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Veterans for Peace

Report: 2024 Protests Against Military Air Shows

December 4, 2024 Janet Weil and Taylor Smith-Hams, World Beyond War. , , ,
In 2024, Veterans For Peace organized nine protests of military air shows across the country and invited 350.org, a global climate justice organization, to join the No Military Air Shows (No MAS!) campaign. Members of Veterans For Peace, 350.org, Extinction Rebellion, US Resist, and local environmental and civic groups showed up to educate the public and protest air shows from Portland, Oregon to New Brunswick, Maine. Veterans For Peace and 350.org also launched a petition to the Secretaries of the Navy and the Air Force to end these noisy, expensive, and polluting air shows.

November 11 Is Armistice Day: Veterans Demand Ceasefire in Gaza

November 10, 2024 Gerry Condon, Popular Resistance. , , , , ,
World War I was an international conflict, 1914-18, that embroiled most of the nations of Europe, along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions.  The war pitted the “Central Powers” – mainly Germany Austria-Hungary and Turkey – against the “Allies” – mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy and (from 1917) the United States. The war was unprecedented in the slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused. Over 15 million people were killed – both soldiers and civilians, and over 25 million were wounded. The First World War ended in November 1918 when an armistice was declared at the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” marking a moment of hope and the promise of peace.

Air Force Academy Graduate Deconstructs A Military Mindset

November 3, 2024 2d Lt. Joy Metzler, USAF, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Somewhere around the age of 20, I sat in a large auditorium at the United States Air Force Academy with a thousand other cadets and cheered at footage of real drone strikes on real people, laughing along with everyone else as we watched little, pixelated figures run for cover that we all knew was futile. When I look back on that event, I wonder what part of me I had to sacrifice to find humor in the loss of life. In many ways, it’s thanks to the Air Force Academy that I currently have an anti-war stance. I was given the tools to examine my military service and foreign policy in a couple mundane, core classes: law and ethics, though my ethics course has stuck with me the most, ironically enough.

Veterans Call For Criminal Indictment Of Antony Blinken

October 1, 2024 Mike Ferner and Gerry Condon, Popular Resistance , , , , , ,
A national veterans’ organization today called for a grand jury to indict Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, for lying to Congress, violating the Export Control Act, the Genocide Prevention Act and the U.S. War Crimes Act. In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, Veterans For Peace (VFP) cited published reports showing that internal DOS emails and the statements of two senior State Department officials showed Blinken lied when he issued his “Report to Congress” stating, “…we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

Veterans To Vice President Harris: End The Siege Of Gaza

July 30, 2024 Gerry Condon, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The national organization Veterans For Peace has written an Open Letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, asking her to push for an immediate end to the siege of Gaza.  The letter begins: “Dear Vice President Harris, we are reaching out to you as military veterans who have fought in multiple US wars, and who continue to uphold the US Constitution and international law, to organize for justice and equality in our home communities, and to advocate for a peaceful foreign policy. We are appalled by the ongoing Israeli slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children and by the maiming of tens of thousands more. We are outraged by the systematic blocking of food, leading to malnutrition, starvation, disease and the deaths of many more, particularly babies and young children.  These are unbearable and unacceptable crimes that will go down in the history books as a terrible genocide – a holocaust.” 

Active-Duty US Service Members Appeal To Congress: Stop Funding Genocide

June 14, 2024 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , , , , , , ,
On June 4, a coalition of active-duty service members, veterans and G.I. rights groups launched a campaign called Appeal for Redress V2 to encourage military personnel to tell Congress to stop funding genocide in Gaza. Israel’s genocidal operation, now in its ninth month, has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 85,000. The campaign is sponsored by Veterans For Peace (VFP), the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, About Face: Veterans Against the War and the Center on Conscience & War. It is modeled after the 2006 Appeal for Redress issued during the occupation of Iraq.

Veterans For Peace Memorial Day 2024 Statement

May 27, 2024 Veterans For Peace. , , ,
Members of Veterans For Peace remember America's war dead not just once a year, but every day of our lives, with the solemnity they deserve, not the crass commercialism Memorial Day has become. We remember the war dead and the far greater number of wounded with missing limbs and the even greater number living with invisible, lifelong devils and injuries in their heads. We remember the lost contributions they could have made to society that they literally bottled up or destroyed in the epidemic of suicide rampant among veterans. We remember the domestic violence caused by their devils. We remember their children whose lives were more painful and less joyful than they could have been because of those devils.

Veterans Support Students Protesting Genocide In Palestine

May 7, 2024 Veterans for Peace, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
Veterans For Peace applauds the students who are protesting against the US/Israeli genocide in Palestine.  These courageous young students are doing the right thing at the right time.  “The students are absolutely right, and they may actually be saving our humanity,” said Veterans For Peace president Susan Schnall. “Peace-loving people should applaud them, help them and join them. We are grateful that many people – including veterans – are doing just that. Nonviolent student encampments on hundreds of college campuses in the U.S. and around the world are providing a light of hope in an otherwise hopeless and shameful moment in human history.

Veterans For Peace Joins International Delegation Attempt To Reach Rafah Border Crossing With Gaza

November 19, 2023 Pressenza New York. , , , , , , ,
VFP member Danny O’Brien, VFP Board member Gerry Condon, and VFP Advisory Board member, journalist Chris Hedges, are among an international delegation of writers, lawyers, journalists, activists, students, and organizers who arrived in Cairo, Egypt this week with the goal of reaching the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. VFP Advisory Board member, retired Colonel Ann Wright, was refused entry into Egypt. Their goal is to exert pressure to open the border for the immediate entry and sustained flow of urgent humanitarian aid—food, water, fuel, and medical aid to 2.3 million Palestinians facing starvation and death as genocidal Israeli airstrikes continuously pound defenseless civilians.

Remembering Vietnam: Poet Doug Rawlings On The War

October 7, 2023 Chris Hedges, The Real News. , , , , ,
Doug Rawlings found poetry in 1970 after returning from his tour of duty in the Vietnam War. Over fifty years later, he returned to Vietnam for the first time. In conversation with Chris Hedges, Rawlings looks back on his experience of the war with unflinching honesty on the many crimes of the US military, and shares some of the poems he’s written to process these experiences. Doug Rawlings is a veteran of the Vietnam War who has published several volumes of poetry, including In the Shadow of the Annamese Mountains (2020). He is a cofounder of Veterans for Peace.

Veterans’ Group Responds To Biden’s ‘Cluster Bombs For Ukraine’

July 8, 2023 Veterans For Peace, Globe Newswire. , , , ,
Veterans For Peace and other U.S. anti-war organizations denounce the Biden administration's decision to send cluster bomb munitions to Ukraine and they will hold a rally on July 22 at 11 am at the Scranton (PA) Army Ammunition Plant to oppose sending cluster bombs, and all weapons, into the Ukraine War, and call for an immediate ceasefire. The Scranton plant produces 11,000 artillery shells a month  but cannot keep up with the demand for killing.  That the U.S. would even consider sending cluster bombs, a weapon designed to wound as many people as possible, into the Ukraine War to make up for the lack of artillery shells, is horrifying and also revealing.

Veterans For Peace Memorial Day Statement

May 28, 2023 Veterans For Peace. , , , ,
This Memorial Day we remember all who have died in war and understand that no one wins in war. Many of us have been personally touched by war. But we must also extend that mourning. We remember the civilian victims, and their families. Honoring and remembering some deaths while ignoring others not only perpetuates war, but also ignores the moral injuries of war, a significant cause of veteran suicide. Veterans For Peace is made up of military veterans, family members and friends who are joined by our pledge to serve the cause of world peace and abolish war. We bring a different message to Memorial Day than the themes usually promoted by popular media, the government and traditional veterans’ organizations.

US Veterans Sail Historic Peace Boat To Cuba

January 19, 2023 Gerry Condon, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The Golden Rule anti-nuclear sailboat, crewed by US veterans and friends, has successfully completed an historic voyage to Cuba. The 34-foot wooden ketch, which in 1958 was sailed toward the Marshall Islands to interfere with US nuclear testing, is owned by Veterans For Peace, and carries out an important part of its mission, “to end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.” Five crew, including several members of Veterans For Peace, sailed the Golden Rule from Key West, Florida and, after 22 hours at sea, arrived at Havana’s Marina Hemingway on December 31, just in time to celebrate New Years and the 62nd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. The Golden Rule was sailed to Havana under a General License issued by the US Treasury Dept. that allows US residents to travel to Cuba for educational and people-to-people purposes.

Veterans For Peace Golden Rule In Havana, Cuba

January 6, 2023 Gerry Condon, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Thank you to the many Cuban people who have welcomed us to their beautiful country.  Thank you to ICAP for hosting our press conference.  And thank you to the members of the media who are here today to listen to our message of peace, love and solidarity. We are a diverse group of people from the United States and Hawai’i.  We are from the US states of California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota, New York and Rhode Island.  And several of us are from the island nation of Hawai’i.  We are the crew and supporters of the historic anti-nuclear sailboat Golden Rule. Many of us are members of Veterans For Peace, an organization of former soldiers who are dedicated to abolishing nuclear weapons, and to abolishing war.

US Veterans Call for Holiday Truce, Ceasefire, And Negotiations To End War

December 22, 2022 Gerry Condon, Popular Resistance. , , , , ,
Winter's arrival in the northern hemisphere brings increased concern about the war in Ukraine--now in its tenth month. Concern about the suffering of civilians under siege, and the fate of millions of refugees. Concern about the energy crisis and militarization in Europe. Concern about war-related food shortages in Africa. And concern about the possibility of a civilization-ending nuclear war. In the face of these compounding disasters, the world's people are confronted by the apparent readiness of Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., and NATO to dig in for a long war in which there will be no winners. Veterans For Peace (VFP) shares all of these concerns. As far back as 2015, we called for the withdrawal of all NATO forces from Ukraine's borders with Russia.
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