Below is the text of a flyer we will distribute at Occupy Elgin on Saturday, August 13th, 2016 from 1 PM till 2 PM.
There is no military response to terrorism. “ President Obama has said that several times himself. And yet he has recently launched military strikes in Libya in an effort to crush ISIS there.
ISIS is indeed an evil force, terrorizing and abusing the people in the territories it controls in the Middle East. More recently it has organized or inspired evil acts of terrorism within the US and Europe. But some of our allies, especially Saudi Arabia do equally barbaric things. For example, they behead people regularly. Yet we support them wholeheartedly. Our policy is hypocritical. Our own drone wars have killed at least two thousand people including hundreds of innocent civilians and many children over the past ten years.
ISIS grew directly out of our ill-conceived War in Iraq. Al-Qaida in Iraq developed as resistance to US occupation. It then gradually morphed into ISIS as a result of the Sunni /Shia divide, which the US had exploited during that occupation and which the new Iraqi government continued to exacerbate.
Before we bombed Libya in 2011, ISIS did not exist in Libya. Our military interventions, by killing civilians and causing massive destruction to their homes and villages, make us new enemies who are strongly motivated to attack the US and our allies throughout the world.
Our War on Terrorism has not worked. With every drone strike or bomb dropped, we create new terrorists faster than we can kill the existing ones.
The NY Times labeled plans for the new bombing campaign “deeply troubling,” explaining: “A new military intervention in Libya would represent a significant progression of a war that could easily spread to other countries on the continent.”
Our War on Terrorism now takes the form of our war against ISIS, and it serves the purpose of keeping our massive Defense Industries quite profitable. We taxpayers keep paying for that.
It does not make the United States, or anyplace else on earth safer.
Politicians use our fear of terrorism to manipulate us, strut their “toughness,” and distract us from the economic exploitation and insecurities that we face in our daily lives.
Meanwhile, the justification for Obama’s new air strikes is based on the outdated and overused Authorization for the Use of Military Force that Congress passed a few days after 9/11.
Both the Bush administrations and the Obama administration have perpetrated military actions in six or more countries without any Congressional authorization. Our Congress has failed to fulfill its responsibility, under the War Powers Act, to decide when and whether the US should make war. President Obama was the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, but he continues to perpetrate unnecessary and counter-productive wars.
Call President Obama at 202-456-1111
Call Senator Durbin at 202-224-2152 and
Senator Kirk at 202-224-2854
Tell them to stop this endless war on terrorism and use the taxpayers’ money for peaceful and constructive purposes.
Distributed by Occupy Elgin
& Fox Valley Citizens for Peace & Justice
Further background here.