Hello Indivisibles,
The President’s threats to commit grave war crimes tonight could mark a major escalation of the war in Iran and descent into a spiral that will affect the entire world and which will be extremely difficult to end. I hope – I really, really, really hope that he pulls back, or someone convinces him to act with common sense, or God, or some divine entity, decides to act with alacrity to intervene.
This is happening while Congress is on a 2 week recess. That is not an accident. But Congress needs to take emergency action to stop this madness.
There are two events tomorrow which you should consider attending.
First, Senator Peter Welch will be in South Hero tomorrow (Wednesday) from 11:00 to 12:00 at the Worthen LIbrary. Please attend and impress upon him the dire urgency of taking action against this President and his rush into a calamitous war. Plan to arrive by 10:30.
Second, Emergency Protest in Montpelier tomorrow (Wednesday) at 6:30, in front of the State House. See flyer below.
This war has already caused fuel shortages across the globe and a dramatic rise in oil price, gas prices, mortgage rates, and will soon create increases in food prices and almost everything else that is moved by a truck, train or plane on its way to a store or your home. Even if the war ended tomorrow, oil prices will take weeks or, more likely, months to come back down. Not only does the current shortage have to recover, but oil reserves have been blown up in the Middle East and pumping, processing and shipping infrastructure has been attacked and repairs will take time. If the war continues, or worse, escalates, oil and gas prices will continue to rise. As in, “you ain’t seen nothing yet”.
This administration has already asked the American taxpayer to pick up the enormous tab. First it was $220,000,000,000 ($220 Billion). Now, this week, it is $1,500,000,000,000 ($1.5 Trillion). All while oil companies like Exxon/Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and others have seen their profits more than double in the past month. Why not ask them to pay for this senseless war? Or ask Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, etc to pay?
What do they hope to achieve?
Get Iran’s weapons grade nuclear material? Virtually impossible. Intelligence suggests most of it is entombed under a mountain where the US dropped some ‘bunker busting’ bombs in June. It would take an enormous amount of heavy equipment and time to dig it out. That’s why Iran has not tried to do it. And it is in the middle of the country – not a place US forces could get to. And, no one knows if the ‘canisters’ are still intact. If not, they are incredibly lethal, if anybody does find them. And, for that matter, US Intelligence is not actually sure if most of the material is in that location or if there are other locations we don’t know about. Hard to get it if we can’t find it.
Regime Change? We tried that in Viet Nam. In Afghanistan. In Iraq. It did not go well. We failed, in fact. And it cost Trillions of Dollars and thousands of US lives and millions of lives in those other countries. And we did not succeed.
Well, let’s just bomb them till they submit? As in, what Russian has been trying to do to Ukraine for 4 years, without success? And Russia has also lost one million soldiers on the front lines. No. The only way that could possibly work would be if the Iranian Revolutionary Guard cared about the people of Iran. They do not. They proved resoundingly that they value control of the country over the lives of the citizens when they massacred 30,000 (or possibly up to 70,000) in a week just a couple months ago. So it does not matter how much you make the people suffer, the rulers will not submit. And remember, Iran is a huge country. When Netanyahu spent a year reducing Gaza to rubble, that was an area only 25 miles long and 7 miles wide. Think the size of the Champlain Islands. Whereas Iran is 3 times the size of Ukraine, or 2.5 times the size of Texas. It has 92 Million people. It is madness to think we can force Regime Change.
So what is the plan? Remember, watch what they do, not what they say. What is happening is that Israel has started bombing train lines in Iran. New bombing has been done on Kharg Island. Thousands of new US troops and ships are on the way to the region. And on April 20, the Army is raising the upper age limit to enlist from 35 to 42. Governments only do that when they need more enlistees than are currently available. That means that they expect to need a larger army. It is the last step before ‘conscription’ (the draft). The last time the army raised the enlistment age to 42 was during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. That is our brothers and children and grandchildren we are talking about.
This is a war we cannot win. We must make Congress stand up and put an end to it.
Do not let Trump commit US troops to this fool’s errand. Don Quixote and Don Trump share more than a first name.
Please help convince Congress that it is time for Trump rule to end.
Marilyn Lagrow
Indivisible Champlain Islands
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