Let the people have peace

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/ed-tant/51751/let-the-people-have-peace

Let the people have peace
by Ed Tant | September 22, 2013 - 8:23am

Rumors of war have swirled around the world in the wake of last month’s chemical weapons attacks on civilians in Syria. The Obama administration rattled not sabers but cruise missiles in an attempt to convince Syrian dictator Bashar Assad that the United States would not stand for more chemical weapons attacks. The president who received a Nobel Peace Prize seemed all to eager to wage war on the Middle Eastern country, but all across this country the American people had a different idea. War-weary Americans on the left, on the right and in the middle of the political spectrum voiced immediate opposition to being led into another war. A president who campaigned with the slogan “Yes we can” was quickly and firmly told “No you shouldn’t” by Americans weary and wary of yet another war.

President John Adams said, “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.” British leader Winston Churchill said, “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.” People in this nation and around the world are hoping that the Obama administration will heed the wise words of those two leaders. When Washington politicians began beating the drums of war against Syria recently, they were barraged by letters and emails from their constituents calling for caution lest this nation be dragged into Syria’s bloody civil war. Anti-war organizations that had protested the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq 10 years ago again protested at the White House now occupied by Barack Obama.
eniable that the recent opposition to military action against Syria crossed party lines and political ideologies.

~snip~

Both Democratic and Republican political leaders rightly decry the use of horrific chemical weapons by nations like Syria, but they should be reminded that it was this nation that has been an arms merchant for the world, that uses depleted uranium weapons in its wars, and that has mounted scores of “little wars” and military incursions since the end of World War II. It was this nation that used the chemical defoliant Agent Orange that has been blamed for harming both American GI’s and Asian civilians during the Vietnam War and it was this nation’s chemical industry that manufactured the deadly napalm incendiary used during the same conflict.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Roman orator Cicero said, “The sinews of war are infinite money.” In the 20th century, Marine Gen. Smedley Butler said, “War is a racket.” Today the war racket takes infinite money from our nation’s coffers, money that could be spent here at home. One can only hope that the opposition to a widening war in the Middle East is a sign that Army general and American President Dwight D. Eisenhower was right when he said, “I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”