Stand with Veterans For Peace on November 11 Veterans For Peace is calling on all our members to take a stand for peace this Armistice Day.  We are calling on all our friends and allies to join us at the barricades of peace on November 11.   Visit the Armistice Day page for ways to get involved. Over the last several years, Veterans For Peace chapters have taken the lead in celebrating Armistice Day on November 11.  We are reclaiming the original intention of that day – a worldwide call for peace that was spurred by universal revulsion at the huge slaughter of World War One.  In Canada and the United Kingdom, this day is known as Remembrance Day.   After World War II, the U.S. Congress decided to re-brand November 11 as Veterans Day.  Who could speak against that?  But honoring the warrior quickly morphed into honoring the military and glorifying war.  Armistice Day was flipped from a day for peace into a day for displays of militarism. This November 11, it is as urgent as ever to ring the bells for peace.  Many Veterans For Peace chapters ring bells, and ask local churches to do the same, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as was done at the end of World War One.  There are so many reasons we must press our government to end reckless military interventions that endanger the entire world. In Syria, the U.S. has armed and supported rebels who share its goal of overthrowing the Assad government. U.S. intervention in Syria has been a major factor in the ongoing tragedy that has made refugees of half of all Syrians, and has done irreparable destruction to the nation of Syria.  The U.S. government and military must end its support of the rebels and abandon its efforts at regime change.  It must join in sincere diplomatic efforts with the Syrian government and Syrian opposition forces, along with Russia, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.  All sides know that the solution to the Syrian war is political, not military.  It is time to stop the bloodshed and the exodus of refugees, and to start talks that respect the self-determination of the Syrian people. In Afghanistan, the deliberate U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital was followed by a weak apology from President Obama, and his announcement that he would break his promise to end that war, and keep thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond his presidency.  Fourteen years of deliberate and reckless killing of thousands of Afghanistan civilians has not brought Afghanistan peace or stability. All U.S. troops, planes, drones, contractors and NATO allies must leave Afghanistan.  Let the Afghan people find their own peace and determine their own future. Don’t Tempt Nuclear War – End the U.S./NATO Confrontation with Russia.  With Russia and the U.S. bombing different rebel targets in Syria, and with the U.S. and NATO pressing Russia on its very borders, the threat of yet another World War looms.  The U.S. and Russia have thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at one another, with the capacity to kill many millions of people in each country.  Nuclear war between Russia and the United States, which was miraculously avoided during the tense standoff of the Cold War, has re-emerged as an all too real possibility. In Ukraine, the U.S. poured in many millions of dollars to stir up opposition to the elected (if corrupt) government, even supporting fascist gangs who led a violent coup that brought a rightwing, western-friendly government to power. Russian speaking Ukrainians in the east were immediately targeted by fascist elements who took control of Ukrainian military and security forces.  The Russian speaking minority felt it necessary to organize armed self-defense. Russia facilitated a plebiscite in the Ukrainian province of Crimea, where Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet is based, leading to an overwhelming vote to rejoin the Russian federation. U.S. and NATO forces must pull back from Russia’s borders.  U.S. and NATO forces are stationed in Poland and the Baltic nations, encircling Russia on its own borders.  A coordinated international media campaign portrays Russian President Putin as the aggressor, while NATO carries out threatening war games and the U.S. beefs up its first strike nuclear capacity in Europe.   NATO, originally organized to confront the Warsaw Pact forces of the Soviet Union, should be dismantled, instead of being used to intimidate Russia and morphing into an international intervention force serving the aims of those who believe in U.S. and Western global hegemony. The U.S. should pull back from its so-called “Pivot to Asia,” where 60% of U.S. naval forces will be deployed, and where the U.S. is building regional military alliances to confront China.  In so doing, the U.S. has pressured the Japanese government to abandon its constitutional pledge not to deploy their military outside Japan’s borders, forced the South Korean government – against the will of its people – to build a naval base on Jeju Island, and continues to ignore the pleas of the Okinawan people to return a sense of sanity to their island by removing omnipresent military the U.S. The United States, Russia and all nuclear powers must begin living up to their obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which requires them to negotiate in good faith to reduce and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons. The Marshall Islands is suing the U.S. and all nuclear powers because they are doing just the opposite.  The U.S. government recently announced a thirty year program, estimated to cost One Trillion Dollars, to “modernize” its nuclear arsenal.  In other words, the U.S. is building new generations of nuclear bombs and missiles.  This cannot stand. U.S. drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond must end. The U.S. must begin dismantling its 900 military bases around the world. War Abroad Mirrors Racism and Violence at Home.  The militarization of U.S. foreign policy and use of violence and war around the world is mirrored here at home by racist police killings, and the militarization of law enforcement and schools, where military recruiters often have total access to students. Racism and xenophobia are used to dehumanize Muslims and others in order to justify killing them in war in their own countries.  We in Veterans For Peace realize this is the same hatred used here at home to justify killing black, brown, and poor people. It is the same fearmongering used to criminalize honest, hard-working people and tear immigrant families apart through deportation. This Armistice Day Veterans For Peace calls for justice and peace at home and abroad. We call for the end to racist policies, and for equality for all people. Stop the War on Mother Earth.  Veterans For Peace also sees the links between war and the destruction of the natural environment upon which all living creatures depend.  Stubborn reliance on fossil fuels, and wars for control of them, are primary causes of the perilous climate change into which the world is descending. The ongoing nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan reminds us that nuclear power is neither green nor safe.  Shortsighted energy policies threaten to make entire regions of the planet uninhabitable, turning millions of people into climate refugees. New and dangerous wars for water, land and other precious resources are almost certain to follow. Between nuclear war and climate disaster, we are facing the possibility of Hell on Earth, UNLESS we create a united worldwide movement for peace, justice, equality and sustainability. For all of these reasons, stand with Veterans For Peace on Armistice Day, November 11, 2015 Remember to visit the Armistice Day page for ways to get involved!
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