By April 13, 2026
April 12 — U.S. bombs and rockets stopped hitting Iran for the last five days after the White House’s threat to erase Iranian civilization was put on hold for a quick U.S. retreat. But by April 12 the new U.S. plan to block the Strait of Hormuz put war back on Washington’s agenda.
The last week exposed the contradictions on many levels in the imperialist part of the world: between the U.S. and its NATO allies; between the MAGA forces and other sectors of the U.S. ruling class, including its Democratic Party rivals; between the MAGA political summits and the U.S. Armed Forces.
The events left the antiwar movement in the U.S. with the challenge it has faced since the MAGA grouping took over the reins of state power and, despite all its campaign promises, pushed the U.S. toward war even faster than the Democrats were doing. That is, how to join the battle against MAGA and the openly reactionary, racist and misogynist president without allowing the other ruling-class elements to direct the struggle.
This article will discuss that challenge in a specific area of antiwar struggle: within the U.S. Armed Forces. There are increased signs daily that antiwar sentiment is growing among active duty people in the military. This opposition takes place on two levels. One is the dissent among the officer corps, who have been targeted by the MAGA group running the Pentagon. The other, more important in the long run, are the simmering signs of resentment in the lower ranks, the workers in uniform tasked with the labor and dangers of war.
Disobey illegal orders
Veterans For Peace is a popular antiwar organization that pays for billboards urging active duty troops to disobey illegal orders.
Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, who commanded the 1st Armored Division in Iraq in 2007 and the U.S. Army Europe during the Obama administration, added his voice to the six Democratic senators and representatives — all military or CIA veterans — who produced a video last year informing service members of their right and their duty to disobey illegal orders.
Herting said that U.S. top officers are feeling tensions between their loyalty to the U.S. Constitution, to superior officers and to soldiers they command. He said this tension is playing out in real time inside the U.S. chain of command. (International Business Times, April 7) Hertling made this interview just as #47 was openly saying the U.S. would bomb Iran back to the Stone Age by destroying essential infrastructure — itself a war crime.
There has been other evidence of this tension. Last fall Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of U.S. Southern Command in the Caribbean Sea (which was blowing up civilian motorboats, killing the crews) resigned only a year into his command, an almost unheard of act.
Pete Hegseth, who calls himself Secretary of War, not only accepted Holsey’s resignation but lectured hundreds of top officers last Sept. 30 on their need to continue doing pushups.
Recently, Hegseth forced Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George out on April 2. He has fired a dozen other top officers, giving no reason, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown, the second African American to hold the job, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to hold the Navy’s top uniformed job.
Earlier this year the secretary of war [crimes] prevented four colonels from being appointed as one-star generals. The four included two women and two African American men, out of 29 colonels the Army approved for appointment.
For Hegseth and his MAGA cronies, being Black, female or “woke” is enough to put an officer on the hit list. Over 40% of military personnel are people of color and about 20% women (trans service people are already being expelled), so this attitude must provoke enormous resentment toward the administration. Now added to this insult is the government’s war of aggression on Iran, a war targeting children and other civilian targets, and ordering troops to commit war crimes.
Will troops say ‘No?’
Automatic draft registration for men in the U.S. 18 – 26 years old begins December 2026. Is this a first step toward reinstating a conscription (draft) armed forces for imperialism’s endless wars?
When U.S. troops first began to express opposition to the war in Vietnam, it often took the form of individual soldiers filing for conscientious objection status. That’s also true with today’s professional military. Remember that 60 years ago, the U.S. had a draft military and sent a half-million troops to Vietnam.
Bill Galvin is the counseling director at the Center on Conscience and War, an organization that encourages and aids troops to apply for conscientious objector status. The group helps run the 24-hour GI Rights Hotline, set up to inform service members of their options for military discharge. Galvin has spent much of the past month answering the phone. “It’s been very, very busy,” he told National Public Radio in a recent interview.
Galvin added that the callers are also sharing their concerns and frustrations. They can do it with him without getting into trouble. Galvin told NPR that nearly all the callers he talks to mention the U.S. bombing of a primary school in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the war. This attack killed over 160 children between 6 and 11 years old in three separate strikes, along with dozens of staff members. The callers say they don’t want any part of these horrible crimes.
And it’s not just the Center on Conscience and War that is organizing. Veterans For Peace is another organization that has been reaching out to active duty troops, publicizing the troops’ right to disobey illegal orders.
U.S. government controls the news
One sign that the MAGA regime fears the growing revulsion toward the war among civilians and troops alike is its almost desperate attempt to control the news. It especially hides casualties and any military setbacks.
In an April 1 article, The Intercept reported its analysis that almost 750 U.S. troops have been wounded or killed in the Middle East since October 2023, when Israel’s assault on Gaza became genocidal. The article says the Pentagon won’t acknowledge the losses.
The 750 casualties include 200 sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford who suffered smoke inhalation when some 100 bunks burned in a fire reported as an accident. The ship has been in port in Souda on the Greek island of Crete being repaired for months. The 4,500 sailors and officers on the Ford had been at sea working 80 hours a week for 10 months and had been protesting malfunctioning toilets.
Another area of hidden U.S. casualties are those troops at the military bases in the monarchies on the Persian Gulf that have been hit by Iranian fire. Others were wounded in Iraq.
The most devastating single battle U.S. forces experienced was the alleged rescue of an officer near Isfahan on April 4. The U.S. lost two special rescue planes, four small helicopters (that were being transported inside those planes) along with other planes shot down. The Pentagon, the president and most corporate media presented this costly event as a great victory.
Hegseth prevents reporters from entering the Pentagon and looking for people to interview. He also is pursuing reporters who won’t reveal their sources inside the Pentagon.
Historically, resistance develops in an imperialist military, because: (1) war opposition is strong in the population in general; (2) the government has failed to explain clear reasons for the war; (3) there are casualties, and the casualties are made public; (4) troops begin to believe the war will go on endlessly; (5) there is revulsion at the actions of the military and disdain regarding the commanding officers.
It is too early to report anything like an uprising. Yet all the seeds are present. Should the MAGA regime expand this war, there’s no predicting where it ends.
Catalinotto is author of “Turn the Guns Around: Mutinies, Soldier Revolts and Revolutions,” 2017.
