
Tell the White House That We Want Money For Peace, Not War
Money for Peace Not for War
This week the Senate will take up the President Biden-supported $118 billion Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act. The long-negotiated proposed bill is an urgent call for national security with some $75 billion in funding for U.S.-supported wars against Russia in Ukraine and in Israel’s retaliation in Gaza.
It is also cloaked with a big carrot for the Republicans: some $20 billion of our tax dollars for draconian border security. And you guessed it, the party called Trump Inc. in the U.S. House of Representatives is against the bill because they cynically want to use it as an election year wedge issue AND, it’s just not punitive enough. Also, as if the Palestinian people haven’t suffered enough, the House Trumpers want to give the right-wing government of Israel even more 2000 lb. bombs.
It will be interesting to watch in the coming weeks, but the bill seems dead on arrival in its current form. Many Progressive Democrats are opposing both the $14 billion funding for the war in Gaza and the bill’s attacks on the well established U.S. humanitarian asylum system on the border.
Senator Bernie Sanders in a sharply word statement over the weekend said he will call for the removal of $10.1 billion in offensive weapons from the Israeli funding section of the bill.
“27,000 dead, two-thirds of them woman and children; 67,000 wounded; 1.8 million displaced from their homes; 70% of housing units damaged or destroyed, The U.S. must end its complicity in the nightmare unfolding in Gaza. This is why I will be offering an amendment to the supplemental bill to ensure Zero funding for the continuation of Netanyahu’s illegal immoral war against the Palestinian people,” said Sanders.
United We Dream, a leading immigration rights organization supporting Dreamers, has pointed out that any serious border bill must include a path to citizenship for the millions of DACA recipients and Dreamers. This bill is silent on Dreamers and in a statement on their website, they state: “The bill is unacceptable. This deal guts our asylum system, closes our border to the most vulnerable, increases detention and deportations, and funds genocide. The Senate Must Vote No! “
With near unconditional support for Netanyahu’s war crimes against the Palestinians, new U.S. attacks, and back-and-forth retaliatory strikes in the Middle East that could dangerously escalate into a war with Iran, it is painfully clear that the administration’s current policy in the region is simply not working.
We in PDA say it’s time to make serious foreign policy changes. President Biden, it’s time to change course–we want you to soundly defeat the Neo-Fascist Donald Trump in November, but millions here and around the world are yelling No to a War President and Yes to a Peace President.
For peace,
Dan O’Neal, for the PDA Staff
PS: If you want to be active with our End Wars and Occupations Issue Organizing Team, let us know and/or donate to our efforts here.
Please keep us out of war.