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For Immediate Release
September, 18 2017, 03:30pm EDT
Contact:
Email:,press@veteransforpeace.org
Veteran Group Reacts To First Episode Of Burns/Novick Vietnam Series
Veterans For Peace (VFP) members in every U.S.
WASHINGTON
Veterans For Peace (VFP) members in every U.S. time zone and beyond tuned in to watch the first episode of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's PBS documentary, "The Vietnam War" to see how well it squares with what they know about what the Vietnamese call "the American War in Vietnam."
The opening scenes and the program as a whole showed that the U.S. has not come very far, in terms of learning from it's mistakes.
Executive Director, Michael McPhearson, a veteran of the Gulf War, states, "Watching the documentary, I was struck by how little has changed from then to now or gotten worse. In Afghanistan, Iraq and around the globe our government continues to attempt to force whole nations into compliance, using the same failed and depraved strategies used in Vietnam. The documentary portrayal of the U.S. troop buildup in Vietnam shows how quick the U.S. government uses fear of "the other" to justify brutal violence. It is the same fear cultivated in Islamophobic, anti-immigrant and general xenophobic rhetoric used today to pit people against each other at home and to justify wars abroad. This formula of fear and racism used in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq is being used in the streets of my city right now to justify the killing of 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith and other black and brown people across the country."
Doug Rawlings, who served in an Army artillery unit in Vietnam from 1969-70, watched the first episode at his home in central Maine and had this to say: "It was certainly engaging," but Rawlings noted "When the narrator says early on that "America's involvement in Vietnam...was begun in good faith, by decent people, out of fateful misunderstandings.' The U.S. did everything it could to keep Vietnam a French colony and failing that to make it an American one, no matter the cost. Burns and Novick actually show that pretty clearly, yet they still say it was begun in good faith? That just shows how powerful the myth that America is always on the side of the angels."
Veterans For Peace continues their work on several initiatives in Vietnam and in the U.S. towards accountability for the legacies of the Vietnam War. To see a full list of our projects, visit our Press Kit.
Veterans For Peace members have also re-printed a newspaper, Full Disclosure, that focuses on telling the truth about Vietnam and are distributing it at the many public, community events that surround the documentary.
Veterans Available for Interviews.
Veterans For Peace is a global organization of Military Veterans and allies whose collective efforts are to build a culture of peace by using our experiences and lifting our voices. We inform the public of the true causes of war and the enormous costs of wars, with an obligation to heal the wounds of wars. Our network is comprised of over 140 chapters worldwide whose work includes: educating the public, advocating for a dismantling of the war economy, providing services that assist veterans and victims of war, and most significantly, working to end all wars.
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ICC Rejects Israeli Bid to Thwart Gaza War Crimes Probe
Israel is seeking to invalidate the ICC's arrest warrants for fugitive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Dec 15, 2025
Appellate judges at the embattled International Criminal Court on Monday rejected Israel's attempt to block an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes committed during the Gaza genocide.
The ICC Appeals Chamber dismissed an Israeli challenge to the assertion that the October 7, 2023, attacks and subsequent war on Gaza were part of the same ongoing "situation" under investigation by the Hague-based tribunal since 2021. Israel argued they were separate matters that required new notice; however, the ICC panel found that the initial probe encompasses events on and after October 7.
The ruling—which focuses on but one of several Israeli legal challenges to the ICC—comes amid the tribunal's investigation into an Israeli war and siege that have left at least 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and 2 million more displaced, starved, or sickened.
The probe led to last year's ICC arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation. The ICC also issued warrants for the arrest of three Hamas commanders—all of whom have since been killed by Israel.
Israel and the United States, neither of which are party to the Rome Statute governing the ICC, vehemently reject the tribunal's investigation. In the US—which has provided Israel with more than $21 billion in armed aid as well as diplomatic cover throughout the genocide—the Trump administration has sanctioned nine ICC jurists, leaving them and their families "wiped out socially and financially."
The other Hague-based global tribunal, the International Court of Justice, is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel filed in December 2023 by South Africa and backed by more than a dozen nations, as well as regional blocs representing dozens of countries.
University of Copenhagen international law professor Kevin Jon Heller—who is also a special adviser to the ICC prosecutor on war crimes—told Courthouse News Service that “the real importance of the decision is that it strongly implies Israel will lose its far more important challenge to the court’s jurisdiction over Israeli actions in Palestine."
Although Israel is not an ICC member and does not recognize its jurisdiction, Palestine is a state party to the Rome Statute, under which individuals from non-signatory nations can be held liable for crimes committed in the territory of a member state.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned Monday's decision, calling it "yet another example of the ongoing politicization of the ICC and its blatant disregard for the sovereign rights of non-party states, as well as its own obligations under the Rome Statute."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington, DC-based advocacy group, welcomed the ICC decision.
“This ruling by the International Criminal Court affirms that no state is above the law and that war crimes must be fully and independently investigated," CAIR said in a statement. "Accountability is essential for justice, for the victims, and survivors, and for deterring future crimes against humanity.”
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40+ Groups Urge Wikipedia to Oppose Co-Founders' 'Censorship on Gaza Genocide'
"Wales and Sanger must be stopped from trying to censor the Wikipedia ‘Gaza genocide’ entry that clearly documents Israel’s horrifying crime against humanity.”
Dec 15, 2025
More than 40 advocacy groups on Monday called on Wikipedia editors and the Wikimedia board of trustees to reject efforts by the web-based encyclopedia's co-founders to censor the site's entry on the Gaza genocide.
After months of internal debate, editors of the Wikipedia article titled “Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza” renamed the entry "Gaza genocide" in July 2024, reflecting experts' growing acknowledgement that Israel's annihilation and siege of the Palestinian exclave met the legal definition of the ultimate crime. The entry also notes that the Gaza genocide is not settled legal fact—an International Court of Justice case on the matter is ongoing—and that numerous experts refute the claim that Israel's war is genocidal.
The move, and the subsequent addition of Gaza to Wikipedia's article listing cases of genocide, sparked heated "edit wars" on the community-edited site—which has long been a target of pro-Israeli public relations efforts. In the United States, a pair of House Republicans launched an investigation to reveal the identities of the anonymous Wikipedia editors who posted negative facts about Israel.
"Israeli officials and pro-Israel organizations are attempting to hide the horrifying reality... by putting pressure on institutions like Wikipedia to engage in genocide denial."
Wikipedia co-founders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger have intervened in the dispute, with Wales—a self-described "strong supporter of Israel"—publicly stating that the Gaza genocide entry lacked neutrality, failed to meet Wikipedia's "high standards," and required "immediate attention" after an editor blocked changes to the article.
"Wales and Sanger are using their roles as Wikipedia founders to bypass the normal editing and review process and introduce their
own ideological biases into an entry that has already undergone exhaustive vetting and review by Wikipedia editors, including thousands of edits and comments," the 42 advocacy groups said in a letter to Wikimedia's board and site editors.
"Their efforts deny the documented reality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and contradict the broad consensus among genocide scholars, international human rights organizations, UN experts, and both Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations," the groups continue. "In doing so, Wales and Sanger are engaging in attempted censorship and genocide denial."
The letters' signers include the American Friends Service Committee, Artists Against Apartheid, Brave New Films, CodePink, Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), Doctors Against Genocide, MPower Change Action Fund, Peace Action, and United Methodists for Kairos Response.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, Israel's retaliatory obliteration and siege on Gaza—for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes—have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing. Around 2 million other Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, sickened, or starved in what hunger experts say is an entirely human-caused famine.
"The simple reality is that Israeli officials and pro-Israel organizations are attempting to hide the horrifying reality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza by pretending that there is a substantive debate and by putting pressure on institutions like Wikipedia to engage in genocide denial," the groups' letter asserts.
"Wales’ 'both sides' framework for denying the Gaza genocide," the groups warned, "could also be used to legitimize Holocaust denial, denial of the Armenian genocide, or to platform 'flat-earthers' who deny the Earth’s spherical shape."
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Championed by Graham Platner, Medicare for All Increasingly Popular in Maine and Nationwide
"Healthcare is a human right. That’s why we need Medicare for All," said one senator. "And the American people agree!"
Dec 15, 2025
In Maine, only one of the top two candidates in the Democratic US Senate primary has expressed support for the specific healthcare reform proposal that continues to be treated by the political establishment as radical—but which is supported by not only a sizable majority of Mainers but also most Americans surveyed in several recent polls.
Graham Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer who was a political novice when he launched his campaign in August and has polled well ahead of Gov. Janet Mills in several recent surveys, and a poll that asked Mainers about healthcare on Saturday showed he is in lockstep with many people in the state.
As the advocacy group Maine AllCare reported, the Pan Atlantic 67th Omnibus poll found that 63% of Mainers support Medicare for All, the proposal to transition the US to a system like that of other wealthy countries, with the government expanding the existing Medicare program and guaranteeing health coverage to all.
Those results bolster the findings of More Perfect Union in October, which found 72% of Mainers backing Medicare for All, and of Data for Progress, which found last month that 65% of all Americans—including 78% of Democratic voters—support a "national health insurance program... that would cover all Americans and replace most private health insurance plans.”
Even more recently, a Pew Research survey released last week found that 66% of respondents nationwide said the government should guarantee health coverage.
Platner has spoken out forcefully in support of Medicare for All, saying unequivocally last month that the proposal "is the answer" to numerous healthcare crises including the loss of primary care providers in many parts of the country and skyrocketing healthcare costs.
He made the comments soon after Mills said at a healthcare roundtable that "it is time" for a universal healthcare system, but did not explicitly endorse Medicare for All.
Maine AllCare noted that the latest polling on Medicare for All in the state comes as Maine "is on the verge of a multi-pronged healthcare crisis" due to Republican federal lawmakers' refusal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies—which is projected to significantly raise monthly premiums for many Maine families as well as millions of people across the country. People in Maine and other states are also bracing for changes to Medicaid, including eligibility requirements.
Those changes "alongside long-standing affordability and access gaps, are projected to cost Maine billions and trigger deep operating losses in already strained hospitals," said Maine AllCare.
The group emphasized that that the Republican budget reconciliation law that President Donald Trump signed in July is projected to have a range of economic impacts on Maine, including a $450 million decline in statewide economic output, the loss of 4,300 state jobs, and the loss of $700 million in revenue at the state's hospitals due to Medicaid cuts.
“Maine needs a sustainable and universal healthcare system now. Poll after poll show people want Medicare for All. Our leaders can let the current health system continue collapsing—harming families, communities, and the economy of our state—or they can meet the moment and fight like hell to enact change that protects both the people and the future of the state," said David Jolly, a Maine AllCare board member. "That is the work Mainers elected them to do and that is what they must do now.”
Despite the broad popularity of the proposal to expand the Medicare program to everyone in the US—a system that would cost less than the current for-profit health insurance system does, according to numerous studies—supporters, including the 17 cosponsors of the Medicare for All bill in the US Senate and the 110 cosponsors in the US House, continue to face attacks from establishment politicians regarding the cost and feasibility of the proposal.
On Monday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) explained to Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo how the Affordable Care Act that was passed by the Democratic Party is "not the solution" to the country's healthcare crisis, because it keeps in place the for-profit health insurance industry.
"The solution, as everyone knows, in my view, who has studied this, is Medicare for All," said Khanna. "People should have national health insurance. Healthcare is a human right. You should not be subject to these private insurance companies that have 18% admin costs, that are making billions of dollars in profits."
I made the case for Medicare for All on @MorningsMaria with @MariaBartiromo with facts and basic economics. https://t.co/ExZpCNQT7B pic.twitter.com/F226Kutv16
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) December 15, 2025
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) also spoke out in favor of the proposal, pointing to the recent Data for Progress poll that showed 65% of Americans and 78% of Democrats backing Medicare for All.
"Healthcare is a human right. That’s why we need Medicare for All," said Merkley. "We need to simplify our system and make sure folks can get the care they need, when they need it. And the American people agree!"
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