Daniel Ellsberg urges people to support VFP

Daniel Ellsberg’s message to Support VFP

This message was sent into VT by the Peace Activist group Veterans for Peace.

Posted on behalf of VFP by Bobby Hanafin, Veterans Issue Editor, VT News Network

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December 29, 2010

Most people became aware of me because of the Pentagon Papers. Since then, I have become known as “The Most Dangerous Man In America”.

And why?

Because I spoke the truth.

I was convinced that the American public should know the truth about the Vietnam War.

I continue to work to bring the truth to light. On December 16th 2010, in a Veterans For Peace sponsored action, along 131 other people, I was arrested for attempting to chain myself to the White House gate. This was done in protest of American involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I am a proud member of Veterans For Peace.

I challenge you to join me and VFP and speak the truth to your family, friends, neighbors, and anyone that will listen. They need to know the truth about how our military is devastating the very countries that we have self-righteously proclaimed to save.

We are destroying Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the same way that we devastated Vietnam.

Agent Orange dispersed in Vietnam still lingers in the ground contaminating soil and food. Live bombs and mines continue to harm innocent men, women and children.

Today we are leaving depleted uranium weapons scattered throughout Iraq and Afghanistan that will have devastating ecological consequences for both people and ecosystems for years to come.

The True Cost of War Is not measured in dollars spent on guns, nor on enemy combatants killed. The True Cost of War is visible in the catatonic face of a PTSD sufferer, in the lifeless body of a veteran who has committed suicide. The cost can be heard in the cries for help of the tortured, the stomach growls of hungry abandoned children on the streets of Iraq and Afghan villages.

It can be felt at home in smaller budgets for schools and in homes that seem emptier because a father or mother has been deployed and is away from home during the holidays. The True Cost of War is that it strips us of our humanity, spoils nature’s splendor, and ruins people’s lives.

I challenge you to join the local VFP Chapters across the country. Become informed and participate in their projects. It is important that we support Bradley Manning and Julian Assange who are being persecuted for telling the truth about the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. When we work together we can make a difference.

I believe that VFP is one of the most credible organizations you can support.

We have no alternative but to work for peace.

Daniel Ellsberg

PS Make a gift to ensure that VFP can continue to speak the truth for the next 25 years! Veterans For Peace, 216 S. Meramec, St. Louis, MO 63105, (314) 725-6005    

Veterans For Peace appreciates your generous donations.

We also encourage you to join our ranks.

www.veteransforpeace.org

VT Video links to 16 Dec 2010 War Protest at the White House:

Veterans for Peace White House Civil Disobedience to End War

Veterans for Peace Message to Obama 12/16/2010

Mike Prysner Protests Obama\’s Wars

Robert L. Hanafin

Readers are more than welcome to use the articles I’ve posted on Veterans Today, I’ve had to take a break from VT as Veterans Issues and Peace Activism Editor and staff writer due to personal medical reasons in our military family that take away too much time needed to properly express future stories or respond to readers in a timely manner.

My association with VT since its founding in 2004 has been a very rewarding experience for me.

Retired from both the Air Force and Civil Service. Went in the regular Army at 17 during Vietnam (1968), stayed in the Army Reserve to complete my eight year commitment in 1976. Served in Air Defense Artillery, and a Mechanized Infantry Division (4MID) at Fort Carson, Co. Used the GI Bill to go to college, worked full time at the VA, and non-scholarship Air Force 2-Year ROTC program for prior service military. Commissioned in the Air Force in 1977. Served as a Military Intelligence Officer from 1977 to 1994. Upon retirement I entered retail drugstore management training with Safeway Drugs Stores in California. Retail Sales Management was not my cup of tea, so I applied my former U.S. Civil Service status with the VA to get my foot in the door at the Justice Department, and later Department of the Navy retiring with disability from the Civil Service in 2000.

I’ve been with Veterans Today since the site originated. I’m now on the Editorial Board. I was also on the Editorial Board of Our Troops News Ladder another progressive leaning Veterans and Military Family news clearing house.

I remain married for over 45 years. I am both a Vietnam Era and Gulf War Veteran. I served on Okinawa and Fort Carson, Colorado during Vietnam and in the Office of the Air Force Inspector General at Norton AFB, CA during Desert Storm. I retired from the Air Force in 1994 having worked on the Air Staff and Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon.