In recent days, the U.S. military targeted Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz, the first U.S. strike on Iran in over a month. Iran retaliated by striking U.S. forces based in Jordan and in the United Arab Emirates. President Trump is threatening more strikes against Iran in the coming days. This escalation in Trump’s unpopular war comes as the heads of the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force have reportedly warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging the war against Iran is unsustainable, as it weakens America’s ability to respond to threats elsewhere around the world.
Recent turmoil inside the Pentagon was underscored by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s resignation, stepping down after months of intensifying friction with Hegseth’s ongoing purge of experienced Army leaders. This comes as The Washington Post reported that several right-wing veterans with big online followings have been given secret Pentagon jobs to promote Hegseth’s agenda and attack Trump administration critics.
As Trump’s war in Iran enters its seventh month, there’s been a major increase in the number of U.S. military service members seeking conscientious objector status due to rising concerns about violations of international law regarding civilian infrastructure targeted in Iran and over 200 people killed in strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Steve Woolford, a resource counselor with Quaker House in Fayetteville, North Carolina and at the GI Rights Hotline. Here he describes the concerns of soldiers calling the hotline for advice on their options to exit the military.
STEVE WOOLFORD: We are having one of our busiest years ever in the 25 years that I’ve been a counselor with Quaker House. And this year in particular, we have had the two busiest months that we’ve ever had in that 25 years, and those coincided with the start of the war in Iran. And I think that’s because that war is very unpopular with service members. So we still got a lot of the regular calls we get day in and day out. But by far, the majority of that increase was people who were upset for multiple reasons with this particular conflict and just don’t want to be part of it.
SCOTT HARRIS: And I’ve read that there’s growing concern inside the military, not only with the war in Iran, but the targeting of fishing boats, allegedly drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, where right now we have a tally of 68 strikes and last I read 227 people being killed without any evidence being presented to the connection these people may have had with the drug smuggling. So there’s concerns about that.
There’s concerns about international law among those serving in the Navy and Air Force when it comes to bombing what they are concerned are civilian infrastructure that could violate international law. And then of course there’s the whole range of things that the former Fox News Weekend host Pete Hegseth, who now calls himself the secretary of war, that seemed to be running against a lot of opposition in the U.S. military, both the long-term and enlisted men and women who are part of the service.
There’s a wide range of things here, but maybe Steve, since you’re the one talking to these folks, maybe you can run down a summary of some of the most frequent complaints and concerns you’re hearing about.
STEVE WOOLFORD: There does seem to be a pattern of events that callers have talked to us about that have been very troubling to them. And for a lot of people, this started even earlier, with the conflict in Palestine. And some people are surprised by that because it wasn’t our troops doing the fighting, but I think a lot of military people had access to footage of what was happening in Palestine and it was really upsetting to them just to see it. But also to feel like in their eyes, their government was on the side of backing what they saw as a genocide. And so that led to a lot of distrust of the government by people in the military. I think they’ll draw conclusions like if our government’s going to support this country committing a genocide, well, certainly it would have no hesitations about sending me into a genocide, or at least they had doubts. I don’t know if I should say it’s certain for everyone, but people had doubts and concerns.
And so there’s people who are already questioning when they’re seeing those events. And then we had a huge spike in calls when the government started sending National Guard members into U.S. cities. And we had a lot of calls from people saying things like, “Look, I signed up to defend the country, but I didn’t sign up to point a rifle at other U.S. citizens, especially people who look like they’re doing First Amendment legal things.” And I also had calls from people in the California National Guard, some people might have a picture in their mind of who the members are, but there’s quite a few members who themselves perhaps weren’t born in the United States or whose parents and relatives weren’t born in the United States. And so for them, the idea that they were being sent in to help ICE deport people from their own community, some of whom they might even be related to, was another upsetting event in this chain.
Then there were people watching the things you just talked about in Venezuela. And if you took one of these things by itself, I think it’d be troubling. But when people see one after another, they’re really concerned. And then when the war in Iran started, I think people were so ready to distrust the motivations and when there really weren’t any motivations given, it really just seemed to lead to all kinds of opposition from people in the military of “what are we doing here? This just doesn’t make any sense. We don’t see any purpose or point to this.”
For more information, visit the GI Rights Hotline at girightshotline.org.
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