WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 Call to Action

ASHEVILLE ACTION: Western North Carolina Veterans For Peace chapter 099 has approved a Call for Action for Oct.18, in Pack Square, from 4:30 to 5:30. This action will coordinate with the United National AntiWar Coalition's call for a week of action from Oct. 15 to Oct. 22.

 

Please notify the contacts in your organizations and your friends.

 

The US is increasingly belligerent, and this belligerency is strongly supported in the mass media. It is essential to raise opposing voices to save humanity.

 

 

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1579954136011124736?s=20&t=5a7_LohcYneHZiZr0pTZOg

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on October 11, 2022

 

Photo from VFP website of NYC protest this year.

An Excerpt from Peace & Planet News, a Publication of the New York City VFP chapter (by Chris Hedges):

Since all we do is war, all proposed solutions are military. This accelerates our decline, as the defeat in Vietnam and the squandering of 8 trillion dollars in the wars in the Middle East illustrate. War and sanctions, It is believed, will cripple Russia, rich in gas and natural resources.  War, or the threat of war, will curb the growing economic and military clout of China.

These are demented and dangerous fantasies, perpetrated by a ruling class that has severed itself from reality.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099      Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 on October 4, 2022

 Excerpts from remarks by Rusty Sivils, a Western North Carolina VFP member:

     I appreciate your thanking for my service, and since you have, I will tell you what my service was. I spent three years in the army helping my country to murder a couple of million women and children, (and that is a conservative estimate of the number of civilians the the U.S. military killed in Viet Nam).   

  Today the “defense” budget is officially $839 billion (or about $93 million an hour), which is even bigger than Biden asked for, although if all the programs that are not in the official budget are included, such as the Veterans Administration, the nuclear arms program, military pensions and others, the figure is around $1.4 trillion a year.

     If you really want to thank me for my service, you could, for instance, find ways to stop paying war taxes (you could consult the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee at WWW.nwtrcc.org). If you continue to pay them, your children will not die as a result, but someone else’s children will, as the US continues to fuel and supply and profit from wars around the world, like in Yemen and Ukraine,

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Chapter 099 - Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org  
Facebook: Veterans for Peace Chapter 099
Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on September 27, 2022

Handout # 83: Peace & Planet News, Summer 2022 THIS IS NOT A DRILL

A Project of New York City Veterans For Peace
Copies available from Western North Carolina VFP chapter 099

This is a tabloid format newspaper containing 24 pages. Here are some of the contents:


No Way Out But War? By Chris Hedges
“Since all we do is war, all proposed solutions are military…War…will cripple Russia, will curb the growing economic and military clout of China. These are demented and dangerous fantasies”

Why I Must Speak Out By Roger Waters
“I believe that the root of all injustice and oppression has always been the same – the dehumanization of the other. mIt is the obsession with Us and Them that can lead us, regardless of racial or religious identity, into the abyss”.

Editorial There Is No Planet B By Mike Ferner
“Think about what it will take to save our Mother Earth and just do it. Do it with abandon. … Do it simply out of love and because it’s the right thing to do. …Do it because this is not a drill”.

The Greatest Threat to Western Press Freedom in Years By Glenn Greenwald
“One of the most insidious despotic innovations of the Obama Administration was to repurpose and revitalize the Wilson-era Espionage Act as an all-purpose weapon to punish whistleblowers”.

Working to Change the Culture of Militarism By Nate Goldschlag
“And those flags – people say they honor the people represented by those flags, their sacrifice. But in the wars of the last 70 years, who did they sacrifice their lives for”?

How Veterans Return From America’s Wars By Ann Jones
“ ‘You can’t assess his injuries in comparison to those of other soldiers who happen to be on the same plane. You have to assess them in comparison to who he was before.’ He is a boy who used to have legs and now he doesn’t”.

Post-Cold War NATO: From Europe’s Guard Dog into America’s Attack Dog By Scott Ritter
“From an ostensible defensive alliance, NATO has grown into an aggressor designed to promote ‘rules’ dictated by the United States”

We Cannot Allow the Ukraine Crisis to Lead to Nuclear War! By Gerry Condon
“What is absolutely needed is a ceasefire and negotiations to end the war as soon as possible”.

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace vigil on September 21, 2022

 

Excerpts from an Open Letter to President Biden from Gerry Condon, Former President of Veterans for Peace:

     Mr. President, you might have stopped this war from happening merely by announcing that Ukraine would not become part of NATO and that you would end the militarization of Ukraine.  You could have accepted President Putin’s offer to negotiate a new security arrangement in Europe.

    We were horrified by the Russian invasion as well as by your response. You armed Ukraine to the teeth and fanned the flames of war.  Ukraine (and the Black market in Europe) is now awash with high-tech US weaponry.  A full-on war has killed many thousands of civilians, made millions homeless, and destabilized much of the world. We are now facing economic disasters and fearing the all-too-real possibility of nuclear war.

     We ask you to listen to veterans who say “Enough is Enough – War is Not the Answer.”  

     Negotiate, Don’t Escalate!


To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Chapter 099 - Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace Chapter 099
email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on September 13, 2022

 

Veterans for Peace holds protests at BAE and Lockheed Martin

OWEGO, NY (WIVT/WBGH) Sept.9, 2022 – Across the country today, peace advocacy groups protested our nation’s military and war companies to address corporate control over foreign policy.
John Amidon, one of the protesters, said that war and weapons systems increase the rate of climate collapse.

 “The money that’s going to the weapons systems, manufacturers, and the Pentagon, we need it for health, we need it for housing, we need it for our roads, we need it for the well-being of people here, we need it for the farmers, we need it for food, etc.”


To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Chapter 099 - Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace Chapter 099
email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on September 6, 2022

 

Photo:

Pakistani protesters rally against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in Karachi, Pakistan, September 2001

Reuters

 

 Veterans for Peace Statement on Afghanistan:

 

 In the wake of the international coalition's military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021, the United States froze Afghanistan's central-bank assets, paralyzing the country's banking system.  Financial sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies as well as severe limitations on remittances further limited cash flow and contributed to severe inflation. This lethal combination of factors has adversely impacted and deteriorated the stability of the Afghan economy.

As a result, the Afghan people are suffering from a humanitarian crisis unprecedented in scale and affecting every city, town, and corner of the country. Just over half of the Afghan population, almost 23 million Afghans, are facing acute food insecurity this winter. One million Afghan children are at risk of dying from malnutrition and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned that if no concrete action is taken, almost 97% of the country's population will plunge into poverty.

We urge the Administration to rescind the executive order released on February 11th and designate the entire $7.1 billion in Afghan reserves, mostly held at the Federal Bank of New York, to be used for the purposes of injecting liquidity and stabilization of the Afghan economy to prevent additional humanitarian crises.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Chapter 099 - Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace Chapter 099
email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802