For Immediate Release                                       
April 11, 2018                                                                                                                                           
                    Veterans: U.S. Attack on Syria Could Lead to Nuclear War
                               Call for Veterans and GI’s to Resist Illegal Orders

A leading veterans’ organization is warning that a U.S. attack on Syria could lead to a nuclear war. Russian military forces in Syria will undoubtedly be among the targets of U.S. missiles.  Russia has said it will shoot down U.S. missiles, and attack the “platforms from which they are fired,” i.e. U.S. ships.

“Why the rush to war?” asked Gerry Condon, president of Veterans For Peace.  “Why is the mass media cheerleading for war instead of asking hard questions?  Why are Democratic and Republican politicians trying to out-do one another with calls for ever more massive attacks on Syria?

“There is no proof yet of a Syrian government gas attack, only a video made by a fundamentalist rebel group that wants more U.S. intervention.  Even if the reports are true, a military response will only lead to more death and destruction, and dangerous escalations.

“We are talking about a direct confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers,” said Condon. “Why would the U.S. risk nuclear war over dubious chemical weapons claims?

“Veterans have longer memories than the press and the politicians,” said Condon.  “We remember how we were lied into the Iraq War with false reports of ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ U.S. wars throughout the Middle East have caused millions of deaths and destroyed entire societies.  Our soldiers and their families have also paid an extremely high price. Veterans, GI’s and their families will not accept another war based on lies. We will be protesting in the streets, in the suites, at media outlets and at military bases."

All military personnel, from low ranking GI’s to the top generals and admirals, have an obligation to disobey illegal orders. Orders to carry out acts of war against a sovereign nation that is not threatening the U.S. are illegal orders.

“We swore an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic,” said Condon. “Right now those enemies are those who would rush our country recklessly into another devastating war.”

Contact: Gerry Condon at 206-499-1220.


The submitter of this post is Gene Marx from Bellingham, Washington. Gene is a Vietnam veteran and former Naval Flight Officer with VAQ-135 aboard the USS Coral Sea in 1971-72. Past Secretary of the VFP National Board of Directors, Gene is currently a member of VFP-111.

3/16/18

By Conor Friedersdorf  




When U.S. Army soldiers ended their massacre of elderly men, women, and children in a South Vietnamese hamlet 50 years ago—on March 16, 1968—perhaps 500 civilians lay dead.

The green troops expected to meet Vietcong forces, but instead found unarmed families. “During the next few hours, the civilians were murdered,” Seymour Hersh later wrote. “Many were rounded up in small groups and shot, others were flung into a drainage ditch at one edge of the hamlet and shot, and many more were shot at random in or near their homes. Some of the younger women and girls were raped and then murdered. After the shootings, the G.I.s systematically burned each home, destroyed the livestock and food, and fouled the area’s drinking supplies.”

The My Lai massacre still shocks the conscience.

It’s hard to fathom how a group of young American men, most of whom would never have killed anyone but for the Vietnam War, spiraled out of control together, perpetrating atrocities that rival any committed in the annals of human warfare.

And yet, whenever a country’s civilian leaders decide to send young men to fight any war of sustained length, it is almost certain that discipline will break down somewhere, that savagery will take hold sometime, and that shameful evil will be done, as had happened during the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.

A country can minimize the evil perpetrated in its name, by its soldiers, by going to war only as a last resort; maintaining discipline as best as is humanly possible during armed conflict; holding war criminals responsible for their deeds; and treating those who stop or uncover crimes against humanity as heroes rather than villains. The hero of the My Lai massacre was helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson Jr. Along with the members of his crew, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, he began observing the U.S. troops in Sơn Mỹ Village from the air, believing them to be attacking enemy forces. It took time for him to realize that the soldiers of Company C were committing mass murder. At that moment, he could easily have just flown away.

Instead, he landed his helicopter, confronted heavily armed child killers and rapists amid their killing frenzy, and saved the lives of at least 11 civilians. As The New York Times described it decades later in his obituary:
 
He touched down near a bunker in which a group of about 10 civilians were being menaced by American troops. Using hand signals, Mr. Thompson persuaded the Vietnamese to come out while ordering his gunner and his crew chief to shoot any American soldiers who opened fire on the civilians. None did. Mr. Thompson radioed for a helicopter gunship to evacuate the group, and then his crew chief, Glenn Andreotta, pulled a boy from a nearby irrigation ditch, and their helicopter flew him to safety.
 
Upon returning to base he reported what he saw. And that likely saved many more innocents, for commanders ordered a halt to an operation that had been planned to include forays into other nearby hamlets where more killings could have taken place.

When I reflect on the My Lai massacre, I cannot put myself in the minds of the dozens of men who perpetrated it nor the three who risked their lives to intervene. I don’t know if anyone can fully explain either savagery or heroism in war.

But a country needn’t solve any mystery to know how it ought to respond to mass murder. And that’s why, in my judgment, the U.S. should feel the most shame for the fact that just one man, Lieutenant William Calley, was ever punished for the mass killings. Found guilty of murdering no less than 20 people, he was sentenced to life in prison, but put on house arrest instead after President Nixon intervened. In the end, even he served just three-and-a-half years of house arrest. Then he went free.

He is now 74.

And Hugh Thompson? After news of the My Lai massacre reached the United States, this was his experience:
 
“After it broke, I was not a good guy. I was sure not being invited to Annapolis or     West Point or any other university that I’ve been to since, because I was a traitor. I was a communist. I was a sympathizer. I was neither one of those, I didn’t think. I was very confused about why I was being treated this way, because how wrong can it be helping a fellow human? And I’m no pacifist either. You know, I’m not one of these peacenik guys. So I was just very confused, and that went on for about 30 years.

“I became invisible. When it first broke, people thought everybody was picking on  Lieutenant Calley. Believe me, Lieutenant Calley was very guilty. There is no way to get around it. But we, being Americans, we cheer for the underdog, so that’s what people were thinking. They thought the establishment was picking on this little guy. The turmoil the United States was in during this time was quite significant. We had demonstrations on every campus in the United States except about three, and I guarantee they were right outside your gate, because we had been there too long. We were [the demonstrators said] nothing but a bunch of baby killers, you know, and it was just a bad time for America.

And Congress came after me real hard. A very senior congressman made a public statement that if anybody goes to jail in this My Lai stuff, it will be the helicopter pilot.”
 
He later told 60 Minutes, “I’d received death threats over the phone. Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up.” He and his crew did not receive the Soldier’s Medal until 1998. He lived to see the Army teach his behavior as a model of good soldiering. He died in 2006.

If the Armed Forces could train its members so that the murder of civilians would never again occur, and so that all soldiers possessed the moral rectitude and courage of Hugh Thompson, it would—and the moral risks inherent in wars of choice would shrink. Unfortunately, no army can totally eliminate war crimes perpetrated by its worst soldiers, nor can any army simply replicate the best of its men.

Meanwhile, the government’s unwillingness to prosecute torturers, despite its treaty obligations, shows that it sometimes remains willing to tolerate war criminals as it fights its enemies, and that the public is often oblivious to misbehavior by its soldiers.

That’s why, even though the Armed Forces have learned from My Lai, the surest way for the U.S. to avoid its next crime against humanity is for it to avoid wars of choice. Admittedly, the possibility of war crimes cannot by itself tell us whether it is prudent or imprudent to participate in a given conflict; but the next time that a war is being considered, rather than pretend that no American soldier would ever intentionally rape, maim, or murder, the near certainty that sustained war will include atrocities perpetrated by Americans should always at least weigh against waging it.

By Gene Marx




By now most of the world has stopped caring about the panic that gripped Hawaii one Sunday last month for all of 38 minutes. The false missile alert after all was just that. No harm done. Americans have even managed to settle back into their comfort zones watching Korean American snowboarder Chloe Kim conquer the halfpipe at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. In spite of a core message of peace and reunification an undercurrent of US and North Korean hostility continues to run below the surface. And while overtures of dialogue from both sides of the 38th parallel may have raised hopes since the Opening ceremony, harsh rhetoric could easily return when the Olympic flame is extinguished and the athletes return home.

OK. So where are we now?  
 
First of all the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a nuclear state. We need to get over it. Outside of the collapsing apartheid government of South Africa in 1989, NO nuclear power has ever unilaterally, much less voluntarily disarmed. And the Hawaiian chaos could have easily been misread by North Korean leaders as a cover for an attack by the US military. With little or no room for error and nothing to lose at that point, officials in Pyongyang might have easily opted for an immediate counterattack based on its limited, ground-based early warning detection assets, setting off a spiraling thermonuclear holocaust in a worst case.
 
The atomic age is replete with near nuclear catastrophes, and billions of lives still hang in the balance seven decades after the Trinity detonation. In a recent article in The New Yorker, Sidney D. Drell a groundbreaking researcher and physicist who served for nearly half a century as a top adviser to the United States government on military technology and arms control, considered it a miracle – “so far beyond my normal optimism” - that no other city since Nagasaki had been destroyed by a nuclear weapon. Given all the close calls and mistakes since then our species continues to exist on borrowed time.
 
It would seem that the time for talking, diplomatic dialogue, is long overdue.
 
The United States has appeared to endorse a closer post-Olympics engagement between South and North Korea with an eye to eventual US-North Korean talks, but has agreed with Seoul that sanctions must be intensified to push Pyongyang to negotiate an end to its nuclear weapons program. U.S. Vice President Pence said Washington would keep up its maximum pressure campaign against Pyongyang, but at the same time would be open to talks without pre-conditions.
 
Clearly, however, insisting that North Korea disarm is a non-starter. The Kim Jong Un regime, understandably, equates survival with nuclear weaponization.
 
In fact believing that further sanctions and Security Council pressure will break the DPRK commitment to the bomb is a risky naiveté. With no reasonable threshold anticipated in either case, the Trump administration might well take a lesson from the Richard Nixon template of normalizing relations with a future, legitimate atomic adversary. The nuclear rise of a bellicose outlier like “Red” China in 1972 demanded resolution. A time-line of deliberate negotiations - Track 2 interactions, followed by more open discussions - arguably eliminated that nuclear stress.
 
A Sino-Soviet dispute, coupled with China’s willingness to talk, certainly paved the way for Nixon, but that effort rewrote history. It started and concluded with dialogue, an option that should always be “on the table” but is rarely, if ever, a first consideration since war and military intervention have been the foreign policy solutions of choice for the 21st century.

 
The author of this post is Veterans For Peace Lifetime Member, Past VFP Board Secretary and Naval Aviation Veteran Gene Marx. He is also an active member of the CPL Jonathan Santos Memorial Veterans For Peace Chapter 111 and lives in Bellingham, Washington with his wife, Victoria.

By Mike Hastie

I just got through watching Episode 5 of the Burns/Novick documentary The Vietnam War. The title of the episode is This Is What We Do (July 1967-December 1967). I am only going to make remarks about this episode. Please keep that in mind. I have probably watched 7 episodes of this 18-hour series. I felt that Episode 5 had a tremendous amount of information in it, along with some powerful historical footage. You can critique that information and put it under a microscope if you want to. But, I want to refine what I saw to write this article. If I were a conservative Vietnam veteran, I would find this episode very disturbing. I have not forgotten my conservative upbringing, as I was raised in the military because my father was a career Army Officer and combat veteran in North Africa during World War II. The pathology of this episode was that the war was over by November 1967. Of course you could say the war was over before it started. As someone on the left, I think most of us know this. The United States was nothing more than the identical twin sibling of French Imperialism. It is not that complicated. So, I'm going to look at just this episode, as I'm going to put another hat on that says, “Proud to Be a Vietnam Veteran." If a Vietnam veteran is wearing that baseball cap when he is watching Episode 5, he might later become very depressed. If he was watching that episode with some other Vietnam veterans at a Vet Center, he might want to drive his car off a cliff when he left that Vet Center to drive home. Now, WHY would he want to do that? It's 1969, and this veteran is in the Central Highlands of Vietnam with an Army unit attached to the 4th Infantry Division. His platoon is caught in an ambushed in the mountains 15 miles South of An Khe. In a matter of minutes, 14 of his fellow soldiers are killed with AK-47 small arms fire. Four others are critically wounded, including both medics. Within minutes after the ambush, the Viet Cong vanished. The RTO (Radio Telephone Operator) calls in Medevac helicopters from Fort Radcliff. The Vietnam veteran who watched Episode 5, was on that mission, and lost three very close buddies, one of them on the helicopter during the flight back to 8th Field Hospital, who happened to be one of the medics. The two of them read each other's letters from home. They knew every member of each other's family, and had shared many pictures. When this soldier returned to the United States, he suffered from many years of depression and lost just about everything due to his alcoholism. Eventually, he was able to sober up, and joined three communities that saved his life. Between AA, church, and the Vet Center, he was able to put his life back together. Twice a month, he meets with half a dozen close friends who are also vets, who share similar conservative values. Now, let's go back to Episode 5, and remember all the dead Marines who were killed near the DMZ, called, “Dead Marine Zone," by one Marine who was interviewed in the episode.

Remember, these Marines are not too empathetic about all the Vietnamese being killed. Because, at the time, their instincts are obsessed with moment to moment survival. And then, there is Hill 875, involving the Army 173rd Airborne, also covered in the episode.  A lot of Americans were killed and wounded on Hill 875. One of my best friends was on Hill 875. He put his best friend in a body bag, piece by piece. That has never left him, as I see him occasionally in Salem, Oregon. He has devoted his life to helping veterans who get caught up in the criminal justice system because of their raging PTSD. And, after soldiers of the 173rd finally got to the top of the hill, the enemy was gone, and the U.S. Military High Command decided to abandon Hill 875. Later, a U.S. commander said, " It wasn't worth it." So, my friend who was on Hill 875 might be watching Episode 5, as I need to talk to him. I wonder what he has to say about it, although I have heard him express some very angry opinions in the past. By November 1967, 20,000 Americans have been killed in Vietnam. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara is replaced by Clark Clifford. McNamara privately admits to President Johnson that he believes the war in Vietnam is unwinnable, and that is brought out in Episode 5. So, let’s go back to the Vietnam veteran who was in that ambush in 1969. He is the one who watched Episode 5. So, let's get this straight, President Johnson decides not to run for reelection in 1968, and President Nixon is elected. By the time Nixon leaves office in utter disgrace on August 9, 1974, over 58,000 Americans are killed in Vietnam. That's 38,000 more after Robert McNamara tells President Johnson that the war in Vietnam is unwinnable. When the war is over, 300,000 Americans are wounded, and more Vietnam veterans will commit suicide than were killed in Vietnam. Can you imagine what is going through the head of that veteran who was ambushed in 1969 by the Viet Cong, and... by his own government? He went to Vietnam in a cattle car, riddled with bull shit. The Viet Cong tried to kill him, but they did not betray him like his immoral government. As Malcolm X once said: “To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal."

Can you imagine what is going on with tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans who will be watching Episode 5? Not only was it to “Save Face," but how do you stop a war that is making millions and millions of dollars for corporations across the United States? For me, W A R stands for, Wealthy Are Richer. When politicians and the rich start sending their kids to war, I'll start believing in noble causes. When Episode 5 finished, it ended with the Rolling Stones playing “Paint It Black." When I got to Vietnam in 1970, as an Army medic, my naive little head was eventually catapulted into another world. My Core belief system as someone who was raised in the military was completely dismantled. There was a Medevac helicopter in my unit that had the word, WHY painted on the nose with large white letters. I saw American teenagers die in Vietnam for absolutely no noble cause. The philosophical denial part of me died a long time ago. And, for the millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians, who were killed in that war, along with millions who were wounded, and the physical and spiritual destruction of those countries, it will be a genocide that will be left for the ages. The most powerful military force the world has ever seen, bombed the holy hell out of three of the poorest countries in the world. That is immorality that is beyond comprehension. America, you will get away with nothing...

Mike Hastie
Army Medic Vietnam

                                             The Vietnam War

Contents

I. Introduction

II. Origins of U.S. involvement in Vietnam

• Vietnamese independence and the First Indochina War
• The Geneva Agreements of 1954
• The creation of South Vietnam
• Repression and revolution in South Vietnam
• The expansion of U.S. involvement under Kennedy
• Lyndon Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
• Johnson takes the nation to war

III. The American War in Vietnam – conduct and costs

• “Pacification”
• The Phoenix program
• Search and destroy: The ground war
• Technological rampage: The air war
• An inhuman fate: The U.S. chemical war
• Peace negotiations
• Costs of war
• Associated wars in Laos and Cambodia (linked page)

IV. The American home front

• Consciousness raising
  
• Creating the antiwar movement
• The antiwar movement in the Nixon years
  
• Protest music of the Vietnam War (linked page)    

    
Read complete article on peacehistory-usfp.org.

By Gene Marx

Journalist Caitlin Johnstone has been castigated this week for her July 17th article, Please Just Fucking Die Already. In that article she wrote: "Defenses of McCain tend to include the phrase war hero, which is a nonsensical concept invented long ago by ruling elites to glorify the act of shedding blood for them. There is no such thing as a war hero. There are only war victims. For a time in Vietnam, John McCain was a war victim, a victim of a war that should never have happened. He then spent the rest of his life finding ways to victimize others, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria to Libya to Kosovo to his cartoonishly virulent NATO expansionism to his attempts to escalate tensions with Russia."
 
I couldn't agree with Caitlin more. Last month my friend Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist Bill Distler died from the same aggressive brain tumor. And while I'm sure John McCain never met Bill, he would have hated him and everything he worked for in the peace movement since returning home from the charnel of Vietnam.  Neither of us met a hero while we were there, just stupid cowards for ending up there in the first place.
 
McCain would have actually hated Bill Distler for doing whatever he could to impede the gears of an indiscriminate war machine to end the slaughter of innocents, especially the children. Their views couldn't have been more antithetical, but Veteran For Peace activist Bill Distler would still have been uncomfortable with the tenor of Caitlin Johnstone's piece. He would have even squirmed at this post. He was a good guy and certain that war-mongers like John McCain had moral cores and that they could be reached, somehow. Bill and I never saw eye to eye on that issue.
 
Unlike McCain, peacemakers like the Bill Distlers of the world will be missed, and for the children's sake should be emulated.
 
From Caitlin Johnstone's follow-up piece today:
 
"John McCain has spent his political career pushing for the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. I simply hope that stops. Why would anyone pray for that to continue? Why would you wish health and recovery for that? Why would you offer your lifeforce for this agent of death to continue his grisly work?"
 
Thank you, Caitlin.


The author of this post is Gene Marx from Bellingham, Washington. Gene is a Vietnam veteran and former Naval Flight Officer with VAQ-135 aboard the USS Coral Sea in 1971-72. Past Secretary of the VFP National Board of Directors, Gene is currently a member of VFP-111.

By Gene Marx


Panel 2 West,

It’s been awhile, my old friend.  Nearly five years now since I last stood like a phantom in the shadows of Constitution Gardens, my reflection on glossy black granite welcoming me back.  You knew I’d be back then and are probably expecting me this month when peace veterans converge on Washington, DC.   
 

It’s now been over forty years since I was eligible for my own etching on your façade, and since the week of the dedication of The Wall I’ve visited only you, panel 2 West, always looking forward to our private, late night musings with my best friend Captain Richard Halpin, memorialized on line 122.  Our shared ruminations have always run the gamut from guilty rationalizations to fond reminiscences, and each provided much-needed solace.
 
You’ve no doubt noticed that I’ve never shed a tear.  Like many Vietnam veterans, I have long felt that the misguided, sometimes fake reverence I’ve observed from visitors, in the glare of daylight and ceremony, is unbefitting your arguably sacred ground status.  Don’t expect to see me on Memorial Day.  Like most of our war memorials, you have become an appeasement to unbloodied patriots or, worse yet, a recruitment tool for endless wars.  So why would I cry?  Anger is a better fit.        
 
Respectfully, my stoic friend, no country that flaunts its militarism at home and abroad is worth dying for.  Dick and I never admitted that.  We were used.  We should have known better, but we were used and never served any causes but family legacy and youthful, immortal egos.  And sadly, if every town common in the United States had similar polished gabbro walls embossed instead with the countless civilian casualties of US interventionist wars, instead of used service men and women, our imperial wars for profit would still be waged, for generations.          
 
So I’ll see you soon, near the apex, in the dark.  I’ll come alone.
 
Gene Marx


The author of this post is Gene Marx from Bellingham, Washington. Gene is a Vietnam veteran and former Naval Flight Officer with VAQ-135 aboard the USS Coral Sea in 1971-72. Past Secretary of the VFP National Board of Directors, Gene is currently a member of VFP-111.

Letters to The Wall is a project of VFP's Vietnam Full Disclosure campaign.

By Bill Distler


Willie, I think about you and have thought about you every day since the mine went off that killed you.  I think about your family and I hope they have peace.

Even though we were arguing on the day you died, I think your family should know that you were so loved by everyone in our unit, that men were crying when the word came back to us that you had died in the field hospital.

My purpose in writing this is not to stir up painful memories for your family, but to hope that these words will comfort them.  I also hope that Bo, who was standing behind you when the mine went off, is doing okay.  I think about him, too.

Willie and Bo, two brave and honorable men. I hope you are in peace.

Willie, every day for 44 years, as if you were an angel, I saw your face behind my left shoulder, watching over me in a helpful way.  It seemed like you were always asking me: What are you going to do to make this right?

Willie, because of your presence in my life, I ask for God's help every day , to try to understand and to try to live a worthwhile life and to do the right thing.

Thank you, my friend.  I hope you are satisfied with what I've tried to do.
Peace to you and your family.


The author of this post is Bill Distler from Bellingham, Washington. Bill is a Vietnam veteran and former squad leader in the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam from December 1967 to September 1968. He is a member of the Jonathan J. Santos Memorial Chapter of Veterans For Peace VFP-111.

Letters to The Wall is a project of VFP's Vietnam Full Disclosure campaign.

By Bill Distler

When King Herod heard rumors that a newborn Messiah might someday take his place, he ordered the killing of all newborn male children.  An angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him to take the Holy Family and flee into Egypt, where they found sanctuary.  If the Holy Family arrived at the U.S. border today would they be treated as undocumented aliens?  Someone in Egypt must have taken pity on them. Thank God that Donald Trump was not in charge of Egyptian border security in those days.

How does the story of Jesus have meaning in our lives today?  How many holy families (and under God, they are all holy), fleeing violence in Central America or the Middle East, has Donald Trump sent back to be killed? 

How did this cruel, sadistic man become president?  Every day he discovers new ways to disgrace our country.

Donald Trump needs to be impeached because, with his Muslim bans, he has violated the most important direction to the president that is written into the Constitution, "...he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed".

If, as Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. said, we want to save the soul of America, we must, as faithful citizens, resist Donald Trump's usurpations.


The author of this post is Bill Distler from Bellingham, Washington. Bill is a Vietnam veteran and former squad leader in the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam from December 1967 to September 1968. He is a member of the Jonathan J. Santos Memorial Chapter of Veterans For Peace VFP-111.