Workers Resistance

Category: US imperialism

  • Anti-war vets unite with community groups at national gathering

    Decatur, TN – This past weekend, April 19-21, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) hosted a three-day organizer training in rural eastern Tennessee. Over 50 activists shared skills and strategies as veterans and active-duty soldiers were joined by civilian ally organizations from around the country, including IVAW’s partner organization Civilian-Soldier Alliance (CivSol,) One Love Movement, Students for a Democratic Society, The Poverty Initiative, Concerned Citizens for Justice, and many others.

    This type of combined gathering was unprecedented for the nine-year-old IVAW and many of the attendees were excited by this new development. “We’re seeing a shift in the overall movement and the world right now, and its making me very excited and inspired,” said IVAW member Jacob George.

    Collective liberation was a theme of the weekend. Activists represented a huge range of issues, including anti-racism, education rights, Palestine solidarity, poverty, environment, labor, media justice, LGBTQ rights, healthcare and immigrant rights. Many discussions over the weekend emphasized the interconnected nature of the struggle against war and occupation to other movements. IVAW chapters around the country reported back on work they have done with community groups and labor unions around the issue of mental health care in the community, and at Veterans Administration hospitals.

    “The work we’re doing here, the work we’re doing in Maryland, I don’t see it as work, I see it as healing.” Said CivSol member Sergio Espana, who organizes for healthcare in Baltimore.

    IVAW and CivSol are currently leading a national “Right to Heal” campaign, which demands that the government stop deploying traumatized troops and provide adequate physical and mental health care for victims of the U.S. occupations, and of military trauma such as PTSD, military sexual trauma and traumatic brain injury. At the weekend retreat, workshops and panels addressed the trauma faced not only by combat veterans, but the similar experiences of immigrants, refugees and victims of sexual assault and police violence.

    Last May, IVAW brought national attention to the victims of U.S./NATO war and occupation as they joined Afghans for Peace and 30,000 protesters to march on the NATO convention in Chicago. 40 IVAW members returned their medals in a memorable ceremony outside the convention. Some of the veterans dedicated their medals to friends who had become victims of combat deaths and suicide, noting that 18 veterans commit suicide every day, and demanding the government recognize the Right to Heal.

    In summation of the retreat, organizers were optimistic about the future of the campaign and its growing support among ally organizations. To learn more about the Right to Heal campaign, visit http://righttoheal.org and http://www.ivaw.org

  • Utah anti-war rally against U.S. war and drone strikes

    Salt Lake City, UT – Anti-war activists and students in Utah took their message directly to the U.S. government’s doorstep on April 11 with a rally in front of the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building.

    Roughly 30 people attended, calling for an end to U.S. occupation and military intervention, as well as an end to drone strikes like the one that killed 11 Afghan children on April 8.

    “President Obama is the Drone Ranger,” said Utah Valley University professor Michael Minch. “The self-described ‘Vulcans’ who ran George W. Bush’s White House must be green with envy, for Obama has killed far more people, personally authorizing their use, than Bush might have even imagined killing with this killing system.”

    The crowd was adamant that the U.S. get out of Afghanistan and stay out of Syria and Iran. Many also voiced their opposition to ongoing threats and war rhetoric against Democratic Korea.

    “People on both the right and the left have criticized north Korea for their military first policy,” said Dave Newlin, member of the October 7th Anti-War Committee, who organized the event. “I ask you, what about U.S. military first policy? What about U.S. endless hunger for weapons of mass destruction, for drones and for world dominance?”

    Newlin pointed out that the U.S. spent almost $1.5 trillion on wars, military and defense support. That is more than any other U.S. expense and more than any other country. Those in attendance called for that money to be spent on things like education, jobs and health care, rather than war.

    Organizer Tess Vandiver, who recently spent time in occupied Palestine, read a moving poem given to her by a Palestinian boy that read, “I feel like I am in a cemetery when I am in my own town.”

    Vandiver condemned U.S. support for the Israeli occupation and called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel: “This issue isn’t about a group of people being better than another; this isn’t about whose land is whose, the Old Testament, or the Qur’an. It is about basic human rights and the suffocation of a society.”

    The Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building houses both the offices of Utah Senator Mike Lee and the local FBI offices. Protesters took the opportunity to condemn the repression of anti-war activists throughout the U.S. by the FBI and called on Senator Lee to end his support for drone strikes and foreign intervention.