We are the stitches that hold this flag together. Don’t let it fall apart!
Veterans for Peace, Northwest Florida, Chapter 135
OUR VIEW
Achieving Peace through Nonviolence
Our corporate statement began in May, 2005 with a letter to Congressman Jeff Miller. We have since broadened our statement but have not wavered from our basic views. Expect Our View to evolve. We seek your comment. Email us at vfpnwflorida@earthlink.net.
Below are the actions we advocate followed by a brief
justification.
1. End America’s military engagements overseas. Pledge that the US will not assault any country without a direct attack on America. Abandon any doctrine of preemptive war and advocate that other countries do so too.
Specifically, we include Iran and North Korea. In Iraq, we ask an acceleration of the current withdrawal. In Afghanistan, we basically oppose the action. However distasteful the Afghan government might have been to most Americans, it did not attack us, nor were any Afghan citizens involved in 9/11. Under the circumstances, VFP Northwest Florida asks President Obama’s administration, with the Congress, to define a realistic mission and time limit, pursue that mission only, and depart.
2. Engage in dialogue with states or parties perceived as adversaries, now or in the future, with respect for their interests and perceptions, without blame or precondition, with the goal of mutual security. Seek the aid of parties who might reasonably help.
3. Adopt the practices of Just Peacemaking (see Alternatives to War—Just Peacemaking) as an active and integral part of America’s foreign policy.
The answer to violence is not greater violence – in 1914, responses by proud, arrogant nations to the assassination of an Austrian duke, one person, launched World War One. The aftermath of that deadly war, aided by American arms, enabled the rise of Adolf Hitler. The result was World War Two and at the end, mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Just Peacemaking consists of experience-based practices that shift the focus from the polar opposites of “no-war” pacifism and “justified” war, neither of which envision peacemaking options, to moral and constructive alternatives to violence. These practices have demonstrated in today’s world that they work: by relieving causes of war and by toppling dictators without killing, destruction and chaos. There are many examples.
We invite you to look at Alternatives to War—Just Peacemaking.
4. Establish humane, respectful treatment, impartial due process and speedy trial for prisoners from all past and future situations in which any person, citizen or non-citizen of the US, is taken into legitimate custody. Ban coercion and torture in any US military prison. We are better than that! Close all military prisons where international law is not respected, including Guantanamo and Bagram, and prisons in other countries.
5. End US military construction and occupancy of bases not directly related to actual defense of America. In particular, abandon bases intended to control events and resources in other countries. Make public the location and function of overseas bases.
6. Provide adequate care for physical and psychological wounds to veterans – and for VA care for their families, keeping in mind that family members are also subject to psychological trauma and to family violence stemming from what their loved ones experienced in combat.
7. In Iraq and Afghanistan, initiate action to compensate persons and families injured by American weapons – in particular, air and artillery strikes. Repair the war-blasted roads, water, sewer and electric utilities, schools, hospitals and libraries – the facilities that mark a civilized society.
8. Engage in the Israel-Palestine situation with the objective of fair treatment of all concerned, including, especially, the Palestinians.
9. Renounce the use of nuclear weapons and actively seek their abolition worldwide. Renounce the use of chemical, biological and any other weapon of mass destruction. Establish techniques, policies and training in the US military, so that in case of war, civilian casualties are truly minimized.
We have been
Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, wartime Merchant Marine.
Military service does not make any veteran an expert in military
strategy or foreign policy. However, we march and speak with the experience of having
reported for duty (not always voluntarily); having obeyed orders (with which we
did not always agree); and, many of us, having faced an armed enemy. From that service
we feel heartfelt pride and the duty to be doubly careful in forming our views.
Veterans for Peace, Northwest Florida, honors the valor of American troops and mourns American dead, all the heroes who won or defended American Freedom, from the war of the Revolution until this instant.
We seek even more to honor the human values of equality and justice thought to be self-evident at the beginning of the Republic, and the timeless virtues of love, modesty and compassion. Without their mention, the word freedom is hollow, and the banners and outpouring of Veterans Day for those who did their duty become embarrassing.
We honor also the Leaders and the Foot Soldiers of Nonviolent Action, who struggled for, won and defended the same Freedom. They often suffered heavily. Many were killed. You can easily name some of them, but there are many thousands. In the USA and around the planet Earth, they acted on behalf of values that Americans respect and treasure, and more often than not they succeeded. We invite you to look at some of their names and their histories at Heroes of Nonviolence. We also invite you to read about the ways in which they worked, and are working. Go to Alternatives to War—Just Peacemaking.
We seek the establishment of a basic principle: That the US military is for defense of US territory and citizens, and, with caution and the advice and consent of peer nations, intervention in acknowledged cases of genocide. We acknowledge the possibility that armed force might, some dreadful day, again be necessary. We believe that day is avoidable.
The lack of realism and the human cost of America’s addiction to violence are shown by cold, hard data of destruction, of human suffering, of lack of results. We hold up as a record of failure most American intervention, military and covert, throughout the world. Far from leading to political freedom or higher living standards, US intervention has supported repression and perpetuated or created problems that are with us today. To most of the world, “democracy” means imperialism and economic domination – the legacy of American and European actions that the US in recent years has only reinforced.
Will restraint from violence by America cast a magical spell of peace across the people of the world? It will help to allow the messy, erratic, and dominant, trends in the world to work. In the last 33 years, authoritarian systems have collapsed in 67 countries. You can easily name examples. Political action by grassroots nonviolent civic coalitions was a key in 50 of these transitions. Only one was a result of external intervention. Years later, most of the fifty maintain freedom rooted in respect for human rights and the rule of law. There has been no corresponding trend to authoritarian rule. Join us in making the change.
Veterans for Peace, Northwest Florida, by action of the Board of Directors