USS Somers Mutiny Anniversary Reminds Us

of History of Subversion in US Armed Forces

by Ayngal Istvan, Thursday 28 November 2002 at 04:51 PM

As we now head into a new war, December 1st marks the 160th anniversary of the mutiny aboard the USS Somers -- the first significant revolt by enlisted people inside the United States Navy. We use this anniversary to call attention to the suppressed history of how enlisted people played a leading role in the defeat of the US war effort in Indochina.

This aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Constellation, was the site of a major near-mutiny by enlisted people during the Vietnam War.

Today, George Bush is preparing a war of aggression that will kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and several thousand US enlisted personel. Bush hopes to topple former US puppet Saddam Hussein so he can grab control of the world's second largest petrolium reserves for American oil companies, and get our minds off the economic crisis. He counts on the loyalty of enlisted people, hoping they will kill and die in a war for the continued domination of the world by America's ruling elite. But Bush and his cronies also desperately hope that their oil war will be a quick one.

Our rulers understand that contemporary American society is more fragile than it was in the 1960's, far too fragile to withstand a protracted ground conflict. And they know that the effectiveness of the US military itself may be rapidly and fatally compromised by any conflict involving major casualties, or lasting more that a few months.

As we now head into a new war, December 1st marks the 160th anniversary of the mutiny aboard the USS Somers -- the first significant revolt by enlisted people inside the United States Navy. We use this anniversary to call attention to the suppressed history of how enlisted people played a leading role in the defeat of the US war effort in Indochina.

Read more about revolutionary subversion of the US Armed Forces:

• No War but The Class War
• Harass the Brass
  - Mutiny, fraggings, and desertions in the US Military
• Vietnam: The Soldier's Revolt
  - Useful in spite of its counter-revolutionary left bourgeois perspective

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Reprinted for Fair Use Only.