Military
We need a Poor People’s Campaign to amplify the voices of regular folks above the lobby of militarized industry, a poisoned economy, to demand jobs in industries other than war-making, to demand opportunities for working class folks that don’t require killing other working class folks.
Between 1.5 and 3.4 million Iraqis have been killed since 2003. Now, as we begin the 16th year of the Iraq war, the American public must come to terms with the scale of the violence and chaos we have unleashed in Iraq. Only then may we find the political will to bring this horrific cycle of violence to an end, to replace war with diplomacy and hostility with friendship.
![Media Silent as Congress Finally Debates America’s Endless Wars [VIDEO]](https://i0.wp.com/consciouslifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/vital-congressional-hearing-endless-war-probably-nobody-watched.jpg?resize=675%2C240&ssl=1 "Media Silent as Congress Finally Debates America’s Endless Wars [VIDEO]")
For over 16 years—a time period spanning the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations—the executive branch has leaned on that Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) to justify wars across the world—from the Philippines to Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia—in the name of defeating supposed terrorist organizations, without prior congressional approval.
As Americans debate domestic gun control following the mass shooting at a Florida high school last week, funding for military arms has evaded public scrutiny.
If North Korea seems like a threat, imagine how the rest of the world feels while watching one country violently take on the rest of the planet single-handedly, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake and promising nothing less than a nuclear holocaust in the years to come.
According to four-star General Wesley Clark, in a 1991 meeting with Paul Wolfowitz, then-under-secretary of defense for policy at the Department of Defense, Wolfowitz seemed a little dismayed because he believed the U.S. should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Storm but failed to do so. Clark summarized what he says Wolfowitz said: “But one thing we did learn. We learned that we can use our military in the region, in the Middle East, and the Soviets won’t stop us. We’ve got about five or ten years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”
The US has supported many governments that pursue wealth for a small elite and create conditions of poverty, political repression, and warfare. It is these conditions that lead to migration.
Citing grave concerns over the humanitarian crisis that’s exploded in Yemen as a result of the U.S.-backed war in the impoverished country, Norway has taken action to curb its support of the violence and carnage.
Simple-minded but deadly thinking by our war-happy leaders derives from influential groups and individuals who think we have to KILL to keep the rest of the world in line. The compliant mainstream media scares us into accepting wars and drone killings overseas, military-style defenses on our own streets, surveillance of our private lives.
The obedience of Republicans in Congress is almost always politically motivated, since they fear that moving outside of party lines will cost them their jobs. But if they think that their obedience will actually lose them the next election they will be less likely to follow in Eichmann’s footsteps. That’s why large-scale public pressure is the key to preventing nuclear war.
The U.S. Senate voted 61-36 to kill an amendment proposed by Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) which would repeal the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMF) in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In 2014, Foreign Minister de Brum was the driving force behind something extraordinary. The Marshall Islands, which had gained independence in 1986, filed a lawsuit, both in in the International Court of Justice and U.S. federal court, against the nine nations that possess nuclear weapons, demanding that they start living up to the terms of Article VI of the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
On the same day millions of Americans were thrilled to witness — and equally distracted by — a total solar eclipse, Donald Trump decided it was time to announce a “dramatically different” foreign policy plan for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Just how “different” is Trump’s new plan? In reality, the ‘new’ plan is simply more of the same failed policy of the past, one Trump promised to put an end to numerous times over the years prior to moving into the White House.
To disarm fake news, if the public is to have any hope at all, it can only come from a commitment to verifying and sourcing all of the information they receive. The psychological warriors can only have their way with a public who refuses to question their sources of information and demand proof for the claims that are being made by their supposedly neutral sources of news.
One of the founding principles of Veterans For Peace is a call to end to the arms race leading to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons. Let this be the generation that will finally ban nuclear weapons. It’s not just about peace and justice; it’s about the survival of all life on earth.
