Center the victims

Posted to Veterans for Peace, Chapter 21's Facebook group, 3/3/2023

 Dear VFP Friends and Comrades,

I humbly share this: the perspective of Ukrainian Hanna Perekhoda. “A War of Imperial Aggression”: How Russia’s Invasion One Year Ago Changed Ukraine & the World | Democracy Now! I believe hers is the type of narrative we should be amplifying in Veterans for Peace. I believe her people are the primary victims whom we should support. I believe she is practicing a transnational solidarity that we should emulate. Why do I post this now?

I was listening to a United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) webinar the other day, and I was very disturbed to hear one of the presenters (Scott Ritter) essentially justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I went back to listen to it twice in case I misheard him. In general, I’ve been very disappointed by UNAC’s messaging in the past year, in addition to that of many other anti-war groups and coalitions. I know VFP and/or VFP chapters are members of UNAC.

Yes, I know coalitions are messy (and necessary work), and one speaker on a panel doesn’t speak for everyone. We can disagree within coalitions and within orgs.

Yes, I believe NATO expansion in the past three decades played a role in this war. I believe NATO should have been dismantled after the Cold War. Yes, the US has played a nefarious role in Europe.

Yes, I believe Russian, on the whole, aggression does not compete with American, on the whole, imperial aggression across the globe. I still agree with MLK that the US is the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”

Yes, I believe the US unjustly weaponizes the dollar and weaponizes sanctions.

Yes, I believe some of the celebrity Ukrainian flag waving/posting is thin virtue signaling.
Yes, I believe that US weapons and fossil fuel companies are making a killing with this war.

Yes, I believe the US corporate media is captured by the military industrial complex and is insufferable.

Yes, I believe we must mourn and repent on the upcoming 20-year anniversary of Iraq. It is frustrating that this anniversary is hardly in our consciousness, thanks in part to our media.

Yes, I hope this war ends very soon, and I believe the longer it goes on, the worse it gets, with the possibility of catastrophic nuclear war.

However, I believe after the Russian invasion last year, our two first principles should have been and must be: condemnation of Russia’s aggression and solidarity with its primary victims, the Ukrainians. I have not seen that from UNAC and many other anti-war groups/coalitions. From this UNAC webinar the other day, at least, was the notion that the US/NATO was the main aggressor in Ukraine. That gravely misses the point. UNAC’s messaging for the March 18th rally only condemns the US and NATO. It does not condemn Russia at all. This is misguided.

At least speaking from personal experience, when I first found anti-war and left activism after the military, it filled a psychological void. That is, simplistic anti-Americanism replaced my simplistic boyhood patriotism. It was part of my identity. I took pride in being contrarian (at least privately) to others’ common sense. Thinking or stating, “Well, actually” and believing I was right and just--sometimes with secret, lesser known knowledge--gave me comfort and made me feel special. Well, Russia’s starting a war in Ukraine--not the US--has thrown some of that into the fan. “Wait, I can’t solely blame the US!?!” (I still blame the US.) It has made me reflect on what deep anti-imperialism, internationalism, and solidarity looks like and requires. Not to get too psychoanalytic, it has necessarily involved a “dying” to thin ideologies in order to develop deeper ones.

Maybe this last part does not resonate. Regardless, I believe we in Veterans for Peace and other peace groups must extend the same type of solidarity we would (and rightly do so) to Palestinians, Yemenis, or Sahrawis resisting imperialism to Hanna Perekhoda and all Ukrainians resisting the same. We should join her and others as they gather local grassroots communities, initiatives, feminists, trade unionists, the LGBTQ community, the Roma community, and ecologists from Ukraine, Russia, and many other countries--across borders. Finally, I believe this is the deeper solidarity that will be required to make sure the US and China don’t go to war: pointing out US imperialism in East Asia and how it's much vaster than Chinese expansion, yes certainly, but not reflexively siding with the Chinese state/CCP.

Thanks for listening. Peace!

Bill Fletcher, Jr: Nothing Is Worse Than Silence in the Face of Aggression | The Nation