Will Vermont’s F-35 jets soon be dropping bombs on civilians in Lebanon or Iran?

The Vermont National Guard was repeatedly called up for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2017 and 2018 Vermont airmen were flying F-16 jets and dropping bombs in Iraq “without let up,” as Deputy Wing Commander Col. Brian Lepine told a reporter at the time. “It's been sortie after sortie after sortie," he said.

The war quickly lost public support

While Vermont suffered more deaths per capita in the Iraq war than any other state, all US and UK soldiers and airmen sent to Iraq were misused:  It was a war based on lies about weapons of mass destruction. Yet, 4,431 US military personnel were killed and 31,994 were wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed. Torture, extraordinary rendition, and CIA black sites were major US practices. The US and UK invasion of Iraq was an unforgivable crime against the invaders’ own military personnel as well as against the people of Iraq, while wasting trillions of tax dollars and sparking the rise of ISIS.

As the facts emerged, opposition grew rapidly. In Burlington Vermont 65.2% voted to adopt ballot question 7 in March 2005, to “advise the President and Congress that Burlington and its citizens strongly support the men and women serving in the United States Armed Forces in Iraq and believe that the best way to support them is to bring them home now.” In 2008 50 towns in Vermont voted to impeach Bush and Cheney, as did Vermont’s State Senate.

Training with the F-35 in a city is training to commit war crimes

Since 2019, Vermont airmen have been training with F-35 jets from the airport in the City of South Burlington, Vermont. The suffering that training would cause to thousands of Vermont families was anticipated by the US Air Force in its 2013 F-35 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The Air Force described how repeated exposure to aircraft noise at the 115-decibel level of the F-35 would impair the cognitive development of children (pps. C-28 to C-31) and how repeated exposure to noise at that level can cause noise-induced hearing loss in children and adults (p. C-25). More recent studies show that exposure to such noise also increases the risk of heart disease and accelerates cognitive decline in older people. Vermont’s own Chief of Pediatric Neurology at the UVM Medical Center said that “children will live with the consequences of noise-induced setbacks for the rest of their lives.”

The state’s military and political leaders, including Governor Phil Scott, US Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders, and Congressman Peter Welch, nevertheless joined in lockstep support to foist the dangerous 115-decibel F-35 noise on the most densely populated cities in Vermont that surround the airport: Burlington, South Burlington, Winooski, and Williston. Resolutions to cancel the basing in the city location were adopted by the voters with strong “yes” votes in Burlington in 2018 and in Winooski in 2021. But these state leaders remained impervious to the will of the people.

The Air Force EIS states that over 6,600 Vermonters, including 1,300 children, live in the 5-mile long, 1-mile wide oval-shaped extreme-noise danger zone of the F-35 that surrounds the runway. It said the affected neighborhoods are low income and minority (p. BR4-81) but left unmentioned that no wealthy neighborhood is subjected to F-35 noise danger. The F-35 training at Burlington International Airport is vicious state-sponsored violence targeting people based on race and class right here in Vermont.

Using a weapon in a manner for which it was not designed to cause unnecessary suffering is blatantly illegal under the military’s own discipline, US law, and international law, as described in a 62 page complaint to the Inspector General submitted by 657 Vermonters. The F-35 was not designed for daily training in a city. Compliance requires locating such dangerous training operations remote from any populated area.

Commanders and pilots who are the product of such illegal training are disqualified from callup to serve in any war: these individuals are war crimes waiting to happen.

Preparing Vermont airmen to kill civilians just like Israeli airmen do

The F-35 training in such a densely populated area, where children and adults are inherently terrorized by the extreme noise, is for the purpose of preparing Vermont airmen to do what their colleagues in the Israeli Defense Force have been doing to civilians for decades in Gaza and in Lebanon: Ruthless targeting and mass murder of civilians.

The indiscriminate bombing of homes, schools, and hospitals, and the mass slaughter of women and children in Gaza with F-35 jets flown by Israeli pilots added up to a plausible finding of genocide by the International Court of Justice and cemented pariah status for the apartheid State of Israel.

The US supplies the F-35 jets and bombs used by Israel. It vetoed UN Security Council Resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Citing the Biden Administration’s “undeniable complicity in the killing” of Palestinians in Gaza, a dozen US officials quit their jobs. The mass murder in Gaza is a joint US and Israeli responsibility.

Escalation to Lebanon means more US participation

With US officials giving the green light, as reported by Politico, Israeli officials escalated their mass-murder campaign: They vastly expanded the indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Lebanon with the US-supplied F-35 jets, plus a ground invasion, seeking to occupy southern Lebanon once again.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will need ever more US money, weapons, UN vetoes, and direct US participation as he escalates the wars, especially if he launches war with Iran. Vermont F-35 airmen, with years of practice terrorizing Vermonters, may be among those called up to participate in the mass killing of civilians in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Gaza, and Iran.

Opposition is growing worldwide

Demonstrations continue to grow. The demands are for a ceasefire now and an immediate end to all weapons transfers to Israel.

The F-35 training amidst Vermont cities must stop now. And the illegally-trained Vermont airmen must be kept out of any war.