Imagine that. President Obama is seeking congressional authorization for starting a war with Syria. Yes, bombing a country is the most obvious way to start a war. Remember our outrage when Japan bombed us without declaring war first? Now, it seems we might actually adhere to our own Constitution and international laws and get public congressional authorization first. Sort of a first in 60 years of multiple surprise bombings and optional empire building wars by the USA.
If we citizens - we voters - ever want to have anything close to a democracy again - because we do not have one now - we have to get as tough as the clique in Washington, DC. We have to draw our own line in the sand - a red line - and tell Rick Larsen that if he votes for war or violence, we will commit a non-violent act and not vote for him in 2014. We might vote for his opponent or just not vote for either. All 100 people at last week's Bellingham protest could write Rick to tell him to vote against the Syria war authorization - or lose their vote in 2014.
So - would the liberals, progressives and registered Democratic Party members in his 2nd district actually do that? Tell Rick Larsen if he votes to authorize bombing or any violence against Syria then we pledge to vote for his opponent in 2014 or to not vote for either candidate? If we want him to listen to us then that is probably what is needed. I pledge that and have written Larsen.
If you want Larsen to vote no to war, then email Larsen at his http://larsen.house.gov/contact-rick/email-rick. (He makes it hard to write him - you have to first lookup your 9 digit zip code - when in truth his office knows every address in his district.) Rick's district includes virtually all of Bellingham and south.
Susan Delbene of the 1st District represents most of rural Whatcom County. I am not in her district, and expect her to be honestly open to voting no on the "use of military force in Syria" as it is put. Her contact website is: http://delbene.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
Let us exercise our citizen's right to petition our government and representatives. It could make a difference this time - if enough of us do. And we threaten him with being voted out of office.
Comments by Readers
Scott Wicklund
Sep 04, 2013On the Emptywheel blog, Jim White has a good catch about US-Israeli trained death squads trained in Jordan and subsequently introduced into Syria. Numbers of these elite specialists vary in the known reporting from 50-300.
“The LA Times article details that the training is carried out by both special operations troops and CIA personnel. That would put this program squarely within the US tradition of training and releasing death squads that seem to be as adept at killing innocent civilians as they are at killing military targets. We have seen details of their operation in Iraq and Afghanistan under David Petraeus’ vaunted COIN program. There is no information in the LA Times article regarding the death squads entering Syria at that time. Reading between the lines of the article suggests that the squads were in a holding pattern at that point, awaiting better weapons from the US.
In direct contradiction to Obama’s Monday statement to McCain and Graham on the timing of the entry of the first US-trained death squads into Syria, we have this report from the Jerusalem Post that quotes a story first reported in Le Figaro:
The first group of 300 handpicked Free Syrian Army soldiers crossed the border on August 17 into the Deraa region, and a second group was deployed on August 19, the paper reported.
The paper quoted a researcher at the French Institute for Strategic Analysis as saying the trained rebels group was passing through Ghouta, on their way to Damascus.”
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/09/04/why-is-obama-changing-the-date-and-size-of-first-cia-death-squads-to-enter-syria/#comments
Of course it is reasonable to assume false flag ops. Training by US, Israel, and Saudi financing. What could possibly go wrong?
Make your calls!