October 2013
To: VFP Chapter Contacts to share with their Chapter members; VFP Members at Large
From: Co-Sponsors of VFP Resolution 2013-10 (Phil Restino – VFP 136, Dr. Bill Warrick – VFP 14, Buzz Davis – Member at Large, Don McKeating – VFP 119)
RE: VOTE YES ON RES. 2013-10 TO SEND IMPEACHMENT LETTER TO CONGRESS
Resolution 2013-10 is to address and remedy the inconsistent implementation by VFP’s national leadership in regards to the impeachment resolution passed in 2004, which led to the public call for impeaching the Republican President Bush and VFP’s national office providing VFP’s membership with a downloadable flyer which included a copy of the March 19, 2005 official letter signed and sent to each member of Congress by VFP’s national president at the time David Cline, as compared to the impeachment resolution passed in 2011 whereas VFP’s national president at the time Elliott Adams first promised to update the March 19, 2005 letter to reflect the impeachment of Democrat President Obama for war crimes resolution passed in 2011 and send it to each member of Congress.
Elliott Adams later reversed himself and as VFP’s elected leader abdicated his duty to do so to VFP’s acting Executive Director at the time Mike Ferner who then refused to do any more than fax a copy of the impeachment resolution 2011-7 supposedly to each member of Congress along with a simple fax cover sheet providing a single sentence statement to the effect of “the attached resolution was recently passed at VFP’s national convention”. At least two members of Congress, Sandy Adams (FL-24) and Ron Paul (TX-14), when asked had no record of having received notice from VFP of the passed resolution 2011-7 directing Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Obama for war crimes.
Consider that out of the 535 members of the U.S. House and Senate roughly half of them were Republicans. Also consider that the Republican leadership was very public about wanting to make the Democrat Obama a “one-term” president. Now consider that just 15 months prior to the November 2012 presidential elections, each member of Congress was given notice that a national left-leaning veterans antiwar organization that had for years strongly called for the impeachment of the Republican Bush was now calling on Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the Democrat Obama for the same crimes.
Out of some 250 or so Republicans bent on seeing the Democrat Obama defeated in the 2012 presidential election, you would think that at least a single one of them would make some noise about it. Obviously the single-sentence fax cover sheet sent by VFP’s acting Executive Director Mike Ferner flew under the radar of members of Congress with plenty of room to spare. We encourage you to phone your own respective member of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and find out if he or she knows anything about VFP’s resolution 2011-7 calling on them to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Obama for war crimes.
By not providing VFP’s membership, and the general public at large, a simple to do update of the downloadable flyer with a copy of the VFP national president’s letter to Congress as was done in 2005 the national office of VFP in effect prevented its membership and others from having the same tools to lobby our respective members of Congress, our local officials, our local communities and media to take notice of VFP’s call as a national organization for impeaching the Democrat Obama for war crimes. To this very day, some 2 years and 2 months later, VFP’s national leadership has refused to provide its membership with any such tools to pursue the impeachment resolution passed at VFP’s 2011 national convention and reaffirmed by a larger vote by VFP’s membership in 2012 to use as a means to bringing an end to the 12+ year war that we’re supposed to be doing everything we can to stop.
Between August of 2011 and January of 2013 multiple requests were made of VFP’s national office to update and make available to VFP’s membership as a downloadable file on the VFP national website its already existing March 19, 2005 flyer and letter to Congress to reflect the passage of resolution 2011-7 calling for impeaching the Democrat President Obama for war crimes. Updating the letter would have basically involved changing the name of the U.S. President from Bush to Obama and the signature of VFP national president from David Cline to Elliott Adams, with a few other minor edits.
An official letter from VFP’s national president has still not been produced and sent to each member of Congress in regards to VFP’s passed resolution 2011-7 and therefore still no copy of the letter is available to current VFP members on the VFP national website as the same type of downloadable file as was provided in 2005. Passage of Resolution 2013-10 would force VFP’s current national president Patrick McCann to fulfill the will of VFP’s membership and provide members the same tools to use for the 2011 impeachment resolution as it had previously provided members for the 2004 impeachment resolution.
Like it or not, the 2011 impeachment resolution passed fair and square and in the same manner as the 2004 impeachment resolution, and those VFP’s who don’t like it should not be able to prevent their fellow VFP’s from having the same standard of tools to use as were provided by VFP’s national office following the passage of the 2004 impeachment resolution. Yes on Resolution 2013-10.
In addition to a number of individual members of Veterans For Peace writing in to register their support for passage of the VFP Resolution 2013-10, we have heard back from the following Veterans For Peace chapters that have endorsed as a chapter the passage of VFP Resolution 2013-10:
Chapter 002 – New Hampshire
Chapter 003 – Bangor, ME
Chapter 010 – Albany, NY
Chapter 022 – Garberville, CA
Chapter 062 – Southern New Hampshire
Chapter 109 – Olympia, WA
Chapter 119 – St. Petersburg, FL
Chapter 136 – Central Florida
Chapter 151 – Big Bend, TX
Chapter 154 – Fargo, ND
Please also share with the members of your Veterans For Peace chapter the following information for consideration before casting their vote on VFP Resolution 2013-10 listed on the mail-in ballots soon to be mailed out by the national office of Veterans For Peace:
(1) CFVFP’s Phil Restino interviewed by Alex Jones re VFP and Impeaching Obama, Sept 25, 2013
10-minute YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcfI-PtXuec
(2) CFVFP’s Phil Restino radio interview by Phil Smith of VFP 100 on AK Public Radio, July 2013
60-minute YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ3PxdRH_dg
(3) Article “Timeline to Veterans For Peace’s Vote to Impeach Obama”, by Phil Restino, August 8, 2013
See http://www.activistpost.com/2013/08/timeline-to-veterans-for-peaces-vote-to.html
(4) Article “IMPEACH OBAMA!” by CFVFP’s Tom Santoni, February 2, 2009
See http://www.globalresearch.ca/impeach-obama/5318745
(5) VFP National’s letter from David Cline to members of Congress re Impeachment on March 19, 2005
See www.veteransforpeace.org/files/4113/3433/7465/impeachment_flyer-bw.pdf
(6) VFP’s Mike Ferner promoting VFP Natl’s downloadable Impeachment Letter/Flyer of March 19, 2005
40-second YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFhEZ4vfLNc