Chapter
156 has disaffiliated from Veterans For Peace
August 24, 2023
President Schnall and the Veterans For Peace Board of Directors:
This
letter, conveyed by email, is to inform you that the members and
associate members of VFP Rogue Valley Chapter 15 voted by a large margin to
disaffiliate from Veterans For Peace at our chapter’s monthly meeting on
August 14, 2023.
As
stated in our letter to the board on July 13th, a large majority of our
members disagree with the inflexible board statement about the Russian war
on Ukraine and the ban on formation of a working group about Ukraine.
In
that letter, I indicated that we would attend the VFP national
convention at the end of August to try to overturn the board’s policy on
Ukraine, but the high fee charged for a Zoom meeting and the fact that the
board has shown absolutely no flexibility in its stance toward the war,
have caused us to abandon the idea of trying to change VFP’s position.
We
decided to debate whether or not to disaffiliate at our August chapter
meeting. All of our regular members, except for two who could not attend,
both of whom have expressed support for leaving VFP, discussed the matter
thoroughly.
The
one core member who supported the national board’s position, Daniel
Guy, left the meeting when it became clear that the rest of us favored
disaffiliation.
We
regret that we had to leave an organization that we all respected and
felt committed to until the national board decided to take Moscow’s side in
that war. Our chapter cannot stomach asking Congress and the president to
reverse course and stop supplying arms and ammunition to Ukraine and to
oppose NATO’s support for Ukraine. If the U.S. and its allies were to stop
supplying Ukraine, it would certainly mean the end of the free and
democratic nation of Ukraine, which would be subsumed into the Russian
Federation.
Our
members were happy to oppose the US’s imperialistic wars on
Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries.
We
now oppose Russia’s imperialist war on Ukraine. We have seen what
happened when the US failed to stop Russia’s military support for the
dictator of Syria – death, doom and destruction for that poor country has
continued for years. When President Obama allowed Russia to take over
Crimea and the Donbas region of Ukraine in 2014, the lack of action by the
West at that time allowed Vladimir Putin to believe that he could safely
invade Ukraine without any option from Ukraine’s allies. We are glad that
President Biden and NATO stood strong. Now, Russia will think twice before
invading another nation.
If
someday a new board with a philosophy more in tune with our chapter’s,
we would be happy to consider rejoining VFP.
Sincerely,
Allen Hallmark, Secretary
On behalf of the members of Former VFP Rogue Valley Chapter 156
Medford, Oregon