NO War on Syria: Violence Begets Violence!!!

Dear Friends,

The Great Plague of violence keeps our nation on its (spiritual) death spiral as President, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Obama continues the push toward war against Syria.  And we should be clear that this would be WAR!  Call it by any other name, and it still emits the awful stench of war.

While in Oslo, Sweden on September 4th the President (aka Decider II) was asked by a Swedish reporter if he could "describe the dilemma to being a Nobel Peace Prize winner and preparing to make war on Syria?”

The President gave the expected answer - first invoking his Nobel acceptance speech, saying that "what I also described [in that speech is the challenge all of us face, when we believe in peace but we confront a world that is full of violence.” Among other things the President said that he has "made every effort to... strengthen our commitment to multilateral action, to promote diplomacy as a solution to problems."

Where are these commitments to multilateral action and diplomacy???  Where is the commitment to working with the United Nations (as is required by international law and the Constitution) in this case? Where is the diplomacy with Syria?  Above all, where is a commitment to serious nonviolent conflict resolution?

Speaking of international law, Howard Friel wrote in Common Dreams on September 5th that:

The same law—international and constitutional—that applied to the U.S. war in Vietnam and the U.S. invasion of Iraq would apply to any congressional authorization of force in Syria by the United States. 

Like Vietnam and Iraq, Syria has not engaged in an “armed attack” against the United States, and has no military capability to do so. 

As in Vietnam and Iraq, the UN Security Council has not authorized the United States to engage in any use of force in Syria. 

Thus, a congressional authorization of military force in Syria would violate the UN Charter, and thus, as above, the U.S. Constitution.  

This would be the case even if the Obama administration’s claims about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government were accurate, although, like the Gulf of Tonkin incident and Iraqi WMD, there is no detailed or confirmed evidence to date about which entity in Syria used chemical weapons.

We The People of the United States of America must continue to say (and a vast majority of the people have said no to war on Syria) - NOT IN OUR NAME!!!  We must continue to pressure Congress (and the President) not to make war on Syria!  Let us continue to call, email, fax, get out in the streets and the offices of or members of Congress!  

Let us not rest until this madness is stopped. Let us stop the onslaught of the violence of war that will only unleash even more violence, much of which cannot be predicted (and much of it that can). Let us invoke NONVIOLENCE - the active nonviolent conflict resolution that has not even been discussed, let alone attempted, in the heat of the moment and its accusations and "red lines."

Violence will only beget more violence, and the blood of innocents will be on OUR hands.  This must not stand!  Towards peaceful, nonviolent conflict resolution.

Leonard 

Some Relevant Reading on the Syrian crisis:

• Another War Is Not the Answer (Op-Ed by David Krieger, in truth-out.org)
• Top 10 Unproven Claims for War Against Syria (by Dennis Kucinich, in Common Dreams)
• Syria: Six Alternatives to Military Strikes (by Sarah van Gelder in YES! Magazine)
• How Intelligence Was Twisted to Support an Attack on Syria (truth-out.org)
• A war the Pentagon doesn’t want (Op-Ed by Robert Scales in the Washington Post)
• US military intervention in Syria would create 'unintended consequences' (in The Guardian)
• Are Chemical Weapons Reason Enough to Go to War? (A good primer on chemical weapons in Mother Jones)
• For Syria's sake, end Iran's isolation: Iranian support to help the west bring an end to the civil war in Syria would be beyond price (The Guardian)
• Chemical Weapons in Syria (Federation of American Scientists):  
• Possible U.S. Intervention in Syria: Issues for Congress, September 3, 2013 (Congressional Research Service)
• Syria's Chemical Weapons: Issues for Congress, August 30, 2013 (Congressional Research Service)
• Syria: Overview of the Humanitarian Response, September 4, 2013