Tag Archives: Veterans for Peace

March to Oppose the Military Industrial Complex at Truax Field, Madison, Wisconsin

Mobilization to protest F-35s at Truax – June 26 at 2pm
see you at Madison College K2 parking lot

JOIN US TO PROTEST F-35 FIGHTER JETS

Follow this link to Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin website.  Sign up for updates there.
Mobilize at Truax: F-35s won’t let us thrive – June 26

 

Start gathering at 2:00 pm, Madison College parking lot, for information, music & lyrics. Head to Truax gates – for speakers and follow-up actions.

More at Safe Skies Website

F-35 fighter jets are not just a local problem. In addition to endangering the health and safety of residents in neighborhoods where they are based, they represent the worst of government wasteful spending, profits to private weapons manufacturers despite faulty products, and harmful foreign policy, distributing F-35s to other countries (at US taxpayer expense), thus encouraging the use of force over diplomacy.

Now that it is safe for most of us to gather in person, it’s time to pull together to create more awareness and demand NO F-35s.

 

Stop Using China as an Excuse – CNN’s Fareed Zackaria

It’s not often we can look to corporate mainstream media for facts on Foreign Policy.  This one must have slipped through the CIA filter.

 

Washington Post Opinion : Opinion: The Pentagon is using China as an excuse for huge new budgets

Opinion by

Columnist
March 18, 2021 at 5:30 p.m. CDT

“On the eve of his visit this week to Asia, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin outlined his key concern. “China is our pacing threat,” he said. He explained that for the past 20 years, the United States had been focused on the Middle East while China had been modernizing its military. “We still maintain the edge,” he noted, “and we’re going to increase the edge going forward.” Welcome to the new age of bloated Pentagon budgets, all to be justified by the great Chinese threat.

What Austin calls America’s “edge” over China is more like a chasm. The United States has about 20 times the number of nuclear warheads as China. It has twice the tonnage of warships at sea, including 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers compared with China’s two carriers (which are much less advanced). Washington has more than 2,000 modern fighter jets compared with Beijing’s roughly 600, according to national security analyst Sebastien Roblin. And the United States deploys this power using a vast network of some 800 overseas bases. China has three. China spends around $250 billion on its military, a third as much as the United States. Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution notes that, “if China were in NATO, we would berate it for inadequate burden-sharing, since its military outlays fall well below NATO’s 2 percent minimum.”

At the height of its imperial might in the late 19th century, when it ruled a quarter of the world’s population, Britain adopted a “two-power standard” — its navy had to be larger than the next two put together. U.S. military spending remains larger than the defense budgets of the next 10 countries put together, most of which are Washington’s close allies. The United States’ intelligence budget alone — around $85 billion — is larger than Russia’s total defense spending.

A Few Numbers On Aircraft: The Size of the US Military

A few numbers….

[current article August 2020]
“The Air Force doesn’t have enough aircraft or range space for pilots to train for combat against a sophisticated enemy, so it’s looking to link real and simulated environments at a new training center.

 
Pilots taking part in Red Flag air-to-air combat training exercises could soon face new virtual threats on top of those they’re seeing in real life. That’s one of the possibilities leaders see out of a new $38 million Virtual Test and Training Center here…”
 
 
This New Air Force Training Center Will Prep Pilots for War with China and Russia

 
 
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“The US boasts approximately 13,000 military aircraft. Comparatively, China and Russia, the world’s next-largest aerial powers, only have a total of 2,000 to 3,000 military aircraft each….”
– Business Insider, Jan 2015 

 
 
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US Military Purchasing nearly 2500 F-35’s

“As of February 2019, more than 350 aircraft had been fielded and were operating from 16 bases worldwide. By 2023, the global F-35 fleet is expected to expand to more than 1,100 aircraft across 43 operational sites. In total, the program participants plan to purchase more than 3,300 F-35 aircraft, with the U.S. services planning to purchase nearly 2,500 of those aircraft.”
– United States Government Accountability Office, April 2019 


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US Air Power

13,264 aircraft
– GFP:  Global FirePower  

VFP Celebrates International Women’s Day 2020

International Women’s Day

March 8, 2020

#IWD2020 #EachforEqual

International Women’s Day (IWD) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. This day has occurred for well over a century, with the first IWD gathering in 1911 supported by over a million people. Today, IWD belongs to all groups collectively everywhere. IWD is not country, group or organization specific.

An equal world is an enabled world, a gender equal world.
Celebrate women’s achievement. Raise awareness against bias.

Take action for equality.

~

 

“War disproportionately affects women and girls.

In conflict, existing inequalities become magnified and social networks are broken down, making women and girls more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and violence. Yet, we don’t often hear about the women working for peace.

This Sunday is International Women’s Day. World BEYOND War is celebrating women dedicated to abolishing all war and replacing it with a security system based in feminism and peace. Leveraging frameworks like the United Nations Security Council’s Resolution 1324—which requires parties in conflict to prevent violations of women’s rights and to support their participation in advocating for peace—we work not only to affirm the critical role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflict but also to encourage and facilitate the role of women in abolishing all war.

“War is not women’s history,” says Virginia Woolf. “War is only an invention, not a biological necessity,” affirms Margaret Mead.

It was once said that it was impossible to abolish legalized slavery and dueling. Once deeply embedded in societies of their time, these practices are now, if not fully in the dustbin of history, universally understood to be eliminable. Now, let’s make war a thing of the past!”

In peace and feminist solidarity,

Alex McAdams, World BEYOND War

 

Code Pink

CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.

Founded in fall 2002 as a grassroots effort to prevent the US war on Iraq, we continue to organize for justice for Iraqis and to hold war criminals accountable. We actively oppose the continuing U.S. war in Afghanistan, torture, the detention center at Guantanamo, weaponized and spy drones, the prosecution of whistle-blowers, U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine and repressive regimes.

 

 

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

 

On 28 April 1915, during World War I, a unique group of 1,136 women from warring and neutral nations gathered in The Hague, the Netherlands, to discuss how to end the war and ensure permanent peace. The meeting ended with the foundation of the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom. 

The organizers of the congress were prominent suffragists, who saw the link between their struggle for women’s right and the struggle for peace. They believed that the full and equal participation of women in the decision-making processes was necessary to achieve sustainable peace.

 

 

Find more ideas about International Women’s Day