JUNE 22, 2009

READ THE NEWEST "WAR CRIMES TIMES"

The June 2009 version of the War Crimes Times is now available for download.  Click the graphic to download the pdf.

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june 17, 2009

SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION TO CREATE A MORATORIUM AND BAN ON THE MILITARY USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM

Mendocino County Chapter 116 of Veterans For Peace (VFP) invites the public to join us in our petition campaign to the U.S. Congress, calling for a moratorium leading to a ban on depleted uranium (DU) munitions. The petition is now circulating locally and nationally through VFP chapters, participating groups, and individuals.

JUNE 12, 2009

5 DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST TORTURE - DAY 5 - VETERANS SIGN ON AGAINST TORTURE

Veterans For Peace is sponsoring five days of action to stop the use of torture!  Each day this week you will receive an email with one important step you can take to Stop Torture Now.  Read Michael McPhearson's "Accessing Torture"

Day 1 - Picture No More Torture

Day 2 - Contact your Senators and Representatives

Day 3 - Call the White House

Day 4 - Write a Letter to the Editor

Day 5 - Veterans Sign on Against Torture

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MAY 29, 2009

VFP MEMBER, ELLEN BARFIELD ARRESTED IN FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE CALLING FOR "NO MORE BLOOD MONEY"

Activists scatter blood money in Senate hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Thursday, May 18 - A group of anti-war protesters challenged U.S. senators Thursday during a foreign relations committee meeting chaired by Senator John Kerry (D Mass.) held at the Dirksen Building. Four were arrested as the committee discussed future U.S. policy toward Afghanistan.
 
Among those arrested, were DC resident Eve Tetaz, 77, Ellen Barfield, 52 of Baltimore, Md., and Stephen Mihalis, 52 from Elmyria, Ohio who interrupted the hearing by throwing money stained with the blood of Tetaz and Barfield in the room.
 
"Stop pouring blood money into warfare," Tetaz shouted as she and the two other activists were quickly taken from the hearing and arrested.
 
DC resident, Pete Perry, 39, repeated Senator Kerry's own words spoken at the height of the Vietnam War: "How do you ask someone to be the last American soldier to die for a mistake?"

"We are here to tell the Senate they must stop automatically approving more blood money for these disastrous occupations," said Barfield, a US Army veteran. "Bring all the troops home now!"
 
Barfield, Mihalis, and Perry are all members of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, which has as its mission the ending of aggressive and immoral wars and holding those in government, responsible for such policies, accountable to law. This group is dedicated to the teachings of nonviolence of Gandhi, King and Dorothy Day.
 
This week the Senate is expected to pass its version of the war funding supplemental, totaling approximately $91 billion. Last week the House passed a $96.7 billion version of the supplemental, with only 51 anti-war Democrats voting against it.
 
Other anti-war activists speaking out during the hearing included members of Code Pink Women for Peace and Peace Action, member groups of the United for Peace and Justice coalition. Among this national coalition's demands regarding Afghanistan are the fact that most Afghans want the US troops out, the realization that the presence of US troops is the cause of violence for ordinary Afghans, not the solution, and that an occupation by US military forces will not resolve the crisis.

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MAY 27, 2009

TEXAS SOLDIER VICTOR AGOSTO REFUSES AFGHANISTAN DEPLOYMENT

As President Obama increases the number of troops in Afghanistan from 32,000 to 68,000, members of the military are beginning to resist the Afghanistan surge like they did in Iraq.  And they need your support!  Victor Agosto is one of those who resisting his deployment to Afghanistan.  On the bottom of his military counseling statement he wrote the following:

"There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the opposite effect." 

Agosto has served in the Army since 2005 and has served one tour in Iraq.  But he is now openly resisting the deployment to Afghanistan and is ready to face the consequences of his actions.  (also read the story of Travis Bishop, another Fort Hood soldier resisting deployment to Afghanistan)

> learn more about how you can support Victor Agosto

may 26, 2009

MEMBERS OF VFP HONOR ALL WAR DEAD ON MEMORIAL DAY

Members of Veterans For Peace held and attended special Memorial Day events this 2009.  

Let's remember: This holiday is not Armistice Day, or Armed Forces Day, or the birthday of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard or Merchant Marine....it's Memorial Day  

It is a day to mourn ALL who have died in war.  A day to remember ALL the victims, the vast majority of whom are our brothers and sisters who, by an accident of birth, were born on the receiving end of the bombs and the occupations.  Mourn them.  If you march, carry a sign saying so. 

Mourn our comrades.  Mourn the dead and the wounded, the human beings who came back dehumanized because of what their government sent them to do. 

But this day we mourn more than our own military dead.  Yes, we are veterans, but we are also VETERANS FOR PEACE. 

Abolish war and all the mourning it causes.

(Thanks to VFP Chapter 34, especially Jay Janson, for reminding us.)

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