Citizens’ Responsibility for Confronting
and Remembering the Crimes of War
Recorded 7:00 - 8:30 PM Eastern Time, November 20, 2022
Webinar organized by the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee
Cosponsored by Brooklyn For Peace, Institute for Policy Studies, Just World Educational and Peace Action New York State
Fifty years ago, 1972, was a critical time in the U.S.
peace movement’s struggle to end the US war in Indochina. The movement and an
increasingly critical media created pressures that led to the signing of the
Paris Peace Agreement in January of 1973.
In 2022 while US officials and the media debate holding Russia responsible for war crimes in Ukraine, this webinar offers an opportunity to reflect on the history of our own war crimes that led to the Redress campaign of civil disobedience. It will consider the responsibility of all people to hold their government accountable for war crimes committed in their name.
Moderator
Prof. Carolyn Rusti Eisenberg, VPCC Board, Professor
of US History and American Foreign Policy at Hofstra University. Her new
book, Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger and the Wars in Southeast
Asia, is being published December 2022 by Oxford University Press.
Panelists
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, one of the original organizers
of Project Redress. Lecturer in Psychiatry at Columbia University, Distinguished
Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Psychology at the City University of New
York He is holding the right side of the banner in the photo above.
Cora Weiss, Past president of the International Peace
Bureau. Co-founder of the Committee of Liaison with Families of Servicemen Detained in North
Vietnam and arrested in conjunction with Project Redress.
Richard Falk, one of the organizers of Project
Redress, is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at
Princeton University; Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary
University London; Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at
the University of California, Santa Barbara
Resources
"Was My Lai just one of many massacres in Vietnam War?"
by Nick Turse http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23427726
"In the Name of America" an essay by Rev. Richard Fernandez about the book published by Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam in 1978, read it here https://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2022/11/calcav-1968-in-name-of-america.html
Chapter on Redress in "Home from the War" by Robert Jay Lifton https://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2022/11/robert-jay-lifton-on-redress.html
"Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam" by Nick Turse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Sds7nkJEE
Is this being Livestreamed and if so Where?
Would be nice to discuss President Kennedy’s October 1963
order “NSAM 263” to start the withdrawal from Vietnam. What would the Sixties have been if this had
been implemented?
Can someone talk about the Bertrand Russell War Crimes
Tribunal which met twice as early as 1967 and icnluded delegartes Dave
Dellinger, Carl Oglesby, Kwame Toure (then Stokeley Carmichae)l, as we as De
Beauvoir, Sartre, and other representavies of the world left?
I completely agree with what your are saying but how can we
carry on anymore in the world where the western nations elites have and are Palestine, Just about
ever nation in the middle east, Africa, Caribbean, the island communities,
South America, all of our indigenous peoples and people of colour invading,
controlling, dictating, sanctioning, murdering and torturing these countries?
Could the panel please comment on whether the Bertrand
Rusell War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam with Jean Paul Satre as co-chair made an
impact on them and on international opinion at the time it was held in the late
Sixties and early 70’s? Did any of them participate?
It is an example of international civil society taking an
action.
The Merchants of Death tribunal website is
merchantsofdeath.org
Did any American civil society groups organize a US War
Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam War in the US?
U.S. 19th century foreign policy was definitively spoken to
in 1873 with President Grant's 2nd inaugural Address when he said, "...the
Aboriginals shall become educated and civiliized or face War of
Extermination," which occured technologically in 1890 at Wounded Knee with
the gatling guns. Wouldn't it be better
to address modern technologically-driven war preparations by making references
to these kinds of earlier historical examples rather than pursuing, say, the
vulnerability of Critical Race Theory to the weaponization of that
"debate" raging in the schools in this moment?
But the US and EU and Britain and Canada have kept doing
this and never blinked an eye because there is not consequence for leaders
& military leaders who set up wars,
commit war crimes, destroy infrastructure, water and land resources, poison
deliberately poison all food & water, torture and maim and destroy all
cultural sites
If the UN Internation law commission had not defined the
crime of agression untill recent decade, so that the article of aggression
could be fleshed out in the ICC Statutes, what law defined the crime of
agression had the US committed in Vietnam
Is there any list; complication of "war crimes"
committed by US forces in Vietnam.
One critical aspect of war crimes, in Viet Nam,
Isarel/Palestine, and the Middle East is racism. Degradation, numbness about
cruelty, is rooted a great in racism
******************************************
CHAT
19:57:33
From Edwina Vogan : Is there a
complication; list of atrocities commited by the US presence in Vietnam- other
actions by Tiger Force, etc?
19:58:29
From Regina Sneed to
Hosts and panelists : Merchants of death war crimes tribunal Nov 10-13,
2023 Organized by war industry
resisters network
19:59:50
From David Hawk : Wonderful
presentations. Make a transcript!
20:05:18
From Mark Robinowitz to
Hosts and panelists : Would be nice to discuss President Kennedy’s
October 1963 order “NSAM 263” to start the withdrawal from Vietnam. What would the Sixties have been if this had
been implemented?
20:08:13
From Andrea Libresco : Part of the
reason students haven't heard of war crimes and the resistance to them is that
their teachers are racing through the 1970s-present in the last couple of weeks
of the school year; any in-depth, nuanced discussion of wars in the last 50
years is completely lost. And the
teachers are products of that school system where they didn't learn the
in-depth, nuanced history, themselves. -- a former public school history
teacher
20:14:16
From Mark Robinowitz to
Hosts and panelists : Thanks - it wasn’t a “speech” - it was an order
from the President. National Security
Action Memo 263. Reversed immediately
by LBJ after JFK was extrajudicially removed from office. Late in his life, Robert McNamara admitted
this was the situation. Recommended is
“JFK and the Unspeakable” by peace activist James Douglass.
20:14:21
From Terry Murray : To Andrea Libresco -
good point! When I was in elementary and high school, we zipped through WWII in
about three days at the end of the respective school years.
20:22:16
From Michael Turek : I served in the US
Air Force, Pacific Command Center, Oahu, Hawaii 1969-71, a participant in World
Wide War Games. These War Games always ended with Nuclear Holocaust.
20:22:17
From barbara wien : Yesterday, 80
organizations had a an all day strategy meeting on Cora's exact point
20:23:50
From barbara wien : I attended. Representatives from many countries were able
to join us over Zoom. We will hold a
much bigger conference in the spring 2023.
20:25:07
From barbara wien : The Transnational
Institute also just published a very important report last week on the climate
crisis and militarism
20:28:12
From Terry Murray : Re what John just
said - definitely a topic for further discussion: American exemption from
international justice and/or in the case of Vietnam - unwillingness to pursue
action against the U.S.
20:29:55
From Howard Machtinger to
Hosts and panelists : Can we honor Staughton Lynd for a moment?
20:30:18
From barbara wien : It is a terrific
meeting. Just as our remarkable speakers taught us tonight, I want people on
this Zoom meeting tonight that I am working with a very large network of
Russians who are resisting the war in Ukraine.
They are from many walks of life and are working to undermine Putin's
pillars of power. They are sending many
millions of antiwar messages to their fellow citizens inside Russia.
20:30:24
From Charlotte Phillips : Thank you for
this great program!
20:30:37
From John Kim : How about holding an
American People's Tribunal on US War Crimes in Vietnam?
My film-in-progress about Vietnam Veterans Against the War, "One More Mission," tells the stories of some of the veterans who testified about war crimes in Vietnam. You can see video clips here.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.onemoremissionfilm.com/