law 39

Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes Against Humanity 40

The Hague Conventions 41

Kellogg-Briand Pact 41

Charter of the United Nations 42

Treaty of London and Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Principles) 42

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 45

Geneva Conversions and Protocols 45

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 48

Convention Against Torture 48

International Criminal Court 51

Customary International Humanitarian Lain: Distinction and Proportionality 52

"Just War" Principles 54

Conscientious Objection under International Law 57

Basis for Conscientious Objection in International Declarations 57

Conscientious Objection to Enforcing Apartheid 58

International Norms and Standards Pertaining to Conscientious Objectors 58

Asylum for refugees 59

Jeremy Hinzman-Canada 60

Andre Lawrence Shepherd-European Union 60

Conclusion 62

Chapter 3 United States 63

Conscientious Objection: Statutory Provisions and Legal Interpretation? 63

Religious Training and Belief 64

Participation in War in Any Form 65

Sincerity 66

Volunteers for Military Service May Become Conscientious Objectors 67

Criteria 67

Late Crystallization of Belief 68

Assignment to Noncombatant Service 69

Veterans for Peace 72

Torture by the United States 74

Chapter 4 Israel 77

Violations of Internationally Recognized Human Rights 79

Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 81

Arbitrary Arrest or Detention 84

Proportionality and the Dahiya Doctrine 86

Exemption from Military Service for Reasons of Religious Conviction 87

Israel's Policy on Selective Conscientious Objection 89

Refuseniks 90

Shministim 91

Yesh Gvul 91

Adam Keller 91

Yuval Ophir-Auron 91

Jonathan Ben-Artzi 92

Combatants' Letter 92

Pilots'Letter 93

Commandos' Letter 94

Maya Wind 94

Danielle Yaor 95

Unit 8200 Letter 96

Moral Injury and Conscientious Objection 97

Unit 8200 Testimonies 97

Breaking the Silence 100

Shachar Berrin 101

Part II Behind Bars

Chapter 5 Moral Injury among Prisoners 105

Frameworks of Understanding 107

An Unbridgeable Divide? 108

George Skatzes 110

Convict Race at Lucasville 114

Chapter 6 Confronting Solitary Confinement in Ohio and Illinois 117

Supermax Confinement in Ohio 118

Beginnings 118

Lawsuit 121

Making Decisions about the Case 121

Hunger Strikes 122

What Was Won in Ohio 123

Administrative Detention in Illinois 124

Tamnis 124

Some Individual Stories 125

Conditions of Confinement at Menard 126

Reasons for Placement in Administrative Detention 127

2014 Hunger Strike 129

Demonstration by Supporters 129

Windows Covered 130

Special Response Team (a/k/a Orange Crush) 131

A New Procedure 133

2015 Hunger Strike 134

Incarcerated Lives Matter 137

Chapter 7 The Pelican Bay Hunger Strikes 139

Pelican Bay 139

Todd Ashker 141

The Ideology of the Hunger Fasts 142

The Agreement to End Hostilities 145

Chapter 8 Nonviolent Direct Action and Lawyering as Partners 149

The Civil Rights Movement 149

Montgomery 150

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 151

Selma 152

The Labor Movement 154

The Right to Strike 154

One Issue at a Time 156

$15 an Hour 158

Accompanying 159

Conclusion 161

Both Victims and Executioners 161

Individuals and Collective Action 162

Breaking the Cycle of Violence 163

Index 167

Editorial Reviews

The concept of ‘moral injury,’ so powerfully outlined and then enriched through elegant choreography of data, personal anecdotes, and medical definitions, brings us all some solace.”
—Doug Rawlings, cofounder of Veterans for Peace, Vietnam veteran

“An emotionally difficult read that will gnaw at your value system, jerk at your humanity, and light a fire under you to take action. This book tears down the prevailing societal scaffolding which reveres war and violence, and with oh-so-gentle hands reconstructs a future built with the utmost respect for the individual, unwavering wisdom of collective nonviolent action, and dogged demand for accountability. Break the cycle of violence before it breaks us all!”
—Sam Bahour, coeditor with Staughton and Alice Lynd of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians

“This book links the damage done to soldiers and prisoners: the complex ways in which our society uses and abuses the generations we should be empowering rather than destroying. It is a must read for anyone concerned about survival with integrity.”
—Margaret Randall, author of Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression

“Society commemorates wars but tends to forget its veterans, who often return home plagued by shame and guilt for killing; many prisoners also carry the weight of their violent actions and the Lynds do a remarkable job in connecting the struggles of the two without equating them.”
—Carl Mirra, associate professor, Adelphi University, Marine Corps resister and author of Soldiers and Citizens: An Oral History of Operation Iraqi Freedom from the Battlefield to the Pentagon

“Staughton and Alice Lynd have accompanied today’s executioners and victims, the soldiers and prisoners of today’s empire, on and off death row, in and out of court, by law and by direct action. With decades of experience, courage, patience, and intelligence they listen, learn, and record individual human beings in the belly of the beast who struggle to forgive and to resist. The collaboration results in the highest human faculty of moral reasoning that promises to link the individual, suffering human conscience to restored humanity. Empire cannot withstand even the hint, much less the fulfillment of such promise!”
—Peter Linebaugh, author of The Magna Carta Manifesto and Stop, Thief!

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