The F-35 means War

There were 469 deployments of US military forces overseas from 1798 to April 2023. So says the Congressional Research Service. More than half of those overseas deployments were since 1991.

The US keeps fighting wars. Plenty of them: More than 251 US military interventions abroad since 1991 are listed in a report issued by the Congressional Research Service called, “Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2023.” That averages to more than 8 US military deployments overseas per year.

A map of the countries where the US has militarily intervened since 1798

The 251 does not include covert operations and US sponsored coups, like the one in Ukraine in February 2014. Nor does it include domestic wars, like the vicious daily assaults on 6,663 children and adults living in Vermont cities and towns conducted by the Vermont Air National Guard with F-35 jets. It does include Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Somalia, Niger, Haiti, and many other US interventions.

Illegal, immoral, unjust

In 1967 Martin Luther King spoke out against the Vietnam War:

They ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.

In a video interview in 2019, Bernie Sanders said “the two worst foreign policy disasters were based on lies that came from the White House.” He specifically named the lies leading to the wars in Vietnam and in Iraq and their disastrous effects on our soldiers. He went on to say he will work “to stop the United States attacking Iran.” He called for the US to bring Saudi Arabia together with Iran “to work out a diplomatic solution not a military solution.”

Wasting Countless Lives. Wasting Trillions of Dollars.

The wars don’t just kill and maim soldiers and civilians. They enrich the arms dealers, like Lockheed-Martin, who use a tiny part of the money they receive for lobbying to get more contracts. The US spends more than the next 10 countries combined on war.

War transfers wealth from the poor to the rich

The wars rocket up our national debt. Since 2001, the US spent $8 trillion on wars. The scheme turns billions of dollars in taxes collected from working-class taxpayers over to pay the interest on the debt to already-wealthy bond holders. The icing on the cake: the bond holders get to pay no federal tax on the interest income from those treasury bonds.

The mounting federal debt is constantly used as pretext to cut Social Security and Medicare, delay action on climate, refuse canceling student debt, cut child care, deteriorate infrastructure, cut veterans’ health care, and reduce funding to state and local governments.

War is a climate killer

The US military is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. A larger emitter than most countries. The US Air Force is the chief emitter among the military services. It’s the climate killer in chief.

But it’s not just the vast amount of fuel burned for training flights. No. The wars vastly increase those emissions.

War and War Spending Must Stop Now

As former President and 4-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a speech on April 16, 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”

War—What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing

So said Edwin Starr in his runaway hit, “War,” in 1970.

Ground the F-35! De-fund the merchants of death!

To accomplish anything positive, the war spending and the US interventions must stop now. To save the planet from wildfires and floods. For jobs and the economy. Everything worthwhile is held up by spending for war and US deployments. To protect the climate and to advance education, health care, housing, the environment, and labor, racial, and gender rights, campaigns of every kind must include a call for an end to the US wars and the spending for wars.

Ground the $1.8 trillion F-35! Stop funding war and the war profiteers! Stop the US wars and the US proxy wars based on lies now! Bring all the troops home now! And keep them home.

Write or call your public servants and demand an immediate halt to F-35 training in cities.

Governor Phil Scott 802-828-3333 Chief of Staff <Jason.Gibbs@vermont.gov>

Submit your report & complaint to the online F-35 Report & Complaint Form: https://tinyurl.com/5d89ckj9

See all the graphs and in-your-own words statements on the F-35 Spring-Summer 2021 Report & Complaint Form (513 responses): https://tinyurl.com/3svacfvx.

See links to the graphs and in-your-own words statements on all four versions of the F-35 Report & Complaint Form since Spring 2020, with a total of 1670 responses from 658 different people plus 77 more so far on the form that remains active now.

Senator Bernie Sanders 800-339-9834 <Senator@sanders.senate.gov>

Senator Peter Welch 888-605-7270 Chief of Staff <patrick.satalin@mail.house.gov>

Rep. Becca Balint <RepBeccaBalint@mail.house.gov>

Burlington City Council <citycouncil@burlingtonvt.gov>

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger <mayor@burlingtonvt.gov>

Winooski Mayor Kristine Lott <klott@winooskivt.org>

S. Burlington City Council Chair Helen Riehle <hriehle@sburl.com>

Williston Selectboard Chair Terry Macaig <macaig@msn.com>

VT Senate President Philip Baruth <Philip.Baruth@uvm.edu>

VT House Speaker Jill Krowinski <jkrowinski@leg.state.vt.us>

Attorney General Charity Clark <Charity.Clark@vermont.gov>

States Attorney Sarah George <Sarah.fair.george@gmail.com>

Vermont’s Federal Prosecutor <usavt.contactus1@usdoj.gov>

Adjutant General Brig Gen Gregory C Knight <gregory.c.knight.mil@mail.mil>

Major J Scott Detweiler <john.s.detweiler.mil@mail.mil>

Wing Commander Col Dan Finnegan <daniel.finnegan@mail.mil>

Vermont National Guard Inspector General Lt. Col. Edward J Soychak <edward.soychak@us.af.mil>

US Air Force Inspector General Lt. Col. Pamela D. Koppelmann <pamela.d.koppelmann.mil@mail.mil>

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall <Frank.Kendall@us.af.mil>