January 29, 1971
By JOANNE SUTTON
About 25 members of Ohio State Veterans Against the War (VAW) are planning to participate in their own inquiry on Vietnam war crimes in Detroit this weekend.
The purpose of the "Winter Soldier Investigations" (WSI) is to prove war crimes were committed by U.S. soldiers and that they were "the inexorable result of national policy," according to Tim Holder, a junior from Columbus and president of the local VAW.
The WSI takes its name indirectly from Thomas Paine's phrase "the summer soldier and sunshine patriot" of the American Revolution, those men who fought for the cause when the weather was good. A statement from WSI reads, "our greatest debt is to the men who served during that cold winter at Valley Forge."
"Those who testify in Detroit are the winter soldiers of the Vietnam War," William Crandell, a graduate student from Sylvania member of the steering committee of WSI, said.
According to Holder, former enlisted men and officers from various Marine, Army, Air Force, and Navy divisions will testify about war crimes their units had committed. He said testimony of massacres, torture of prisoners and murder of prisoners will be offered.
"No names will be used, so there will be no scapegoats," Holder said. "And those who testify need have no fear of prosecution since they are out of uniform."
The first day will begin with accounts of the use of weapons which have been outlawed by international treaty. Holder cited the use of anti-personnel bombs which are timed to explode a few minutes after they hit the ground and the all clear signal has been sounded.
"We feel an obligation to inform the American public about what's happening," Crandell said. "We know, we are there."
The investigation is being conducted by honorably discharged veterans who served in Vietnam, he said. It is being supported by donations from Businessmen for Peace and contributions raised by singers Phil Ochs, Dave Crosby and Graham Nash.
Crosby and Nash will perform Saturday in Detroit, and admission will be free for veterans, Holder said.
Free room and board will be provided for all veterans who attend either to testify or to watch.
Howard Zinn, professor of political science at Yale will be the moderator, according to Crandell. Zinn recently visited American POWs in Vietnam.
WSI has called on all churches to declare Sunday, a day of mourning for those who have died in Vietnam, and a day of prayer that the war will now end. Veterans will speak in churches throughout the country on Sunday morning, Holder said.
Showing posts with label anti-war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-war. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Monday, 16 February 2009
A Trumpet to Arms: Alternative Media in America
by David Armstrong
The underground press augmented its dispatches on the war in Vietnam with reports on the war at home--the repression of peace demonstrators by authorities, maps and guides for major marches, notices of upcoming meetings and rallies. In 1967, folksinger Phil Ochs wrote an article for the Los Angeles Free Press announcing a "The-War-Is-Over" rally directly across the street from a $500-a-plate dinner for Lyndon Johnson in Century City. Ochs planned to charge a one-cent admission to his rally, at which radicals would celebrate the spirit of resistance and look to the day when the war was really over. When Los Angeles police, swinging nightsticks, broke up the demonstration, the event made national news. The following year, Ochs recorded his song "The War Is Over," which became one of his best-known efforts, pointing up the intimate connections among underground media, radical musicians, and the peace movement as a whole.
The underground press augmented its dispatches on the war in Vietnam with reports on the war at home--the repression of peace demonstrators by authorities, maps and guides for major marches, notices of upcoming meetings and rallies. In 1967, folksinger Phil Ochs wrote an article for the Los Angeles Free Press announcing a "The-War-Is-Over" rally directly across the street from a $500-a-plate dinner for Lyndon Johnson in Century City. Ochs planned to charge a one-cent admission to his rally, at which radicals would celebrate the spirit of resistance and look to the day when the war was really over. When Los Angeles police, swinging nightsticks, broke up the demonstration, the event made national news. The following year, Ochs recorded his song "The War Is Over," which became one of his best-known efforts, pointing up the intimate connections among underground media, radical musicians, and the peace movement as a whole.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
UO student leader visits North Vietnam, says Reds will never quit
By Douglas Seymour
December 30, 1970
American student leaders actually signed two "peace treaties" in North Vietnam earlier this month according to University of Oregon Student Body President Ron Eachus, one of the U.S. signers.
He said one was signed with the North Vietnamese Student Union and the South Vietnamese Liberation Students Union. The other was signed by the South Vietnamese Student Union.
Eachus said the real significance of the declarations is the position taken by the South Vietnamese Students Union, which is the recognized above-ground union of students in Saigon government-controlled universities.
"In a declaration developed separately from that in the North and without any knowledge of what the declaration in the North said, the union adopted the same basic position regarding U.S. forces and Thieu and Ky," Eachus said.
U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam by June 30, 1971 is the key provision in both "peace treaties," he said.
Eachus was one of the delegation of American anti-war student leaders that met with the Vietnamese students in North Vietnam from Dec. 4 to Dec. 19.
The American students went to North Vietnam to work on the treaties as a result of action taken by the National Student Association at its convention in August.
Eachus said there was no discussion of North Vietnam involvement in the South Vietnam fighting at the meeting. He said the students agreed that the U.S. shouldn't be in Vietnam in the first place and should get out by June 30 next year, the date which was mentioned in the Hatfield - McGovern amendment that the U.S. Senate failed to pass.
In addition to calling for U.S. troop withdrawal, the student agreements say the U.S. must refrain from violating the sovereignty of Vietnam with forces operating from bases outside that country. Eachus said that specifically means there will be no air raids by planes operating from Thailand.
"The second basic point of the declaration is that support for Thieu, Ky and Kiem must be withdrawn by the U.S. This is a natural sequel to the first condition. Thieu and Ky represent a line of repressive governments used by the U.S. to justify its presence there," Eachus said.
A coalition government with members of the Thieu-Ky administration is acceptable to those fighting against them, but neither of the two men can be a part of it, Eachus said.
"In all of our discussions and in the still conspicuous effects of U.S. bombings, it became clear that the Vietnamese are not likely to rescind their demand for total U.S. withdrawal. It is the cause which has driven Communist and non-Communist to fight," Eachus said.
He said the North Vietnamese laughed at the term "Viet Cong" because they claimed it gave the Communist credit for the liberation movement when most of the forces fighting the U.S. in South Vietnam were non-Communist.
"The Vietnamese history is a record of continual struggle against foreign control. The history books emphasize victories over Mongols, Chinese, feudal lords and more recently the French and the United States," he said.
He maintains that ever since the U.S. began giving military aid to the French during their defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the Vietnamese have viewed the United States as the imperialist successor to France.
"That is why both the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese Liberation Front cannot accept President Nixon's cease-fire proposal. To do so would be a recognition of the right of the United States to be in South Vietnam," Eachus said.
This principle, he said, is the reason the Vietnam forces have been able to continue the war for so long and that it was around this principle that the delegations signed their peace declarations.
The South Vietnamese Students Union, which involves students in Saigon government-controlled universities, began promoting guerrilla-like tactics in Saigon and other cities a week after the agreement was signed with American students as a result of the shooting of a Vietnamese youth by U.S. soldiers in Qua Nang, Eachus said.
He said the action was taken by non-Communist students "and should serve further notice that the opposition to U.S. presence in Vietnam is not solely Communist and not confined to the countryside.
"It is this increasing activity by students and others in the areas controlled by the Saigon government that make it even more unlikely the liberation forces will take a less hard-nosed stand on U.S. presence in Vietnam," Eachus said.
Those fighting against the U.S. believe they have already defeated the United States and will continue to do so, he said.
"Vietnamization and pacification to them are new phases of the war in which the U.S. will also lose because it will be withdrawing only to face new fronts of liberation in the cities and refugee camps," he said.
December 30, 1970
American student leaders actually signed two "peace treaties" in North Vietnam earlier this month according to University of Oregon Student Body President Ron Eachus, one of the U.S. signers.
He said one was signed with the North Vietnamese Student Union and the South Vietnamese Liberation Students Union. The other was signed by the South Vietnamese Student Union.
Eachus said the real significance of the declarations is the position taken by the South Vietnamese Students Union, which is the recognized above-ground union of students in Saigon government-controlled universities.
"In a declaration developed separately from that in the North and without any knowledge of what the declaration in the North said, the union adopted the same basic position regarding U.S. forces and Thieu and Ky," Eachus said.
U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam by June 30, 1971 is the key provision in both "peace treaties," he said.
Eachus was one of the delegation of American anti-war student leaders that met with the Vietnamese students in North Vietnam from Dec. 4 to Dec. 19.
The American students went to North Vietnam to work on the treaties as a result of action taken by the National Student Association at its convention in August.
Eachus said there was no discussion of North Vietnam involvement in the South Vietnam fighting at the meeting. He said the students agreed that the U.S. shouldn't be in Vietnam in the first place and should get out by June 30 next year, the date which was mentioned in the Hatfield - McGovern amendment that the U.S. Senate failed to pass.
In addition to calling for U.S. troop withdrawal, the student agreements say the U.S. must refrain from violating the sovereignty of Vietnam with forces operating from bases outside that country. Eachus said that specifically means there will be no air raids by planes operating from Thailand.
"The second basic point of the declaration is that support for Thieu, Ky and Kiem must be withdrawn by the U.S. This is a natural sequel to the first condition. Thieu and Ky represent a line of repressive governments used by the U.S. to justify its presence there," Eachus said.
A coalition government with members of the Thieu-Ky administration is acceptable to those fighting against them, but neither of the two men can be a part of it, Eachus said.
"In all of our discussions and in the still conspicuous effects of U.S. bombings, it became clear that the Vietnamese are not likely to rescind their demand for total U.S. withdrawal. It is the cause which has driven Communist and non-Communist to fight," Eachus said.
He said the North Vietnamese laughed at the term "Viet Cong" because they claimed it gave the Communist credit for the liberation movement when most of the forces fighting the U.S. in South Vietnam were non-Communist.
"The Vietnamese history is a record of continual struggle against foreign control. The history books emphasize victories over Mongols, Chinese, feudal lords and more recently the French and the United States," he said.
He maintains that ever since the U.S. began giving military aid to the French during their defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the Vietnamese have viewed the United States as the imperialist successor to France.
"That is why both the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese Liberation Front cannot accept President Nixon's cease-fire proposal. To do so would be a recognition of the right of the United States to be in South Vietnam," Eachus said.
This principle, he said, is the reason the Vietnam forces have been able to continue the war for so long and that it was around this principle that the delegations signed their peace declarations.
The South Vietnamese Students Union, which involves students in Saigon government-controlled universities, began promoting guerrilla-like tactics in Saigon and other cities a week after the agreement was signed with American students as a result of the shooting of a Vietnamese youth by U.S. soldiers in Qua Nang, Eachus said.
He said the action was taken by non-Communist students "and should serve further notice that the opposition to U.S. presence in Vietnam is not solely Communist and not confined to the countryside.
"It is this increasing activity by students and others in the areas controlled by the Saigon government that make it even more unlikely the liberation forces will take a less hard-nosed stand on U.S. presence in Vietnam," Eachus said.
Those fighting against the U.S. believe they have already defeated the United States and will continue to do so, he said.
"Vietnamization and pacification to them are new phases of the war in which the U.S. will also lose because it will be withdrawing only to face new fronts of liberation in the cities and refugee camps," he said.
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Anti-war music event planned next week in Burlington
BURLINGTON -- The Peace & Justice Center in Burlington will present an evening of anti-war music, past and present, at 7 p.m. on March 7 at City Hall's Contois Auditorium.
The event - "I Ain't Marching Anymore," a Phil Ochs Song Night - marks five years of the occupation of Iraq. It is meant to pull the Vietnam War and Iraq War protest music into one show. Vermont musicians will be performing one Phil Ochs song and one original song.
Phil Ochs is widely known for writing and performing protest music during the Vietnam War 40 years ago. Och's song titles include "Draft Dodger Rag," "Cops of the World" and "Is there Anybody Here." At the time of his death in 1976, Ochs had written over 100 songs.
The show will feature performances by musicians that span generations. Some of the older performers have experienced both the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. The younger performers have the experience of the Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.
Performers include Amber deLaurentis & Tom Cleary, Jon Gailmor, The Magnolias, Colin Clary, Rik Palieri, Hannah Pitkin & Max Bronstein-Partiz of the Limes, and a rare Chittenden County appearance by Vermont's folk singing Senator Dick McCormack.
The concert is a benefit for the Peace & Justice Center's Recruiting for Peace Campaign. Tickets: $20, $15 for age 12 and under. Purchase tickets at the Peace & Justice Center, 863-2345 x2, or the Flynn Box Office.
The event - "I Ain't Marching Anymore," a Phil Ochs Song Night - marks five years of the occupation of Iraq. It is meant to pull the Vietnam War and Iraq War protest music into one show. Vermont musicians will be performing one Phil Ochs song and one original song.
Phil Ochs is widely known for writing and performing protest music during the Vietnam War 40 years ago. Och's song titles include "Draft Dodger Rag," "Cops of the World" and "Is there Anybody Here." At the time of his death in 1976, Ochs had written over 100 songs.
The show will feature performances by musicians that span generations. Some of the older performers have experienced both the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. The younger performers have the experience of the Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.
Performers include Amber deLaurentis & Tom Cleary, Jon Gailmor, The Magnolias, Colin Clary, Rik Palieri, Hannah Pitkin & Max Bronstein-Partiz of the Limes, and a rare Chittenden County appearance by Vermont's folk singing Senator Dick McCormack.
The concert is a benefit for the Peace & Justice Center's Recruiting for Peace Campaign. Tickets: $20, $15 for age 12 and under. Purchase tickets at the Peace & Justice Center, 863-2345 x2, or the Flynn Box Office.
Friday, 21 September 2007
John Train
Jon Houlon was already thinking about writing political songs when Neil Young gave him a kick in the pants with Living with War last year.
"I'd already written a few hundred songs about myself," Houlon, the leader of John Train, says with a laugh. The country-flavored Philadelphia folk-rock band has just released its fourth album, the sterling life-during-wartime song cycle Mesopotamia Blues, and will hold down its regular Friday happy-hour slot at Fergie's Pub in Center City tonight before going over to Johnny Brenda's to open for Frog Holler.
"But I'm a student of folk music, and a lot of the people I admire from the '60s, like Dylan and Phil Ochs, wrote about what was happening in the world around them," Houlon continues. "Plus, I'm a huge fan of the Clash. So I thought it was time to start looking outward, instead of inward."
When Young put out his sonic salvo against the Bush administration, he challenged young songwriters to write antiwar music of their own. So Houlon, 39, who works as a lawyer for Philadelphia's Department of Human Services by day and leads John Train and the garage-rock outfit the Donuts by night, figured that was his job.
"I love Neil, but I thought that album [Living with War] was a little ill-considered, a little too from-the-hip," says Houlon, who lives in Mount Airy with his wife and stepson. "I wanted to dig a little deeper."
He read Jon Lee Anderson's The Fall of Baghdad, which pointed him to Rudyard Kipling's poem "Mesopotamia," a protest directed at bungling British leadership in what is now Iraq in the early 20th century, which Houlon put to a piano melody. He read a book of Iraqi folk tales, which inspired the steel-guitar-kissed "The Kind Merchant."
And to broaden the album's perspective, he included songs by his favorite Texas songwriters Butch Hancock and Terry Allen, and reached back to cover Vietnam-era songs such as Tom T. Hall's "Mama Bake a Pie" and John Stewart's "Draft Age," which in turn compelled Houlon to write the Iraq war sequel "Mulloy 2006."
Though between John Train and the Donuts, he's released 10 albums in the last decade, Houlon calls himself an "amateur musician." There's nothing amateurish about Mesopotamia Blues, however. The production by Mike "Slo-Mo" Brenner of the album recorded at Fishtown's Miner Street studio brings a skilled and versatile roots ensemble to life, and Houlon succeeds at writing story songs, not screeds.
"I can't really say there's a message in the songs," Houlon says. "I'm writing more descriptively than prescriptively. I'm trying more to make a painting than make a point."
- Dan DeLuca
"I'd already written a few hundred songs about myself," Houlon, the leader of John Train, says with a laugh. The country-flavored Philadelphia folk-rock band has just released its fourth album, the sterling life-during-wartime song cycle Mesopotamia Blues, and will hold down its regular Friday happy-hour slot at Fergie's Pub in Center City tonight before going over to Johnny Brenda's to open for Frog Holler.
"But I'm a student of folk music, and a lot of the people I admire from the '60s, like Dylan and Phil Ochs, wrote about what was happening in the world around them," Houlon continues. "Plus, I'm a huge fan of the Clash. So I thought it was time to start looking outward, instead of inward."
When Young put out his sonic salvo against the Bush administration, he challenged young songwriters to write antiwar music of their own. So Houlon, 39, who works as a lawyer for Philadelphia's Department of Human Services by day and leads John Train and the garage-rock outfit the Donuts by night, figured that was his job.
"I love Neil, but I thought that album [Living with War] was a little ill-considered, a little too from-the-hip," says Houlon, who lives in Mount Airy with his wife and stepson. "I wanted to dig a little deeper."
He read Jon Lee Anderson's The Fall of Baghdad, which pointed him to Rudyard Kipling's poem "Mesopotamia," a protest directed at bungling British leadership in what is now Iraq in the early 20th century, which Houlon put to a piano melody. He read a book of Iraqi folk tales, which inspired the steel-guitar-kissed "The Kind Merchant."
And to broaden the album's perspective, he included songs by his favorite Texas songwriters Butch Hancock and Terry Allen, and reached back to cover Vietnam-era songs such as Tom T. Hall's "Mama Bake a Pie" and John Stewart's "Draft Age," which in turn compelled Houlon to write the Iraq war sequel "Mulloy 2006."
Though between John Train and the Donuts, he's released 10 albums in the last decade, Houlon calls himself an "amateur musician." There's nothing amateurish about Mesopotamia Blues, however. The production by Mike "Slo-Mo" Brenner of the album recorded at Fishtown's Miner Street studio brings a skilled and versatile roots ensemble to life, and Houlon succeeds at writing story songs, not screeds.
"I can't really say there's a message in the songs," Houlon says. "I'm writing more descriptively than prescriptively. I'm trying more to make a painting than make a point."
- Dan DeLuca
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