“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” – Major General Smedley Butler
While our kids are working on the war against their rights to survive childhood, another war is threatening children by the millions…And the US has been helping it happen. We, the voters, need to step up now.
With a recent personnel change, this problem has just split into two parts.
Part 1 – Mike Pompeo
Trump just tweet-fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and proposed CIA Director Mike Pompeo, a Tea-Party conservative, torture-supporter and relentless anti-Muslim bigot, in his place. Pompeo is an ally of Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy, who has argued that adherence to Islamic law—far from being protected by the First Amendment—should be considered “an impermissible act of sedition, which has to be prosecuted.”
Taking a small historical sidestep for a moment…
A post by James H. Hutson, chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, described how our Founding Fathers in 1780 made sure that the Constitution afforded “the most ample liberty of conscience … to Deists, Mahometans, Jews and Christians’.” Thomas Jefferson campaigned for recognition of the religious rights of the “Mahamdan,” the Jew and the “pagan.” George Washington said he would welcome Muslims to Mount Vernon (his home) “if they were ‘good workmen.” and “suggested a way for (them) to ‘obtain proper relief’ from a proposed tax levy to aid Christian worship.
We’re back…
Along with anti-muslim sentiments and sub-optimal comprehension of our history and constitutional rights, neither Pompeo nor Trump are big supporters of diplomacy. Instead of acting like the adult-in-the-room we keep hoping for, Pompeo will act as an enabler of Trump’s worst ideas, like destroying the Iran agreement. A Trump/Pompeo mix is like setting a fire in our California backcountry… unpredictable, lethal and hugely destructive and the wrong choice to help us solve the Yemen problem.
Action for Part #1 – Call your senators!
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] to ask Sen. [___] to vote “NO” on the confirmation of Mike Pompeo as our new Secretary of State.
(Contact information at bottom.)
Part 2 – Yemen
Continue reading “3/15 – We helped cause this…” →