This message was sent into Veterans Today by the Peace Activist group Veterans for Peace.
Posted on behalf of VFP by Bobby Hanafin, Veterans Issues and Peace Activism Editor, Veterans Today News Network
Veterans Today (VT) is a network of 63 web sites that service the U.S. Military Family and Veterans Community
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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 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!
December 29, 2010
