Spirit in Action
Vets Fast for Peace - Antiwar Thanksgiving
Elliott Adams, a past president of the Veterans for Peace, was part of a Thanksgiving fast for peace in Syracuse, NY, protesting the USA's use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (aka drones). Elliott was an enthusiastic volunteer during the Vietnam War, so he speaks powerfully of his journey from war and into peace work.
- Broadcast on:
- 20 Dec 2009
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one with every voice ♪ ♪ With every song we will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song we will move this world along ♪ Today for Spirit in Action, we're heading over to New York State to visit with the former president of Veterans for Peace, Elliot Adams. While it's almost a national religion to stuff yourself sick at Thanksgiving time, Elliot and a number of other anti-war activists in Syracuse, New York, and elsewhere, chose to fast for four days around Thanksgiving to raise concerns about unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones. Elliot Adams was joined by the current national president of vets for Peace, Mike Werner, and other vets and non-vets in fasting and calling attention to the dangers and downsides of the use of drones in Pakistan and elsewhere. Elliot Adams volunteered for the army and served as an infantryman and paratrooper in Vietnam, Japan, Korea, and Alaska. He's traveled recently to Gaza, another area under siege, and familiar with the use of drones, where he got to witness their effect firsthand. Right up front, I'll mention to you that you connect with Veterans for Peace via their website, VeteransForPeace.org, and there's contact info for Elliot Adams on my site, northernspiritradio.org, because he's always willing to help. Before we go to New York State to talk to Elliot Adams, let's get in the mood with a song from a collection called "Peace Not War", used as a global peace movement fundraiser. The website is peace.fm, and I'll be featuring several songs from the collection on today's program. The first song is by Chumba Wamba, it's Jacob Slatter, not in my name. Jacob Slatter, like Simon on the Mountain, says the dumber got the gun, L-fire and brimstone, swap for oil and guns. When we're pushing up daisies, we all look the same. In the name of the Father, maybe, but not in my name. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. One step from disaster, two to make the higher ground, Jacob Slatter. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. One step from disaster, two to make the higher ground. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. One step from disaster, two to make the higher ground. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. One step from disaster, two to make the higher ground. Jacob Slatter. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. One step from disaster, two to make the higher ground. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. One step from disaster, two to make the higher ground. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. One step from disaster, two to make the higher ground. Jacob Slatter. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. On this, Jacob Slatter, the only way up is down. Again, that was Chumba Wamba, Jacob Slatter, a good intro to the work of Veterans for Peace and their former national president, Elliot Adams, joining us today from upstate New York. Elliot, thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. Mark, it's wonderful to be here with you. You just, a couple weeks ago, completed a four-day fast. Could you tell us what that's about, why you were doing it, and how it went for you? I guess I was faced with a couple of things. One was, we were about to enter into a Thanksgiving celebration where we get together with all our family and we great quantities of food. I'm a time of great warmth and security. Yet I knew that in Pakistan, a half a million people actually, well over that, but we can clearly document that half a million people are refugees within their own country because of our actions there. The drones played a very, very key role in that because they are a weapon which is particularly terrorizing. So in creature airbase in Nevada where the drones are currently being flown out of in Pakistan, they're having a fast there to do it. And then in Syracuse, New York, they are going to refit the 174th fighter wing. They're going to refit them, they were, and they did fly F-16s, and they're not going to refit them with MQ-9 Reaper drones, the bigger drones. Then they're a big plane. I mean, they're twice as big as a F-16. They're got a 66-foot wingspan and a 30-some-one feet long or a big, big bird, or 10 and a half million dollars apiece. So at any rate, thanks for coming up. I felt it was a good time to, instead of feasting with my family, to do a water only four days fast and not with my family, although my wife did come and join me in Syracuse, but instead of being with my family, be with other people in a city which is going to be soon host to these drones and have them part of their life. The drones are an interesting tool. I think they're a bad choice for, as a weapon, for a couple of reasons. One is, as I alluded to, I noticed when I was in Gaza that they were a tool which particularly scared people. I would say that you're the term terrorized people. And I'm not quite sure what it is, but the best I can put my finger on it, it has to do with the fact that if an F-16 is coming in a bomb, you hear the F-16, you know where it is, you know, you're going to die or you're going to have time to jump in a ditch. If the tanks are coming in, you can hear the tanks, or even if artillery fires, you can hear it off in distance. If you have soldiers, you can see where they are, you know where they are, you know what's happening. With the drones, you have no idea. You never know when you're standing somewhere, and somebody halfway around the world can make a human error and launch a hell-fire missile at you and go up and smoke, so I think it's something that's particularly nerve-wracking. It is predominantly a tool of assassination, and assassination is something which in this nation we consider illegal, and they should be illegal. And the drones are an ineffective tool of assassination. The process is that halfway around the world, we decide that somebody, no trial, no nothing, but somebody is a terrorist or involved in a process that we don't know what, but for some reason or other, we decide that they should die. They never have a court trial, no habeas corpus, and then we proceed to another level of unsureity that we decide that the guy who we have photographed up right now is the same person. And we don't have any good way of telling whether they are the same person or not, but we just decide they are, and we're going to blow them up. So there's an insecurity about the process, an unsureity about the process, there's an immorality about the process, but there's also an ineffectiveness about the process. We just had the recent assassinations publicly known, but one prior to that, which we've got a lot of news coverage, and the guy who's in this room, you may remember the news coverage, turns out we killed 12 other people at the same time. But then as time goes on, we discover actually they launched 10 missiles before that, each time they got ahead the wrong guy. So on average, they killed about 10 people a shot, so they killed a hundred, well, 99 roughly something in the order of 100 innocent civilians in order to get one guy. Well, that's not very affected from the killing point of view, and I just want to note that back in World War I, I believe six soldiers died for every civilian, and now with the drones were killing 100 civilians for every soldier. Then there's the money aspect. Each time they fired the health-fire missile, that was $68,000, so in order to kill that one person and the 99 civilians, would cost us $680,000, which doesn't seem very practical to me. It seems to me, if you gave me $300,000, a ticket and a rifle, I could go do it for you for half the money. So the drones are a curious weapon. There's one other thing going on simultaneously, which is that, I guess, Cheney, during Iraq, put it very succinctly, when he said, "We're making terrorists faster than we can kill them." Every one of those 99 people in a sense of millions we killed has a loved one, a brother, sister, mother, father, children, who we just turned against us, probably made them into terrorists very likely. From what I've seen in Gaza, that's the kind of thing that does happen in other places, that when people are killed unfairly or perceived unfairly by the other side, they turn against the nation to do it. So I think that what we're doing in Pakistan is creating more terrorists than we can kill them, and the drone is a key part of that. So I think this is a bad tool to be using, in one which we need to draw attention to. The four-day fast in Syracuse, for me, went very well. Mike Ferner, myself, some others did a water-only fast. Some of the people had, you know, everybody has to do what is right for them. I had a friend who was joined us in another vet who is diabetic and is taking morphine, and then he can't kill it out food. But he joined us, and I'm glad that he joined us, and I consider him part of the fast. Even though he had to eat food, he was careful to eat just enough to maintain his health. So each person has to do what is right for them, and I think it was fairly effective. So our goal was to raise the awareness in the peace movement of the problems of drones, and in the public with particularly Syracuse where they're going to be stationed. We had six or seven solid area fast. We know of six or seven cities in Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont, and that's the area we were sort of targeting when we stepped this fast up. I know that we had a number of TV interviews and radio interviews and paper interviews, and I know all the way did. I don't know about the other cities, but I think that you got the word out. We had a public presence handed out flyers in the malls. There were some really large public events we were at with signs and walking around talking to people. So I think it was pretty successful to get the word out a little bit about drones. Hiting people's awareness of them. You've said a lot of interesting things there. We should give the listeners some background about you to make sense of some ways. You speak rather knowledgably about military affairs. You are a former president of Vets for Peace. You just talked about your military service. In the course of what you just said, you said, "Hey, you could give me $300,000 plane ticket such I could go over and shoot the guy. Were you trained as a shooter?" Well, I was an infantryman. I served in Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Alaska. So that handling a rifle is not a strange thing for me. Actually, I grew up with firearms. They were always in the house as a kid, and I learned to shoot very young. And I still have a bunch of firearms. I don't use them much anymore, but I guess I keep them around. I believe that war is not a productive process, very destructive process, doesn't solve the problems. It does work out one thing effectively. And that is it makes a few people very rich. So I served in Vietnam as an infantryman. I was in Korea, Japan. I looked at those things. I went down to Grenada after that attack. I've been in Gaza. I've been a number of combat zones. I've been looking at them trying to understand. And we know that war does not solve the problems. It does not solve disputes. We know how to solve disputes, and war doesn't do it. We know that it does not create security. We know how to create security, and war doesn't do it. So these you're wondering kind of what it does do. One salient thing. Every single war. Every single war. One thing is sure. The people lose their kids. The people pay money. And a few people get very, very rich. I was looking at the thing about Iraq, the occupation of Iraq. It cost you $720 million a day. I thought, "Well, wait a minute. Another way of looking at that." Which is that every day we're in Iraq, $720 million gets frozen out of the blood, sweat, and tears of the American working people and put in the pocket of the filthy rich. And then I'm wondering, "Well, why is there a war?" Well, where we come from, $720 million a day, we call motivation. I gotta be honest. If you offered me $720 million a day, I could figure out a reason why we should run the war one more day. I mean, no, I could feed the world for one more day. I could feed the world. So that seems to be the selling of the issue. War is about a few people getting money in power. And I've rambled far from my experience in war. But then again, my life has been many years. It took me a long time. When I came out of Vietnam, I was convinced that there's no way that the process of war could give birth to peace. But I was left with concerns about whether war was an unavoidable necessity. Like, in those days, I questioned, well, for many years, I questioned whether World War II was not a justified war. Whether that was a justified war or this reason for it was the American Revolution. And since then, as I've looked at the more carefully, I've recognized that the American Revolution, the reality of the American Revolution was an economic revolution. We got our independence through economics and that the guns and gunpowder portion was a relatively ineffective sidebar, which probably in reality slowed down our independence. And World War II was unnecessary to fight. There were some people who were desperate, like Roosevelt desperately wanted us to get into it. But if you believe that war is the last thing you should do, you should do other things first, it's very clear we could have stopped Hitler without going to war. And I'd be happy to discuss that in greater detail. I would like to note, though, in World War II, the Allied side, our side, if you add up all the civilians and the military, the death toll was 61 million. The Allies side was 11 million. And I think one has to ask, if it takes 61 million to declare a victory, maybe we don't want any, you know, death, maybe we don't want it, maybe we don't want any more victory. I mean, 61 millions, a lot of people would die for any cause. Wow, you're saying a lot. I need to come back to you because it's kind of surprising, your point of view, you volunteered for Vietnam. You volunteered for the military. Your perspective now seems radically different from what it was in the beginning. Can you say what was on your mind when you signed up? And how did this radical change come about? If you look at my life back in the days of Vietnam, I, or do you look at my thinking? I walk in the recruiting station. I volunteer for the Army. I volunteer to be a paratrooper. I volunteer to go to Vietnam. And I know in today it's almost impossible to make the connections in my own head. But at that point, somehow or rather, I thought I was saving my mother and sister from the Viet Cong, whoever they were, 10,000 miles away with an effective firing range of a few thousand feet. I know it's hard to connect, but that's what I believed. And I have to say, and it's clear to me now, people say thank you for your service, and I have to say, and I said to myself, I didn't serve my country. Truth of the matter is, I would have served my country much better if I had said, this war you're winning, it's wrong, it's stupid, and I am not going to serve it up because it is wrong, and I am standing right here and you need to arrest me because I'm not going to do it. And that would have been a service to my country. I believe I'm serving my country now by trying to help people understand that war is not a useful tool, but it took me a long time. It's been a slow, gradual process. I always say I serve in Vietnam, Japan, and Korea, and Alaska, which proves I'm a slow learner, which I am. I'm a fan of thinking these things out, and now I recognize that war is not a useful tool. Is it mainly because historically you can see it's not good or morality? Certainly that's one of the issues that I'd like to hear about spirit and action. Why is it immoral? What makes it immoral? I mean, is it immoral to kill and self-defense as capital punishment? Is this a specific kind of killing that is immoral? These are very personal choices, and they should be individual for everybody. It's interesting to note that in our draft, you know, the U.S. has a draft. We aren't drafted. We have a draft board. In fact, I'm president of my regional draft board. We have a drafting process. We have the laws in place, and every young man is required and registered with a draft. But it is interesting to note that in order to be a conscientious objector under the U.S. law, there's a couple of key things. You have to be opposed to war, all war, not just one war. You have to be opposed to all war. But it is perfectly legitimate to say that you would use force to protect your family from a violent attack and still be considered a conscientious objector. And I think tied into that is this notion that war is not part of the continuum of violence. It's something special. One thing I think is key when we think about war is every single war we have ever gotten into. They have lied. They have connived. They've cheated the people. They've always pulled the wool over the eyes to get the American people to go to war. We suggest that it is not part of a fallacy in human nature or a weakness in Americans. They have to be tricked to going into war. And it isn't part of the same thing as whether you are not good at dealing with your neighbor. There's something different going on there. I have two quotes that generalize in our game. And one is a quote which is near and dear to my heart as a soldier because I think it's so important. And he said, you know, I hate war as only a soldier who is lived as a can. One who has seen its brutality, its futility, and its stupidity. And somehow that quote brings home the reality of war. We talk about heroes in war. We talk about honor and war. There's no heroes in honor and war. Those are made in Washington after war is all over. Those are made by the people who are duped by or are trying to convince other people that war is honorable or whatever. That kind of brings home where it is. He said it in a bigger sense. And this is an important one for society to look at. He said, every rifle made, every warship launched, every missile fired. Even the final analysis, a theft of those who were hungry and are not fed. From those who were cold and are not clothed. This world in a war is not spending money alone or spending the sweat of our laborers. The genius of our scientists and the hopes of our children. Under the dark cloud of war is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. And that frames war to me to a large extent. Wow. What a pacifist he must have been. Doesn't it strike you that if people really listen to those words that they would have to think differently about saying yes, it's okay to add, you know, 30,000 troops to Afghanistan or to go into Iraq or whatever. Is there anything that you could have said from the wisdom you've accumulated over your life to your younger self, maybe 18 years old or whenever it was that you went into the military, that might have made it clear to your younger self that that was not a path to choose? That's an amazing question. Because that question of what is something I can say to myself as in my younger self, now to change the path is very closely related to what we're trying to say to society. And in many ways, I think it's not. I remember early after I became clear, I think quite a while as I've spent many, many years at the closet bed. I couldn't cope with my military career. I couldn't deal with it. I didn't want to think about it. I was working in a peace movement, but I wasn't working for that. But shortly after I came out, I remember being at a veteran's day parade, or memorial, I don't remember which it was, and walking down the street with veterans for peace and seeing on the curb a little kid sitting there in shorts. The sun was coming across the street being down on him. He was absent-mindedly waving a little American flag. And I started choking back tears. I mean, it looked just like a normal rock wall picture. But I started choking back tears because I recognized that that was the beginning of a soldier. That was the beginning of training that young man to grow up and do what so many kids do when they're 18 or so, which is join the military. And it's a complicated process because it involves, there's so many things going on. I mean, I talked to Cindy Sheen and about her son, and she said, "You know, I didn't want him to join the military. I thought it was wrong. I thought it wasn't right. I didn't want him to risk him. I didn't want him to risk his life. On the other hand, I felt like I need as a mom. I knew he needed to sort of cut the Abrams strings. I knew he had to be on her own. I had to honor his efforts to try to be himself." And she said, "You know, I wish I'd just try to sneak out or something." Because then he'd be alive. He'd still be here. What's the poignant statement? I know that my time in the service tore my family apart. There's some very interesting things, like I never heard a word about what my parents and family went through when I was in service because I came back and we weren't talking about Vietnam. We were not talking about the military. We weren't talking about anything when I was around. And it was unfair of me. I mean, I was doing what I had to do, but in many ways it was unfair of me not to let my parents voice the pain they went through. But that's all part of it. I'll give you a very similar thing. I remember as a school board member, a school board president, we would be sitting there and somebody was a parent would come up and be complaining about a, perhaps, valid, but what I would perceive as a fairly minor injury, psychological injury that her daughter or son had felt from our actions. And then six months later I'd see them packing them off the military. I'm thinking, "Whoa, wait a minute. What is going on here?" The extreme economy of that. But we have a culture which tells moms it's okay. I can remember when I was president of the school board, we used to compile the number of students who were going to college and going to the military as one number. Well, that's crazy. From a point of view of education, it's crazy to design a wildly different thing there. But that seemed appropriate at that time. So we have a culture which has many, many, many deep, deep things which aren't even directly associated with violence versus nonviolence that feed this culture of war, or this justification of war. We talk about a just war. In my opinion, a just war is just war. They're all the same. They all have some kind of a justification. You know, in Gaza, when I came out of that, struggling with that one, and I went back and started looking at the international humanitarian laws, which is the Geneva Convention, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article I, it's a conglomeration of some of those codified and uncodified laws that involve war. They also involve civilians. And one of the things I suddenly realize is that in the right of the beginning, international humanitarian law does not try to find out who is right and who is wrong. It only tries to identify war crimes. And when you think about it, that's exactly what we do at a playground. When you go out there and find two kids fighting, you grab them by the college, and pull them apart and say, "Enough of this. You're not going to do this." You don't say, "Okay, who's one?" "Oh, he hit me first, but he's fat on me." "Oh, but he called me a name." Well, it doesn't work now. You can't come up to an answer. You can't find it when I was looking at Gaza. And in Israel, in one palette, I'm trying to say, "Okay, let me look through history and see who's right." And there isn't an answer. I tried to look at, "Okay, so who swung first? Who did the worst first thing?" And then, "Well, there isn't an answer." But if you start out and say, "Just like International Humanitarian Law does, we aren't going to try to figure out who's right and who's wrong, but we are going to prosecute the war crimes," you discover suddenly you've prosecuted all of the escalators. So if you take Gaza in June of last year, they had three months or four months of relative calm, and there were like six rockets being fired out of Gaza every month. And then there was the attack by the Israelis, a bomb that blew up and killed four people of the Israelis, said, "We're gunmen." And that made Hamas mad, and a number of rockets jumped from six to a hundred and fifty-two hundred a month. And that made Israel say, "Wait, you can't be firing rockets on our innocent people." So they started Operation Cast Lead, which was a week of air strikes followed by a couple of weeks when five armor brigades and three infantry brigades occupied Gaza. We see the escalation, but each one of those steps included a number of violations of international humanitarian law. So I see that as a way of, if we started demanding that our government put their force behind enforcing international humanitarian laws, as we did after World War II, with the Nuremberg trials as we did after the Serbia-Sarievo conflict, then we would do two things. One is we would help eliminate the escalators. The other is we help eliminate the frustration, because in civilian life, if somebody does something wrong and the cops combine and arrest them, they're feeling, "Okay, is that in my hands?" and there's some justice being done. So that is an interesting and I think viable way of any war. But I also want to note that's not the only way to stop war. There are many other techniques for avoiding war or resolving issues besides that. It could have been Manhattan on the day the market fell, and it could have been a candy store in Kandahar as well. And she might have been a Muslim, but it's kind of hard to tell. When your body's ground is zero and your skin's been fried to hell. So tell me it's a war to end all war, or don't tell me nothing. Because if this sacrifice is not for peace, it was not worth making. It seemed to me it did your best to put your hand in the horn if you missed the picture, just when it hit you. There's other people hurt as much as you. Ungrief is no excuse for what you do. High fliers at the corporations, lazy cutting men. They hold each other's hands and plummet from the window there. And the monitors are mounted on the coffee new, which meant 5,000 farmers wondering where their livelihood just went. America, my family, the whole world feels your pain. And before this war is over, you'll make sure we do my game. Even as the tower tumbled on their firefighting team, we wondered who you barbecue for puncturing your dream. So tell me it's a war to end all war, or don't tell me nothing. Because if this sacrifice does not bring peace, it was not worth making. It seemed to me it did your best to put your hand in the horn if you missed the picture, but it still don't hit you. There's other people feel as much as you. And the freedom's no excuse for what you do. I am not an Islamicist, religion's not my thing. But they're friendlier than Christians and alike the way they say. I know why my sisters free to burn the burger in place you. Not lie awake and calculate what way they need to lose. So tell me it's a war to end all war, or don't tell me nothing. Because if this sacrifice don't change the world, it was not worth making. It seemed to me it did your best to put your hand in the horn if you missed the picture. When will it hit you? There's other people need as much as you. Hungry, there's no excuse for what you do. You're beautiful, big hearted. In many ways you're free. You're smart enough to get the world how you want it to be. So tell me to tell you what you shouldn't have to hear. Your nation is that terrorist, most human beings fear. If you're a regular of Salvador, Colombia, and now. Cambodia, Granada, Chile, and Afghanistan. Palestinian and Iraqi and some more, you never knew. United States of people who deserve as much as you. So tell me that you don't support this war, or don't tell me nothing. Because if this song of mine don't change your heart, it was not worth singing. I believe you did your best, Jason life and happiness. Never wondered, never guessed. How the news had been suppressed of a never ending killing test. Rip the kid from the mother's breast. Shrapnel through her daddy's chest while we're all singing. Glory, allaluria. I'm talking to you. Somebody made a killing in your name. So take your power back or take the blame. That little musical side trip was by Seas the Day, and the name of the song is United States. And it's part of the Peace Not War collection used as a global peace movement fundraiser. Their website is peace.fm, and it seemed like an appropriate commentary relevant to today's Spirit and Action interview with Elliot Adams, former president of Veterans for Peace. I'm Mark Helps meet host of this Northern Spirit radio production, and you can find all of our shows and links at northernspiritradio.org. Please drop us a comment when you visit. I'm happy to hear from you and welcome your news and activism. Even though we're based here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and the program originates from WHYS LP Eau Claire, we want to listen to and raise up the concerns of all of our listeners nationwide. As I said, we're talking today with Elliot Adams, and he's one of the vets for peace who was fasting for four days in Syracuse, New York over the Thanksgiving holiday to raise awareness about the immense damage, cost, and counter productivity of drones as a weapon of war. He also recently traveled to Gaza in the Middle East, part of a delegation, including some veterans for peace. Elliot, could you speak a little bit about your expertise with respect to Gaza? I'm Robbie, inexperienced Gaza. I went and spent five days in Gaza, and I say in experience, it was very interesting experience, it was very intense time. For five days, we had one meeting after another. There was no free time. We met with Gaza officials from the Prime Minister to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Education on down to the Hamas, the government. We met with many of the NGOs, we met with student groups, we met with business groups, we met with things like the Women's Powermen Program, we went and visited people who were refugees and people who were not refugees and cultural people. So we did a lot. We met a lot of people, and I think one awful lot about Gaza. But I say not because my came home and started looking at the history, trying to understand that someone I didn't understand. On the other hand, I do look at, as I do so many things, through the eyes of war and conflict and ways of resolving these issues that are effective. What is going on in Gaza is so wrong and so deeply wrong on a humanitarian level that it is just terribly upsetting for people to go there. Many of our members who went on a delegation just had to come up and curl up on a ball for a week after they got back, just to cope with how unjust it is on a humanitarian level. And more so than what I've seen in most combat zones. So that was a dramatic experience, but it also helped me get a deeper understanding of war and conflict and alternative approaches to dealing with it. And we have to start talking about it. I look at it and you can tell me, Elliot, if the only tool you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like nails. And you look at that today and you look at what's happening in Pakistan and Afghanistan, 57% of our budget is going into the military, the Defense Department, the VA, et cetera, et cetera. That leaves the other 12 or so departments fighting over the scraps. So if you look at it and you want to, if you want to build a school anywhere, whether it be here or in Afghanistan, the only people who have the money to do it is the Army or the military. If you want to distribute aid, the only people who have the money to do it is the military. That's the only place we're putting the money. So we keep asking the military to do jobs that would normally be done by somebody else. So we talk about in Afghanistan, we do talk about nation building. That's USAID's job. They've been doing it ever since they're created for. But you can't use them in Afghanistan because the military has all the money. And even if you even go to a step further, which is, does it doesn't, UN agencies which do that kind of work? You know, there's who feed the refugees, who teach education, build educational systems, who do health care, who do all those things we're trying to do, but we're trying to do them in the military. So if you step back and say, okay, wait a minute, before I assign a job to various agencies, what agencies do these things? So what does the military do? Well, basically the military is trained, equipped, and experienced the bowling stuff up. Now, there's a more sophisticated analysis. They blow things up that are a long ways away. They blow things up that are really hard to get to. They blow things up that are really hard to blow them up. But they don't know how to, they aren't designed, equipped, or prepared to nation build. They aren't designed, equipped, or prepared to make friends. They aren't designed, equipped, or prepared to deliver aid. That's not what they're good for. We have other agencies for that. But just because we have chosen to put so much money into it, that's who we have to use. And we also, in the process, whenever we see a conflict with suddenly we say, well, what about the military? Rather than saying, well, what about diplomacy? Well, what's the source of this? Or what about the courts? What about the international courts? What about defusing the problem by eliminating the escalators through the courts or through some other means? So we've gotten ourselves sucked into a process that is ineffective, but because we've gotten our mindset set on it, we keep doing it. So like, if you had a field that you could walk across, but you were convinced you had to drive across, you might spend the whole time with your vehicle stuck in a mud. And if you've just gotten out of your vehicle and walked, you could have been there back. But instead, you're in a mindset that you have to take a vehicle across there. You spend the whole time struggling trying to get to the mud. Yeah, and we're in some pretty big mud. What would you advocate with respect to Iraq or Afghanistan, the stuff that we're doing across the border into Pakistan right now? Obama's not going the right direction, is he? No, no. You know, when I was in Vietnam, when there were about 20,000 of us soldiers, KIAs, and dead. And we now know the White House was talking about on a winnable war. And they worked on an exit strategy until 59,000 of us were dead. And in the end, they never came up with an exit strategy. And in the end, the U.S. citizens and the U.S. military forced them out. It's worth hailing that day. That was the time, that was probably the first time in the history of the world when the citizens forced the government to stop a war and the government wanted to keep fighting. The first presidential candidate I ever worked for was McGovern. And he won over my heart. They said to him, "Look, McGovern, this is Vietnam's really complicated." And we all agree, we all agree, we shouldn't have gone in, and there's a bad war, but getting absolutely complicated. Because you know, if you pull out too quickly, you'll empower the enemy and they'll come over and take over the world. If you pull out too precipitously, Vietnam will break into a civil war. If you pull out without a victory, then you will not be honoring the soldiers who have died there. We have invested too much in it. Oh, does this sound like what they say after an attack in Iraq? That's not exactly what they're saying in Afghanistan. It's always the same story. But my point being is that, so, Mr. McGovern, how would you get out of Vietnam? He said, "I think what you probably do is ships and planes." Now, that might be simplistic, but it also isn't simplistic. You don't get out of a place by putting in more soldiers. The way you get out of a place is by loading up ships and planes and bringing them home. If you aren't putting boots on to boats and planes, you're not coming home. As far as some of those issues, as far as the civil war, there will be a civil war. There's no question. When a force comes in and supports the public government, when they leave, there will be a change of power. But that's going to happen if we do it this week or if we do it six years from now. And, indeed, history has always shown it's never as bad as we predict it's going to be. As far as the domino theory, it hasn't proven, didn't prove to be of Vietnam. It hasn't proved to be true in Iraq. It didn't prove to be true anywhere else. Why are we talking about something which has had a history of not being true? As far as honoring your soldiers, my experience is, the one way you can honor soldiers and make their death worth while is by recognizing that war is stupid and that killing young men for a stupid war is even stupider. And that the American people are complicit in allowing wars to happen because they haven't educated themselves enough to understand that if you ask the generals, they will always have a military solution that always costs lives. It's like the only one hospital. If you go to the hospital and you go see a surgeon, he's going to find a surgical solution to whatever your problem is. Well, he's going to find a surgical effort to try to solve it. If you go to an internal med guy, he's going to see an intentional internal solution to it. If you, because that's a specialty, when you're in a deep specialty, that's where you see solutions. So, if you ask the military for what a solution is going to be, they're not going to say, give the people aid, make friends with them and help them out. They're going to say blow something up, forget what they do. And that's what they've been saying and that's the course we've taken. You know, Eliot, you are the past president of the National Organization of Veterans for Peace. How many veterans for peace are there? What's their distribution? Are there a number of them coming in from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars? How's the breakdown and how many are we talking about nationwide? Veterans for Peace isn't a national organization that was created from 25 years ago. Oh, no. It was incorporated from 25 years ago. Obviously, every war produces veterans for peace, but it didn't get incorporated for a while. We have members that go back to, well, our oldest members are going to be Abraham Lincoln Brigade, people who went over during the Spanish Revolution to fight fascism over there. And that's from every single war and the periods of no war, up including Iraq and Afghanistan. The vast majority are Vietnam vets because there's more Vietnam vets. So, there's a lot of us. And the other thing, too, is that part of our statement of purpose is basically says that we having to serve another nation, having served the nation in war, do now see our commitment to a greater deed, that of world peace. And to do that, we have, like, five points to increase the public awareness of war, to restrain our government from intervening overtly and covertly in other nations to internal affairs, to end the arms race and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, to seek justice for veterans and victims of war. And to abolish war's tool of national policy. And then we also say to do that, we were worked on violently. Many vets coming back from Afghanistan are in a similar position that I was coming back from Vietnam, which is that I knew Vietnam was wrong, but I wasn't ready to say to work to abolish all war. So, I think it's a maturing process for vets to first see that the war they're involved in is wrong, and then there's another step in maturing that takes place to see that you are willing to work against all war. So, we have less Iraq vets, but we certainly have a fair share. We've got about 8,000 members overall. They're spread all over the country, 120, 130 chapters. We do not have any overseas chapters by policy. Could you say a little bit more about the vets from the current wars that we're in? I guess maybe there's a shell shock time afterwards where you have to realize that what you were part of is something you want to work against. You didn't go right into anti-war work when you got out of the military, did you? The issue about what you do when you come back from war is interesting one. Personally, I was a closet vet for 30 years. I could not cope with it. I just couldn't psychologically, and I can remember even at the end of those 30 years when I was in peace movements and people wanted my veteranship, and I felt that that was just their own little self-centeredness or something like that. I was not prepared for that. So, typically, it's a bitter process. We talk about the number of wounded. So, in Vietnam, there were 59,000 KIAs killed in action. On the other hand, twice that many committed suicide when they came home, and we deal with our experience of war a lot of ways. The classic ways are self-medication with alcohol, and they're usually brushed off as alcoholics, self-medication with drugs, and they're usually brushed off as addicts, abuse of our loved ones. And I say abuse of our loved ones, because it is the loved ones that we're likely to abuse, and it's part of that process, in suicide. Suicide's a really, really interesting one, because the Suicide Act of World War II were hidden, the Suicide Act of Korea was hidden. We didn't talk talking about suicides of vets when they come home until Vietnam. There was a Vietnam vet who finally forced the government to acknowledge PTSD and name it as a psychological trauma. It was Vietnam vets who said, "Hey, wait a minute. There is something going on here in terms of suicide. This is not just a hopeless focus." And it wasn't until the RAC war that we got a study, and CBS did a study, and they found that a RAC vet are committing suicide about twice as fast as they're dying in a RAC. Same number. And interestingly enough, the VA came out and said, "Oh, no, no, no. That isn't true." And then, a year later, we find an internal email where the director of the VA is saying, "Gee, we have these numbers which really support the CBS study, and we have to decide what to do with them because they may leak out and maybe we better release them because they may leak out in the anyway." So it's clear that the VA was actually hiding the suicide numbers. Now, this is a long way from what happens to people coming home, but it's a very important part because the returning vets are going through an incredible kind of trauma. It's a hell of an experience going through war. And even harder if you are willing to admit what you were involved in was not heroic, it was wrong. Well, maybe there's another thing going on there, too. You know, I like to think about if a person runs into a burning building to save a child, are they a hero? Well, what happens if the person who runs in is the arson is set to fire? What if they set the fire and didn't know there was a child in there and then ran in to save a child? Would they be a hero? Well, what if they knew the child was in there and changed their mind? I mean, if the issue of a person going to a wrong war, does that mean that they're not heroic? Does that mean that they didn't try to do what was right? I don't think so. It's a complicated mess. But coming out of war is a long period of trying to find a way to look at it, even deal with it. As I say, I was a closet member for 30 years. I just couldn't cope with it. I just couldn't think about it. I couldn't deal with it. But for many vets, it isn't even that. It isn't a question whether they're dealing with it, the experience is dealing with that. We have an old saying, which is that no one ever comes from a home from war. And it's a little double on time, double play of words because on the one hand, the person who goes is never the person who comes back. They're scarred for life. But the other thing, too, is the person who comes back never comes back because they always drag that damn war back with them. And they spend the rest of their life trying to keep it in the closet, trying to -- my image is you take that sucker and you get in the closet, you get the door closed and locked, and you stand there the rest of your life or your family plan on the floor, keeping that door shut, hoping it won't creep off from underneath. So you bring that war back, and it just keeps -- and it keeps with you. And every time it turns darker, every night, that war keeps coming back to you. And you keep trying to cope with the experience. The vets coming home -- I mean, I can't tell you how many -- how much time I have spent just with vets come -- a rack that's -- or older vets, but Iraq vets who are trying to make it through until tomorrow morning, one more day, just holding on for one more day. And tied in with this is an old saying, too, which is new wars, scratch open, the old war was old vets. So the Vietnam vets were committing suicide when they came back. They tapered off. But when we invaded Iraq, they started committing suicide again. And we're talking to a World War II vet who went for his first therapy for PTSD after we went into Iraq because it ripped open those old wounds, opened that closet door, that crap came tumbling out all over them, and he was trying to cope with it. In general -- what's the number? There was a number of VA number of all vets from World War II. They got on to not including Iraq, and they couldn't identify. And they found that all vets -- combat, that's an on-combat, that's for everybody -- commit suicide, 2.1 something or rather, times more often, adjusted for all socioeconomic indicators than not vets. And probably almost all of those suicides are the combat vets. So there's two things going on here. One is the experience that the war has on people, and the other is the experience of trying to make sense of it on your own terms while you're coping with all this craziness of your life where you're just trying to literally -- you know, with vets, literally, can you make it through to tomorrow morning? Never mind life. We're all talking about that. Can I help you make it through to tomorrow morning? In many vets don't. Oh, it's so much carnage that is involved in the war. Not just during the war, not just civilian, not just the military. It just trickles down through our entire society. I think we're really fortunate that you, Eliot, have taken up the effort of getting out there, having been a volunteer yourself in the military, getting the word out there about what war really is, your first experience, your experience with other vets. I'm thankful for the work that you're doing. I'm thankful for the fast you did over Thanksgiving. And I just want to support you forward in your work. How can we do that? How can we support vets for peace? People can help us by going to our website. We've talked something about us in the war, which is www.veteransforpeace.org. They can support us financially. They can also support us by being out there talking to any vets they know, suggesting us to us, talking about us, helping people be aware of that as an organization and as a resource we exist to help the nation move away from the steel grasp that war has upon us. Do you have a speaker's bureau or something like that so that if you had a civics class, wanted to invite in one of the members of vets for peace, they'd do that? We don't have an official speaker's bureau, but if you contact our national office, then they can help you identify people. If you can't get to them, you're always welcome to call me and I'll see what I can do. I need to identify people who are trying to get up to them myself who can come to you, because part of our role is talking to people to help them understand. One of the ways the war survives is because there's no inspectors, there's nobody there. People can't get there to see what's actually happening. I've always said if the American people could see war. I don't mean a bad picture of it. I mean if they could just see what war was, they would be repelled by it and they would stop it. Thank you again, Elliot, for all of your work. Is it right if I put a link for you on my website on northernspiritradio.org? Yep. What link should I put up there for you? You can get ahold of me to my phone number, which is 518-441-2697. Or you can contact me to my email, which is Elliot Adams, E-L-L-I-O-T-T-A-B-A-M-S at Juno.com. I've got it, and I'll put that on my website, Elliot. Again, thanks so much for your witness to the fast, for your work with Vets for Peace, and your ongoing dedication to helping the world find a better and less stupid alternative that war is. Thanks again. Mark, thank you very much for your work getting out. These words, your work is a very important work. We're in a world where the established media is part of the establishment and is selling goods, which are not good for the American people. Thanks again, Elliot. That was Elliot Adams, recent president of the National Veterans for Peace organization, and a participant in the four-day fast in Syracuse, New York, calling attention to the many problems in the use of drones via military. We'll close off this edition of Spirit in Action with one more song from the Peace Not War collection. It's a global peace movement fundraiser. Their website is peace.fm. Here's John Lester in his song, Out of the Clear Blue Sky. When I was a young man, so many troubles seemed to come my way. I didn't see that I saw the seats of my anger. They grew a little every day. Always a battle for my ways, and always someone else to blame. So many enemies, but never did I wonder from whence they came. I never stopped to look inside to see if I held the reasons why. The world was coming at me from out of the Clear Blue Sky. Clear Blue Sky. Now comes the time when my country's also come of each. A hell hit the homeland, and everyone is right filled with rage. The president's pointed his finger, and from the pulpit I heard him say. We're one nation under God and by God. We're gonna get him back one day, with no admission to reasons why. They put all the blame on another side, and said the evil one came at us from out of the Clear Blue Sky. The Clear Blue Sky. Call me a traitor, say I'm a coward, not a patriot. Well I know we had to strike back, I just don't think we'd plan the hardest battle yet. How many fights for freedom will we wage while the beast is denied? And is that beast just a prayer we make on Sundays, and hope that God will bless it on us from out of the Clear Blue Sky? The Clear Blue Sky. From out of the Clear Blue Sky. Well they were crazy, they were evil and they were wrong. But the weak take a desperate measure when they're backed into the corner by a fool too strong. My brother, my sister, my country man and my friend. I think we'd better take a really hard look at ourselves if we want to keep this from happening again. And if we search beyond our pride, perhaps we'll find an answer that is long been denied. And beasts will raid upon us from out of the Clear Blue Sky. The Clear Blue Sky. From out of the Clear Blue Sky. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, NorthernSpiritRadio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will know this world alone. With every voice, with every song, we will know this world alone. And our lives will feel the echo of our healing.