Veterans
For Peace condemns the illegal U.S. attack in Syria. We call on the
Trump Administration to immediately end all military actions in Syria
and to begin intense U.S. diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in the
region. We call on our members and all those who want an end to U.S.
wars to contact the President and Congress, to meet and talk to people
about peaceful means to end the war in Syria and hit the streets to make
our resistance to war visible.
Call the White House 202-456-1111 and your
Senators and Congressional Representatives 202-224-3121 and tell them
that military action only increases the dangers and intensifies the
humanitarian catastrophe in the region.
Veterans For Peace mourns the deaths of those recently
killed in the chemical attack and the hundreds of thousands of lives
that have passed over the last six years of this conflict.
The physical effects of a chemical attack and the way it
kills is horrendous. The president stated, “No child should ever suffer
such horror.” But the ongoing war itself is horrific with many more
children dying due to countless attacks by all forces involved, disease,
and other war related crises. The madness of this multi-sided war must
end. We demand the Trump administration remove all military operations
within Syria and to stop flooding the region with arms sales.
The United States is not innocent in the death of over 400,000 people in Syria and across the region since 2011. For more than two decades, the U.S. has been the most powerful destabilizing factor in the region. For the last few years, the U.S. has and continues to support and conduct military operations within the borders of Syria with devastating effects, including the bombing and killing of civilians. Further, the 1991 U.S. led invasion of Iraq, the no-fly zones led by U.S. forces, the war in Afghanistan and the second invasion of Iraq are twenty-six years of continuous U.S. military operations. The cumulative effects of U.S. war-making, decisions made as part of the occupation of Iraq and the subsequent rise of ISIL are the most impactful factors in creating the refugee crisis and the regional destabilization the president referred to in his statement.
It should be clear after more than a generation of war that more war and violence as witnessed in last night’s attacks will not bring an end to the killing and suffering. There are no positive effects coming out of U.S. involvement in Syria and it only further contributes to the death and destruction of the Syrian people. We call on the President to stop ratcheting up tension at home and around the world. The “peace and harmony” he calls for cannot prevail through cycles of violence.
