Vets Ask “Mourn For Those Killed By Americans in Battle in US Wars of Aggression!”

By Jay Janson, Contributing to OpedNews

“On this Memorial Day, Veterans For Peace asks you to mourn not only for Americans killed in battle, but also for those killed by Americans in battle, to accept that these war deaths did not have to happen–that they are actually in vain. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died in American wars of aggression. That is a tragedy and is a truth that must be accepted and for which we must take responsibility.” VFP Pres.

Worthington Memorial Day Parade 2009 by From marada

For the Memorial Day 2012 celebrations the Veterans For Peace web site features a posting by VFP President Leah Bolger titled Memorial Day: Pick Your Perversion. The final paragraph is highlighted in bold print:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

“On this Memorial Day, Veterans For Peace asks you to mourn not only for Americans killed in battle, but also for those killed by Americans in battle. We ask you to be willing to accept the fact that these war deaths did not have to happen–that they are actually in vain. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died in American wars of aggression. That is a tragedy and is a truth that must be accepted and for which we must take responsibility.”

“For which we must take responsibility” sounds like Martin Luther King Jr.’ outcry in his world shaking 1967 sermon “Beyond Vietnam – a Time to Break Silence.” King demanded that we take responsibility for and bring these atrocities to an end.

But King was quickly silenced with a bullet to the head, and his condemnations of America’s wars to maintain predatory investments in poor countries has been blacked-out in media for the forty-four years since his assassination.

Last summer, Veterans For Peace was one of the first to endorse the Campaign for International Awareness that King Condemned US Wars as “meant to maintain unjust predatory investments.” [see King Condemned US Wars]
http://kingcondemneduswars.blogspot.com/

For Veterans know better than anyone else that King’s condemnations, once well known, will arouse widespread desire to prosecute all who were and are criminally involved in illegal undeclared wars since 1945. When it becomes fashionable to be moral and decent rather than depressed and self-centered, the wealthy, investing in and arranging wars, instead of ruling us, will find themselves in prison until no longer a danger to society and themselves.

If Leah Bolger’s truthful words could be read by half of the millions of Americans that will be subjected to corporate media war adulation this Memorial Day, elected politicians signing deadly orders pursuing what Republican candidate for President Ron Paul calls “illegal and undeclared wars,” would find themselves defendants in court proceedings indicted under the US constitution and the Nuremberg Principles for crimes against humanity.

Her article:

Perversion #1 -Commercialism/Consumerism/Entertainment

Perversion #2 – American Exceptionalism

This perversion of Memorial Day is typified by the glorification of war and everyone who participated in it. God is always on our side (which means we are always right). Politicians try to outdo each other in their effusive thanks for the military, and refer to everyone who has ever worn a military uniform as a hero. God, guns and glory are wrapped up in the flag, and the whole package is given the credit for all that is good: liberty, freedom, justice, and the American Way of Life. Perversion #2 is of much more concern because of the ideology that it represents.

Leah Bolger

Bio: Leah Bolger spent 20 years on active duty in the U.S. Navy and retired in 2000 at the rank of Commander. She is currently a full-time peace activist and serves as the National President of Veterans For Peace.

Submitters Bio:
Archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer, who has lived and worked on all the continents and whose articles on media have been published in China, Italy, England and the US, and now resides in New York City.

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