March, 04 2021, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jon Rainwater, Peace Action, 510-469-3700, jrainwater@peaceaction.org
WASHINGTON
Peace Action Executive Director Jon Rainwater released the following statement regarding reports that President Biden seeks a Congressional debate on the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs).
"This is welcome news, and will allow Congress to step up and take its rightful role as a body that decides whether or not the country engages in an endless war. But we greet this announcement with very cautious optimism. Getting at the legal unpinning for endless war is critical, but it doesn't truly get at the heart of this life and death matter.
"The President and Congress must work together to actually end the decades long fighting, killing, dying and spending that is on automatic pilot. That means bringing all U.S. troops home from far flung war zones from Syria to Afghanistan.That means ending the U.S. airstrikes that tragically often kill civilians and only serve as a recruitment pretext for the very forces the U.S. is fighting. Wrapping up war operations can, of course, be done in parallel with debates on repealing the war authorizations.
"We don't want to replace a long term mortgage for an endless war, with a pricey, but narrower lease on endless war that gets renewed every few years. That would not, at all, fulfill the President's promise to 'end endless wars.' A congressional debate is long overdue, but it has to be a full and open debate that actually recognizes that endless war has failed. It must recognize that as we grapple with racial justice at home, we must reflect on a legacy of interference and bombing in countries where the majority of people are people of color.
"So we do welcome the President putting this on the agenda early in his tenure. We call on all peace loving people in the U.S. to get active and take this as an opportunity to truly stop the bloodshed and wasted resources."
Peace Action is the United States' largest peace and disarmament organization with over 100,000 members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states, works to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs and encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights.
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