Idaho veterans resolve to Bring Our Troops Home
Idaho veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars initiate two resolutions to Bring Our Troops Home:
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2020/01/06/idaho-republican-party-passes-an...
Idaho Republican Party Passes Antiwar Resolutions
Idaho GOP pressures Sen. Risch: Bring our troops home, expose Afghan war corruption, follow ConstitutionBring Our Troops Home Posted on January 6, 2020
BOISE — Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and arguably the most influential foreign policy voice in Congress, Saturday returned home to Idaho, only to find himself under growing public pressure from veterans and even his own party to end America’s ground troops presence in the Middle East.
Initiated by a group of veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the heavily Republican state, whose efforts have quickly spread to other states, the Idaho Republican Party’s state central committee Saturday approved two resolutions urging Risch to support President Trump’s efforts to withdraw U.S. troops from the Middle East, hold public hearings to spotlight recent revelations of “constant lies” by U.S. government officials and corruption by military contractors in Afghanistan, and return to a doctrine of deploying U.S. troops for long-term combat duty overseas only after Congress has approved a formal declaration of war as provided by the Constitution.
The resolutions were approved after Risch spoke to Republican committee members, expressing his strong support for President Trump’s fatal drone strike last week on Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani.
“We hope Senator Risch is starting to hear us loud and clear, now that his own party has formally added its voice to ours,” Afghanistan war veteran Dan McKnight of Meridian, Id., founder of BringOurTroopsHome.US, said after the vote.
“Polls indicate the message of BringOurTroopsHome.US speaks for most Americans, military and civilian alike, including an overwhelming majority of the tens of millions of Americans who support President Trump, and now a majority of the grassroots leadership of Sen. Risch’s own party here at home,” McKnight said.
“We’re not going away, our voice is only going to grow louder and stronger, and soon it’ll be heard in state capitals all across the country,” he said. “End these endless wars, bring our troops home, expose and hold accountable the bureaucrats and politicians who lied while sending more Americans to die and the profiteers who secretly funded the enemy, and return to a Constitutional standard of asking American troops to do their job only after Congress has done its job by formally declaring war.”
... The resolution also urged Risch to hold hearings on the report’s findings that multiple American military contractors secretly funded the Taliban in return for being allowed to conduct their operations in Afghanistan without harassment.
“More than a hundred Gold Star families (survivors of U.S. service men and women killed in Afghanistan) on December 27, 2019, filed a lawsuit alleging that American defense contractors have and are violating the federal Anti-Terrorism Act and protecting their ongoing operations in Afghanistan by secretly making ‘protection’ payments to enemy Taliban forces,” the resolution stated, which “according to our own government’s Congressionally-authorized investigation…undermined the U.S. mission in Afghanistan by fueling grievances against the Afghan government and channeling material support (money) to the insurgency."
The resolution cited media reports that one military contractor responded to the lawsuit by saying in a public statement that its payments to enemy forces “followed the directives of the U.S. government agencies that we served."
“We insist that Sen. Risch, a hard-nosed former county prosecutor here in Boise, hold public hearings and find out if it can possibly be true that our own government used American tax dollars to hire military contractors and then instructed them to give money to Taliban terrorists who used our own taxpayers’ money to finance murdering American soldiers,” McKnight said.
... Notably, the resolution also urged the Idaho legislature to adopt legislation “requiring that the Idaho National Guard shall not be mobilized for deployment to foreign war zones, combat duty, or support of combat operations except under a formal declaration of war by Congress, as provided by the Constitution.”...
Comments
I will add a comment
that this crime, the payment of U.S. tax dollars to the Taliban by U.S. military contractors, was exposed by Bradley Manning and by WikiLeaks in 2010.
Kudos to Manning and Assange
for exposing the war crimes in Afghanistan. Chelsea took a great risk to bring us the truth about what the troops were doing and she was the only person who paid for it. Twice. Not one person was punished for killing 11 people in cold blood and then waiting around to see who would come next. Assange has too.
The people who were against the wars when Bush was doing them became huge hypocrites when Obama continued them. How can people not believe the lies from one administration and then turn around and believe them from the next one just because of which party they belong to?
Let's hope the anti war movement is growing legs.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
And the resolutions
include this statement:
I point out, not to put a damper on this frankly breathtaking development in Idaho, but to urge us all to demand the release of Manning and Assange, that what the Idaho Republicans are calling, "previously secret documents," may be accurately described as such because they are different from the exact documentation Bradley Manning exposed nine years ago, but the crime itself was exposed.
It is a testament to the power of the control of the American people's consciousness that the information in Manning's release of documents was erased from people's minds by the hysteria of illegal espionage claims, just as the contents of the DNC emails have been erased from our minds by hysterical false claims.
Either way, the strength of these Idaho veterans is our hope right now.
eat an Idaho Potato
As Linda Wood put it so well:
Eat an Idaho Potato today in honor of these valiant Idaho Veterans!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Will do!
Potatoes may represent a relief from the famine of common sense afflicting the people of our country!
I can't resist
posting the cathartic truth of this part of the second Resolution:
Being a Veteran myself,
I have recognized for a long time how the "left" has hardly engaged at all with Veterans. Trotsky was in charge of the Red army, how the fuck are we going to fundamentally change the US, with out the armed forces or some portion there of, supporting "regime change" at home? Not to mention our out of control LEO's?
Since capitalism isn't the "job engine" as capitalist like to claim, for the vast majority of military personnel, the military is the only viable job option and or career path, that has a decent healthcare plan. Housing too, for some...
When I signed up in '82 on my 18th birthday, fuck, I was ready to go shoot and kill some Russkies. Today, I think president Putin is about the only adult in the room on the world stage. Trump,... is a like a god damn toddler, crying because he doesn't have his pacifier.
When I got discharged (chatpered out), on my 19th birthday, for uncovering a drug smuggling ring from Afghanistan, through Germany, and into Lawton, OK (Ft. Sill), and then down in to Dallas, my home town, that involved officers, NCO's and enlisted personnel, lets just say I was a big fan of former General Smedly Bulter, and about as anti-war as one can get.
I think we need to engage our military, and some how LEO's, and reach out to them and let them know, we're not out to get them, we only want (really need) to develop a more humane society, which, reduces crime and renders war, essentially mute.
Of course there's this...as a reason for engagement
[video:https://youtu.be/OeJ6XbsFAdg ]
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
What is/are LEO's?
It really helps if writers define acronyms the first time they use them, e.g. LEO, a sign of the zodiac.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Apologies,
LEO's = Law Enforcement Organizations
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Sometimes referred to as
Law Enforcement Officers.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Thank you.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Interesting to note
that after the Ruskies were run out of Afganistan the Taleban took over and the drug smuggling completely halted. Even poppy farmers were beheaded if found growing them. Drug smugglers got the death penalty under Islamic law.
Of course, when Bush drove the Taleban back on their heels the drug trade picked back up where it left off. Co-inciding with the opium and heroin addiction spiking in America.
Thank you for your service in exposing the government sanctioned drug smuggling destroying American lives.
You are a true American Hero.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
The US was complicit in the rise
of opium production in Afghanistan. Prior to this time, Pakistan was the major source of opium.
FWIW
Antiwar.com has been the target of censorship, shadow bans and the like. A word on that from their late co-founder Justin Raimondo.
A reflection on Raimondo's life and work.
And (trigger warning for those fond of identity politics) some relevant thoughts on why America hasn't had (until now) a viable peace movement...
Anti-war rednecks
Thanks for the link to the ZH article, America Has No Peace Movement - Blame The "White Supremacists"
Working here along the Gulf coast (in the oil industry) for over 30 years, I've met plenty of conservatives who happen to be anti-war. Some of them are now good friends. Those on the left make a huge mistake assuming that all conservatives are war-mongers. I've found veterans, especially, are far from pro-war.
In the runup to the 2016 election, a very curious thing started happening to me. I kept having conservative co-workers come to me with very serious questions about none other than a certain Bernie Sanders. They liked what he was saying – a lot. Later, he lost a few of them when he went on to support Hillary Clinton, but not all. Likewise, his toeing the Democrat's Russia! Russia!! Russia!!! line hasn't done him any good. Nevertheless, had Sanders been on the ticket against Trump, he would have gotten support that never did show up as a blip on the big polling company's radars.