Hello, my name is Patrick McCann. I’m a high school teacher in Rockville (MD) and national president of Veterans For Peace, an organization of thousands of veterans, and 100+ chapters in the US and abroad (including the UK and Vietnam). I’m an Air Force veteran who refused orders to Vietnam in 1972, spent March of 1972 in the stockade, and received an undesirable discharge May 4th, 1972, the 2nd anniversary of the killings at Kent State.
We are here today to oppose U.S., French, and Western European imperialist involvement in Syria. We are here to oppose U.S. involvement in another war (to add to Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and Yemen, and Somalia, and Colombia, and on down the list). We’re here because we haven’t seen compelling evidence of chemical weapons used by the Assad government. Even if we were to receive compelling evidence, we don’t want the U.S., France, and other Western powers to intervene. We don’t trust these governments to make decisions in the interests of the people of the world. They’ve shown time and time again they make decisions in the interests of the bankers, the finance capitalists, the oil companies, etc.
We’re here because of the arrogance of the O-bomb-administration, which claims the divine right to a ‘limited military strike’ on Syria. This administration is prepared to embark on another war, despite a lack of compelling evidence of an attack by government forces, despite the inability to obtain the support of the U.N. Security Council, or even the British Parliament! Obama wants to lower the minimum thresh-hold for military action, as if a ‘limited military strike’ is not an act of war. He isn’t particularly interested in engaging in discussion or debate with the American people, the majority of whom oppose military action in Syria.
We’re here because our economy is increasingly addicted to war. Daddy Warbucks gets rich only if he sells weapons. Daddy Warbucks now sells weapons of war to both sides of some of the many current conflicts on our Mother Earth. This, of course, exposes the real motivations of powerful corporate capitalists and their politician puppets. Their mad drive for profit leads us to unemployment, war, etc. Now it may be leading us toward apocalypse. I don’t want to be accused of being alarmist, but I believe that these wars have become the primary instigator of the ecocide of Mother Earth. The world’s people, some more than others, now witness and experience this ecocide. So we see lives in the balance, and we are here to say…
- We demand a policy of non-intervention by the United States, France, and the Western powers in general.
- We oppose the concept of the ‘white man’s burden’ where Western imperialist powers claim the divine right to determine the destinies of the people of color of the world. They use this racist and long-discredited concept in much more hidden form today to give excuse for their illegal military adventures, for their robbery and exploitation of the people of the world.
- We see through government lies and we oppose their indefensible violence to accomplish their most evil and selfish desires.
- We demand diplomacy, negotiation, and a policy of non-intervention in Syria by the United States, France and all other imperialist forces.
These wars are immoral, unnecessary, expensive, and unwinnable. Let’s stop this one before it starts! Peace.
Go to veteransforpeace.org to see the VFP statement against war on Syria.
Contact Patrick McCann at unityact2@aol.com