The final presidential debate needs an honest discussion about America’s role in the world, our failed, costly interventions, and whether either candidate has the intention or the ability to turn America away from expanding wars and, ultimately toward peace.
As a member of Congress I was an eyewitness and an active voice and vote against the genesis and funding of wars in Iraq and Libya. I challenged US covert intervention in Syria and its alliance with Saudi Arabia in support of jihadists. I saw both Republican and Democratic administrations and congresses, blindly support wars, even when they promised to end them, by voting to fund military action overtly and covertly.
Trillions of tax dollars have been wasted, millions of innocent lives lost to wars which were conjured by lies. Thousands of US troops were killed and tens of thousands injured, some permanently.
Comes the 2016 Presidential race and nary a peep in the Democratic primaries about war and the thinking and motivation which pitched us into combat, or in the case of Afghanistan, kept us there.
Now, in a Presidential general election fraught with serious charges of sexual misconduct and lying we are on a glide path toward massive, world-wide destruction if we do not demand the candidates state clearly whether they intend to take us toward more war, or reverse course and begin to pull back from the over 100 nations where the US is currently involved in military action.
In three weeks we will have a new president, but will we have the same old wars, and some catastrophic new ones? A looming war with Russia over Syria comes to mind. We must ask questions of the candidates now. Peace is an issue in 2016, even if the major party candidates refuse to talk about it.
Reprinted with author’s permission.
