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VVAW Objectives

By VVAW

1. To demand an immediate cessation of fighting and the withdrawal of all American troops from Indochina. We cannot allow one more human being to be killed in Southeast Asia.

2. To demand the immediate termination of all other operations by the United States government, its agencies, and American business interests that are designed to suppress the rightful struggles for liberation and self-determination of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This includes the maintenance of dictatorial governments, economic domination, and the theft of the natural resources of other countries.

3.To demand that all active-duty servicemen and women be afforded the same rights that are guaranteed by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights that are presently denied by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We are appalled that our active-duty GI's are treated as less than first class citizens. We endorse the efforts of our active duty sisters and brothers in their struggle to democratizes the military.

4. To support all military personnel refusing to serve against their consciences in wars at home and aboard. We demand that Congress enact legislation for immediate repatriation to those brothers and sisters who are in prison or in self-exile by reason of their refusal to serve in the military. It must also involve an end to all repression and a freeing of all political prisoners.

5. To demand there be no distinctions as to types of discharges and that a single type of discharge be issued, and that his be retroactive. We also demand all veterans receive all rights and benefits under the VA; and that compensation for disabilities be based solely upon the degree of disability for veterans and their families, without regard to sex, race, rank or length of service.

6. To make clear that the United States has never undertaken an extensive open investigation of American war crimes in Indochina. We demand that the United States government, in its war in Indochina, affirm the principles of Nuremberg. As active-duty GI's we recognize the responsibility and guilt of the individual soldier to refrain from committing war crimes. We also recognize that the responsibility and guilt of war crimes committed in the name of America lies with our policy makers at all levels.

7. To show Americans that our society is permeated by racism, which manipulates whites into viewing non-whites as inferior or less that human. This racism pushed Third World People through inferior jobs and into combat arms. Thus Third World People are sent off to die in disproportionately high numbers as well kill Asians indiscriminately. We also demand the US military recognize its complicity in America's domestic and international racism.

8. To show that sexism plays a major part in promoting war. We must show Americans our society is permeated by sexism, which forces inferior status upon women, reducing them to subservient sexual objects, and which robs both men and women of their natural growth. This institutionalized sexism channels women into un-fulfilling, lower-paying jobs which are servile in nature and purpose; it exploits their bodies for sex and profit; and it degrades and dehumanizes them by a double standard of morality wholly dependent on the myth of male supremacy. This sexism is exploited by the military, officially defining servicewomen as subordinate and thoroughly subjugating them to servile work and the role of a sexual object. We resolve to fight sexism within our society, within our own organization, and within ourselves.

9. To dedicate ourselves to these principles and objectives which directly relate to the imperialist suppression of the People of the World by the United States government. We understand this war is imperialist in origin and affirm that the membership of VVAW is not only concerned with ending this war, but with changing the domestic, social, political and economic institutions that have caused and perpetuated its continuance.