{"id":12972,"date":"2009-07-25T09:31:34","date_gmt":"2009-07-25T14:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=12972"},"modified":"2009-07-25T09:31:34","modified_gmt":"2009-07-25T14:31:34","slug":"ivaws-mixed-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=12972","title":{"rendered":"IVAW’s mixed message"},"content":{"rendered":"

The IVAW board has decided to take action against Carl Webb<\/a>, but not how you might think. Webb has advocated for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to sabotage equipment and hinder our efforts there, putting the troops in more danger. But the IVAW says that’s not against it’s rules. The Board has warned Webb against trying to drive IVAW membership away, instead. This is from a letter the Board sent to several members who complained about Webb;
\n<\/p>\n

The Board of Directors fully understands your concerns over the statements made by IVAW member Carl Webb. It is clear to us that his statements about “splintering” IVAW are in violation of the Code of Conduct (CoC). Therefore we have sent him an official email stating that he is in violation of the CoC and further violations will result in further action to include the termination of his membership in accordance with our policy on termination. <\/p>\n

His statements on sabotage or his calls in support of the killing of American soldiers are not in violation of our CoC, as it now reads, because he has not made any threats to do so (if he has please provide us with these threats).<\/strong> The CoC reads: “Prohibited behaviors include, but are not limited to, the following:” “Conduct or threats endangering the life, safety, and\/or health of others.” Therefore supporting or encouraging others to do things is not actually doing them or threatening to do them, even if it does turn off some service members\/ IVAW members. We can not govern the organization merely by the intimidation of members threatening to quit.<\/p>\n

If a resolution or policy outlawing statements encouraging sabotage or violence conducted by a third party were passed, by the membership or Board respectively, then the Board would be empowered to take action on this, at this point however the only way to remove a member is to have a majority vote of the Board. Any member may request that the Board votes on revoking Carl Webb’s membership (or any other members’), and we will debate it and put it to a vote, but be clear that we take removal of membership very seriously. To make this request simply send an email to Board@ivaw.org stating that you would like this vote and why.<\/p>\n

According to present policy the membership may not vote to revoke another members membership so the “resolution” proposed will not go to the members for a vote. In addition to our being limited by the termination policy in conjunction with the CoC, the reason this will not go to a vote is because the policy guiding resolutions states that a resolution must “more clearly define IVAW\u2019s position related to a specific cause” – a point which the proposal to remove Carl does not meet. The proposed resolution on nonviolence however will be on the ballot for a vote by the membership and will need a majority vote to pass.<\/p>\n

We are attempting to deal with this situation and abide by our policy on termination (this can be found at the following link http:\/\/ivaw.org\/members\/documents#electionresults although you will need to be logged into the website to see it). We do not want to see the membership voting at every turn to revoke membership of anyone simply because we do not like the political views of said member. A vote on revoking Carl’s membership would set a president of a slippery slope. <\/p>\n

It has also been suggested that power to revoke membership of an individual be decentralized to the local level but that would require a bylaw amendment and ratification by the members. We suggest that any member wishing to make this decentralization happen draft a bylaw amendment, bring it to the convention, and be ready to submit it at the next opportunity to do so (in accordance with section 20.2 of the bylaws). <\/p>\n

We know that you were hoping for more decisive action but we must give members all opportunities to comply with our CoC before termination of membership. Our hope is that no member will resign form IVAW because they disagree with any other member. A much more effective way to deal with these problems is to get out and organize to ensure that IVAW is actually doing not mailing in speeches about what we want to do or should be doing. <\/p>\n

In solidarity<\/p>\n

Board of Directors
\nIraq Veterans Against the War<\/p>\n

Geoff [Stolen Valor<\/a>] Millard
\nIraq Veterans Against the War
\nNational Board Of Directors<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, see they’re flexible on getting troops killed or injured in theater, but don’t you dare drive the membership off. Webb was nice enough to copy his letter of reprimand<\/a> to our comments.<\/p>\n

This is just a transparent attempt to mollify the membership leading up to the convention in Silver Spring, MD so the ISO members don’t get tossed out on their collective ass. Well, the truth is; the ISO is what has divided the IVAW because they’re more interested in being a wing of the anti-war organizations. They’re happier being window dressing in the front of an ANSWER protest than they are being a veterans organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The IVAW board has decided to take action against Carl Webb, but not how you might … IVAW’s mixed message<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,37,30,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antiwar-crowd","category-ivaw","category-phony-soldiers","category-usual-suspects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}