President Obama just bombed Syria Tell Congress:
"The American people deserve a vote on war in Syria and that vote should be no. Call an up-or-down vote on President Obama's new war in the Middle East and stop the rush to war."Add your name:
Dear Matt,
President Obama dramatically escalated his misguided war to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by launching massive airstrikes in Syria this week.
Outrageously, the president launched this major air offensive without first receiving constitutionally required approval from Congress. Congress must rein in President Obama's illegal war in Iraq and Syria. Silence is consent.
President Obama's publicly stated position is that he doesn't need authorization from Congress to go to war with ISIS. Instead, he has claimed that the outrageously broad 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) -- passed at the behest of George W. Bush just days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- grants him sufficient authority to launch airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.1
This is a dramatic flip-flop for President Obama, who campaigned for president on a platform that included winding down George W. Bush's disastrous wars of choice overseas, and last year called for the repeal of the very same 2001 AUMF that he is now using to justify bombing positions in Iraq and Syria.
Congress is widely expected to debate and vote on whether to give President Obama the authority to wage a sustained, multi-year war against ISIS during the December "lame duck" session, once the pressures of election season have subsided. This will come in the form of a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Senator Dick Durbin has already announced that the Senate will debate and vote on a new AUMF for Iraq and Syria after the 2014 midterm elections.
The truth is that it's going to be a steep climb to convince Congress not to sign off on President Obama's war. But the expansion of airstrikes into Syria makes it all the more urgent that we put pressure on Congress right now not to rubberstamp another costly, open-ended war in the Middle East. Congress rejecting authorization is no guarantee that the president will halt his war in Iraq and Syria -- but it's the best shot we have.
The war against ISIS is a war of choice. There is no urgency driving an American response at this moment. Even according to the Department of Homeland Security, ISIS poses no immediate threat to the United States.
There is no immediate crisis as there was in August when CREDO supported the emergency U.S. air strikes that blocked the genocidal ISIS and helped protect minorities by holding the Kurdish defense line in Northern Iraq.2 Since then, the situation in Iraq has stabilized, and Iraq has formed a new government, replacing the corrupt and divisive former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The civil war in Syria is stuck in a bloody stalemate. The current media frenzy that has been ginned up largely by chickenhawks from the Bush administration and parroted by politicians from both parties is not an adequate justification for the United States to continue its intervention in either Iraq or Syria.
The sad and simple truth is that, when it comes to the current brutal conflict, rooted in centuries of religious hostilities in Iraq and Syria, there is no solution that American leadership can offer. Given America's history of waging wars of aggression and covert operations in the region, American military intervention will only make a terrible situation even worse.
A year ago progressives organized massive pressure on Congress to stop a war with Syria -- and we won. We can do it again, but it's going to take a truly massive outcry against the war.
Zack Malitz, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working AssetsAdd your name:
1. Zack Malitz, "5 Things You Need to Know About the President's Rush to War in Iraq and Syria," Huffington Post, September 22, 2014
2. Michael Kieschnick, president of CREDO Mobile, "President Obama Is Right to Block the Genocidal ISIS and Hold the Kurdish Defense Line," Huffington Post, August 8, 2014
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Posted by: matt love <mattlove1@gmail.com>
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