Dear VFP members:
I’ve taken the liberty of borrowing from the title of Sir Winston Churchill's first book of his WW II trilogy for the subject of this email. In doing so I want you to hear of my anxiety at the possibilities under a Donald Trump presidency.
"Donald Trump is the most illegitimate president in American history. He lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, losing by a higher percentage than any winner of a presidential election in modern history. Trump “ (Huffington Post)
He is a racist, misogynist, egotistical, ignoramus, law breaker with no demonstrated knowledge of our Constitution or legal governmental processes. He spontaneously “tweets” threats about nuclear buildups and war. He attacks and threatens media and even individuals who write or state disagreements with him, bringing on threats to life from his crazy followers. He constantly prevaricates and outright lies in order to make his points. He is anti-public-education, anti environment, and a non-believer in climate warming.
Most unsettling is his disregard and avowed ignorance of recent cyber attacks on our electoral system, which likely got him “elected” president.
Recently I’ve been asked by a couple of chapter members about how we should respond to being attacked by such cyber methods from foreign countries or individuals. I have replied that we will discuss this issue at our next chapter meeting on January 13th. But I have personally disclosed, as chapter 46 president, that I am not a pacifist and thus would personally support defending ourselves if under attack by any means. I say that along with stating that I am the proud holder of life membership number one of Veterans For Peace. In my mind there is a strong distinction between defending oneself vs. the unprovoked attacking or others as an instrument of national policy.
I received this today from a life-long friend who served in various federal intelligence capacities over more than 40 years:
"I have been privileged to read both the Joint Analysis Report issued by the Intelligence Community 12/29/16, and the Joint Statement of the Director of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence issued in October; which was the stimulus for the JAR.
It is clear to me that the hacking of the National Democratic Party, and intrusions into the US electrical grid SCADA (Secure Control System), were conducted by actors in Russia, operating from inside Russian national intelligence agencies.
The INTEL community has been discussing this threat for nearly three years, but the activities of this calendar year is the first time we have found fingerprints.
I hope our national response continues to be swift and vigorous."
Now we have a president-elect who wants to ignore these attacks, obviously because they got him elected. Yet even his Republican party members are asking for greater responses than President Obama gave to Putin and Russia. Now we have a president-elect I believe to be dangerous and likely to put us in harms way. This just came in today from the Washington Post, which again makes me nervous about having Mr. Trump at the helm.
The bottom line for me is we members of Veterans For Peace and of VFP chapter 46 will be facing difficult times the next four years. We will likely be engaging in difficult decisions along the way. Things in this country have never been easy for peace people but we could experience them getting a lot worse. It will be rough going but time for us to stand up and be counted.
So I’m asking for all our members to step up support this next year 2017. We may be few in number but we take our strength from the principles of peace and social justice expressed in our VFP mission. We will be counted among those willing to speak out for what we believe and value.
Standby for heavy rolls my VFP comrades. There appears to be a gathering storm on the horizon.
Phil
Phillip Butler, PhD
CDR, USN (ret.)
VFP Chapter 46 President
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda