Peace Action West Statement: U.S. Airstrikes in Syria

Here’s the statement we sent out to the press right after the airstrikes began in Syria today.

For Immediate Release: 9/22/2014

Contact: Jon Rainwater, jrainwater@peaceactionwest.org

Statement of Jon Rainwater, Executive Director, Peace Action West

Oakland, CA-

“These airstrikes in Syria represent a dangerous escalation of a war without a clear end or even a clear short-term plan. With no imminent threat to the U.S., the strikes perpetuate the discredited Bush-era doctrine of preemptive war. By doing an end run around approval by Congress and the U.N., this action flies in the face of both the Constitution and international law. Just one year ago President Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly and proclaimed that the U.S. was “shifting away from a perpetual war footing.” One year later as the U.N. meets again in New York, the U.S. is embarking on a war with no end in sight.

Airstrikes won’t destroy the ideology that ISIS represents or the sectarianism that fueled their rise. On the contrary, an expanding U.S.-led intervention could hand ISIS a powerful recruitment pretext. We need a different approach that gets at the root causes of the instability that feeds groups like ISIS. The U.S. should replace the military-first strategy with sophisticated public and multilateral diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and international cooperation. This approach can better stabilize the region by cutting off funding and recruits to ISIS and developing political solutions to the civil wars in Iraq and Syria.”

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Peace Action West will continue to get out our message in the coming days. For folks wanting further coverage you can check out store on today’s airstrikes at the Guardian, the New York Times, the BBC as well as coverage on Vox that includes live tweeting from Syrians experience the strikes.