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Response to Letters: As VVAW Sees It

By VVAW

JUST AND UNJUST WARS

Dear Friends,

VVAW has a long history of working side by side with pacifists and non-violent organizations. Throughout that time we have come to have a deep and lasting respect for the depth and courage of the convictions of those who advocate non-violent resistance. We believe there are many issues—such as Agent Orange and the wider question of defoliants now being used to poison the atmosphere—on which we will continue to work together in the future. And we look forward to sharing future struggles with you.

The sincere disagreements put forward by the writers of these letters forces us to respond as best we can; we believe we must continue to do what we think is right.

As we see the essence of the questions in these letters, it comes down to this: How can you, veterans of Vietnam, intimately involved in the brutality, the horrors, the barbarism and the agony of war, and having seen its results, now advocate and support those who believe that violence is a solution to their problems?

And the essence of our answer goes back to what we learned on the battlefields of Vietnam. There was a distinct and definite difference between us, the military of the U.S., killing, burning and bombing, and the Indochinese who were doing all they could to kill us and, in many cases, did kill or wound our friends and comrades. Frankly stated, they were right; we were wrong. We were fighting and unjust war; they were fighting a just war.

The most famous single statement from Dewey Canyon III when VVAW members threw their medals, won in the Indochina War, on the steps of the Capitol, was: " We don't want to fight, but if we have to fight again, it will be to take these steps!"

VVAW did not only fight to get the U.S. out of Indochina; we also did all we could to support the Indochinese, who were certainly not "pacifist."

And they were not pacifists because they saw their countries being raped and exploited by U.S. imperialism, and could see that they had to resist. Their resistance, like that of many American GI's who were also in a world full of imperialist violence, was violent—the people of Hanoi, for instance, did their damndest to shoot down U.S. planes flying over their city to bomb the inhabitants. And they should have!

Those of us who did the bidding of the U.S. government in Indochina saw—and sometimes participated—in all the bloody brutality which is part of war. We helped to burn the villages; we slaughtered civilians so that the body counts could be higher; we flew the helicopters which, for sport, would try to shoot old men off their sampans in the rivers. We knew the heart-stopping terror of being under fire, and the heart-wrenching pain of having friends hit. Some of us still wake up at night to the sounds of friends dying.

With that, with having stared straight into the ugly face of war, we support and will, to the best of our abilities, fight shoulder to shoulder with those struggling and fighting for their freedom.

We have talked at length with the Brothers and the Sisters of the Pan Africanist Congress. Their courage and dedication in fighting the vicious system that tyrannizes their country is without question. But even more important that that is their vision for the future, their vision of a country where the majority is freed from the yoke of a racist government—with its millions of U.S. corporate dollars as strong support?where children can grow up with a true voice in their own future and that of their land. We are proud and grateful that uniforms which we wore in the service of U.S. imperialism will now be worn by those who fight a just war.

From all we know of the government of South Africa, who have sat with their claws gripping the Black majority of that country for years, the will not passively surrender their power or their military rule. That government will fall, eventually; but it will not fall all by itself. It will fall as a result of the struggle—yes, the violent struggle of the people of that country.

Like the letter writers, we of VVAW would much prefer to live in a world without violence. But we have learned the difference between wars that are just and wars that are unjust. Wars which increase exploitation, which deny freedom to a people, which are designed to put profits in the pockets of a small exploiting class, are plain and simple, unjust wars—that is, not in the interests of the majority of the people. The U.S. role in Indochina is a prime example of this kind of war; so is the presence of the U.S.S.R. in Ethiopia.

In glaring opposition to these wars are those of liberation where a people are fighting for their own independence, for their liberation from whatever country or system that holds them in slavery. The peoples of Indochina rose up against U.S. imperialism, VVAW supported it. And when the people of Nicaraugua rise up against their dictatorial ruler, we support that. We believe in the interests of the majority—that the majority should in fact rule (not only in name) and that there are wars which are just. Had the Vietnamese not been "violent" and thrown out the U.S. by force of arms, they would still be ruled by the U.S. puppets.

Throughout the anti-war movement, VVAW worked closely with a number of groups and individuals who believed in non-violence. We had a common interest in peace in Indochina, an end to the terror and bloodshed that the U.S. was sowing in that area of the world. Even then, however, when we were attacked by the police, we fought back; when the Nazis or the KKK plowed into our ranks, we sent them crawling away bloody. When there is no other way to achieve liberation, whether in Indochina, Tupelo, Mississippi, or in the U.S. as a whole, except to fight for it, we believe in using whatever means are necessary. As a VVAW member during African Liberation Day 1978 said it, "We're only sorry that we can't send the guns to go with these fatigues in support of your struggle."