Author: Gerry Condon

The average person could be forgiven if they are confused by U.S. policy toward the ongoing Israeli slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.  On Saturday, March 2, as global protests called for an end to the genocide in Gaza, the U.S. military dropped 38,000 MRE’s (“meals-ready-to-eat”) on Gaza beaches, and in the sea.

Is this finally a bold effort to alleviate the suffering that Palestinians are experiencing at the hands of the Israel? Does it foretell the dramatic change in U.S. policy that the world has been protesting and praying for? Or is it merely a public relations effort intended to blunt growing criticism of U.S. complicity in genocide?

Continue reading “Biden’s Mixed Messages on Gaza Aren’t Fooling Veterans”

Three US soldiers killed. At “Tower 22,” a US base in Jordan. Near the borders of both Syria and Iraq. By “Iran-backed militias,” we are told.  A “red line” has been crossed.

Not the 30,000 Palestinians slaughtered in Gaza. That was no red line for the United States, whose wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan caused the deaths of millions.

But killing US soldiers… THAT is a red line.  “We have no choice now but to drop some bombs on you, Iran, or at least on your ‘proxies’ in the region.  But we won’t bomb you too hard.” The US says it does not want all-out war. Iran says the same.

Continue reading “Why Were Three Reservists from Georgia Killed at Tower 22?”

While reading the latest news of the war in Ukraine today, I was reminded of a song by Emma’s Revolution.  The name of the song is Who Lies? It asks four fundamental questions that can be applied to just about any war:

“Who Lies? Who Dies? Who Pays? Who Profits? 

Veterans For Peace certainly knows who lies.  Our members have been lied into multiple wars, from Korea and Vietnam to Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.  Who lied?  The President lied.  Our political leaders lied.  The newspapers and television lied.  Even religious, academic and municipal leaders encouraged us to fight and die in a war based on lies.

Continue reading “Who Lies? Who Dies? Who Pays? Who Profits? Why Veterans Are Calling for Peace in Ukraine”

Dear President Biden,

I am writing you as a proud member of Veterans For Peace and its former president. We have been following the war in Ukraine closely, since well before the Russian invasion on February 24 of this year. We were alarmed when you and President Obama supported the regime-change coup in Ukraine in 2014, which was openly cheered on by the State Department’s Victoria Nuland, and spearheaded by self-described Nazis.

We watched in horror as those same self-described Nazis set fire to an Odessa union building full of Ukrainians who were protesting a new law outlawing the Russian language as an official language of Ukraine. 50 people were burned alive or shot and beaten to death. This in a country with a long history with Russia and millions of Russian speakers.

Continue reading “Veteran’s Letter to Biden – Negotiate, Don’t Escalate in Ukraine”

"The first casualty of war is truth." This simple yet profound statement is attributed to many, including Hiram Johnson in a speech in the U.S. Senate in 1918, during the "war to end all wars." Hiram Johnson was a progressive Republican who had been elected to the Senate from California that very year. He remained in the Senate until he died of old age on August 6, 1945, the day the US dropped an atomic bomb on the civilian population of Hiroshima, Japan.

The Baltimore Sun quoted Senator Johnson more fully in 1929, during a Senate debate on an international agreement called the "General Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy" (also known as the Kellogg-Briand Treaty):

"The first casualty when war comes is truth, and whenever there is a war, and whenever an individual nation seeks to coerce by force of arms another, it always acts and always insists that it acts under self-defense."

Continue reading “President Biden: De-Escalate in Ukraine or Risk Nuclear War!”

The US/NATO showdown with Russia over Ukraine is a stark reminder of how close the world is to a possible nuclear war. The one-sided reporting in the U.S. media, with little historical context, is what we see whenever the US is getting ready to go to war. The lack of any meaningful opposition in Congress, even from supposed progressive Democrats, is alarming. Are there no adults in the room?

Is President Biden a captive of the neocons and their patrons in the weapons-of-mass-destruction industry? Is the tail wagging the dog? No wonder the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is maintaining its Doomsday Clock at only 100 seconds from midnight.

We can hope that quiet diplomacy taking place in the background will overshadow the stubborn public refusal to acknowledge Russia’s understandable security concerns. Can you imagine the US response if Russia was positioning missile systems and troops in Canada or Mexico?

Continue reading “As Ukraine Crisis Raises Specter of Nuclear War, Veterans Call for Disarmament and Peace”