ACTION ITEM
Before we opened Downsize DC, our team opposed the Iraq invasion in 2003 with a website called Truth About War. We predicted that Iraq had no WMDs. The war mongers hated that. We got death threats.
Well, we were right, and they were wrong. But we also argued a larger point …
Politicians cannot be trusted when they argue for war.
Every conflict since the Spanish-American War has been sold with lies. Could the same be true for Syria? Emails supposedly leaked to the public by a hacker suggest that the chemical attacks in Syria were actually staged by U.S. intelligence.
Is this true? We doubt it, but when you consider the whole history of U.S. wars, it's hard to argue that our “government” deserves the benefit of the doubt. We share some of that history in a sample letter to Congress below.
- Public pressure has already forced the President to seek Congressional approval.
- Maybe more pressure could also deny that approval.
Please tell Congress to oppose war in Syria. Use our campaign asking the Feds to Stop Policing The World. The hardwired message reads …
Defend America only. Do not manipulate or police the world.
You can borrow from the additional comments I sent …
Do NOT grant the President authority to attack Syria.
I distrust politicians who argue for war. The track-record is terrible. Learn from history so you can avoid repeating it…
Politicians tricked Americans into fighting the Spanish-American War, shouting “Cuba-Libre” and “Remember the Maine.” But Cuba never really gained “libre,” and the explosion of the Battleship Maine was an accident. Worse…
A war sold to fight imperialism ended with the U.S. having colonies of its own, in Guam, Puerto Rico, and, after a long murderous war, in the Philippines.
In 1914 President Wilson told Americans to be neutral about World War I, even in their thoughts. But Wilson wasn't neutral. He cooperated with the British blockade of Germany, forcing Germany to rely on submarine warfare. Wilson then used this an excuse for intervention, after winning re-election under the slogan, “He kept us out of the war.”
World War I had been a stalemate. It might have ended sooner without U.S. involvement. But U.S. entry gave the Allies new hope, so the war continued. This allowed time for the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, leading to the later Cold War. Even worse….
The terrible peace treaty Wilson helped negotiate paved the way for Hitler and World War II.
FDR later borrowed from Wilson’s playbook, doing everything he could to trick unwilling Americans into war with either Japan or Germany. He got both!
In the aftermath of World War II communism reigned over China and half of Europe. But the political class still had more disasters in store for us…
U.S. politicians gave half of Korea to the Soviets, setting the stage for the Korean War in 1950.
In 1953 the CIA overthrew a democratic government in Iran, installing a dictator. This created the Iranian enemy our politicians rail against today.
In 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin incident was staged, leading to increased U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Disaster followed.
In the 1980s U.S. politicians supported elements in Afghanistan that eventually became Al Qaeda, the group responsible for the attacks on 9-11.
Also in the 1980s the U.S. gave chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, which he used against Iran and his own people.
In 1990 an American diplomat, April Glaspie, told Saddam Hussein that the U.S. had no interest in his border dispute with Kuwait. Hussein took this as a green light for war with Kuwait. The first Gulf War followed.
In 2003 President George W. Bush scared Americans into war once again, with stories of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. There were no such weapons.
Please notice the pattern. Nearly all U.S. wars have been founded on lies and incompetence. Nearly all U.S. wars have created new enemies to justify new wars. ENOUGH.
I deny consent for another war.
— END OF SAMPLE LETTER —
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Perry Willis
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.