Our Oregon Representatives in Congress need to hear from us about Syria.  The Oregon Progressive Party offers this statement against the use of U.S. military force in Syria.

Please contact your representatives in Congress with your views; feel free to send them this statement.  Their contact information is at the bottom of this message.

Please support peaceful diplomatic solutions
and VOTE NO on any authorizations for U.S. military strikes on Syria.

History clearly guides us us to the course of action the United States must take in Syria. Only peaceful diplomacy will rid Syria, and the greater Middle East, of weapons of mass destruction in all its forms.

The use of U.S. military force is no solution for assisting the Syrian people to free themselves from tyranny and begin to build democracy. We are told military strikes will be extremely limited and involve no long term commitments or U.S. ground troops, but "limited wars" often escalate, since the U.S. can never "cut and run."

Indeed, U.S. military intervention will only blow Syria apart and place the pieces in the hands of
armed groups that behead their war prisoners and slaughter and oppress civilian populations, as indicated in this Reuters article.

US intervention in Libya quickly turned into a total air war supported by special-forces soldiers
on the ground which destroyed the Libyan regime, leading to a series of fiefdoms dominated by
warlords.

The Obama Administration asserts that use of chemical weapons crosses a red line. Does the
U.S. have the moral standing to enforce "international norms" against the use of chemical
weapons?

•          Recently declassified CIA documents show that in 1988 the Reagan Administration
provided satellite imagery to Iraq to guide its massive use of chemical weapons against
Iranian troops.  Foreign Policy magazine reported:  "U.S. intelligence officials conveyed
the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that [Saddam] Hussein's military
would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent."  US officials
knew about repeated Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iranians since 1983 and did
nothing--except to help the Iraq military target Iranian troops for the chemical attacks.

•          For a decade the U.S. dumped over 20 million gallons of chemical weapons on the
people and landscape of Vietnam: napalm, dioxin, Agent Orange, and white phosphorus
that we know about.  Vietnam estimates the results at 400,000 killed, 1 million disabled,
and 500,000 born with birth defects, to date.

•          The U.S. used "depleted uranium" munitions in Iraq in 1991 and again in 2003 and later,
resulting in cancers, birth defects, and brain disorders in Iraqis and US troops.

•          In 2005, the U.S. used white phosphorus in Falluja. The Iraqi city is now notorious for
birth defects and civilian suffering.

Additionally, the prospect of another U.S. international military intervention begs the question --
who is granting authority to the U.S. government to wage war in Syria without the support of its
own citizens or the global community?

The people of the United States have spoken clearly that they want no more blood on their
hands. The Oregon Progressive Party supports the peaceful diplomatic movement to place
Syria's chemical weapons under international control to be destroyed. Further, a greater plan
should be drafted to place all chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in the region under
international control to be destroyed.

 Please support peaceful diplomatic solutions
and VOTE NO on any authorizations for U.S. military strikes on Syria.