Win Without War

Campaigns

• Tell President Obama and Congress: Keep America Out Of Iraq!

  Fallujah. Mosul. Baghdad. Hearing these names again sends a chill down my spine. As a Marine who served in Iraq, I know well the bloody costs paid by Americans and by Iraqis in these and so many other cities over the past decade. I have friends who to this day remain on the front lines of a sectarian conflict that is tearing their homeland apart. And I am saddened to see the renewed and growing violence once again gripping Iraq. But I also know that the solution to the chaos in Iraq is not another American military intervention. The president was right to end the Iraq War in 2011, and it would be a tremendous mistake to restart it now. The United States and Iraq have already paid dearly for George W. Bush’s disastrous decision to launch the Iraq War. With Iraq once again descending into violence, we must not repeat the mistakes of the past. No military intervention, whether a massive invasion like the one in 2003 or the limited airstrikes some are calling for today, will solve the deep and complex challenges Iraq is facing. Iraq’s problems can only be solved by Iraqis, not American bombs. Launching another military intervention in Iraq would only throw more fuel on a fire that is raging. Even worse, it would once again risk American lives in a fight that is not ours and that we cannot win. Over the past few days, the news has been filled with stories of a swift insurgent advance through northern Iraq. Sunni militants, under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have taken over city after city in northern Iraq. These militants, fresh from the fight in neighboring Syria, have made dramatic progress, capturing American-made weapons and supplies left behind by the fleeing Iraqi security forces. Their advance is fueled in no small part by the repressive sectarian policies of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The situation may get worse before it gets better, but one thing is clear: American bombs are not the solution. Even more chilling than watching the violence in Iraq is listening to the pundits here at home. The very same men and women who lied to the American public and sent thousands of my fellow men and women in uniform to their deaths are now leading the charge for another military intervention. Many of these men should be in jail; none of them should be listened to. If my friends in Iraq are to ever find peace, if their children and their grandchildren have any chance of growing up without the butchery of beheading knives and the carnage of car bombs, peace will come through negotiation and settlement, as it briefly did post-2007, and not through an American strategy of choosing sides, choosing winners and losers, and indulging in the self-satisfactory, self-indulgent, guilt-erasing, yet illusory, medication of bombing.

  77,325 of 100,000 Signatures

  Created by Matthew Hoh
• Tell Congress: Stop Bannon's national security takeover

  Steve Bannon is a dangerous right-wing extremist, and Donald Trump just gave him a seat at the most powerful table in the world. The National Security Council is a group of the president's most senior military, diplomatic, and intelligence advisors, or at least it's supposed to be. Under a directive issued on Saturday by Donald Trump, Steve Bannon—the "alt-right," white-nationalist chief strategist to the president—has been appointed to the inner circle of the NSC, while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence have been relegated to attend NSC meetings on an "as needed" basis. This unprecedented move politicizes our national security far beyond what George W. Bush and Karl Rove did, and it opens the door to even more disastrous efforts like the Iraq War and the Patriot Act—or much worse. Thankfully, Congress has the power to stop this. Congress created the National Security Council and as recently as last year passed legislation regulating it. Right now, members of Congress are drafting legislation to keep Steve Bannon off the National Security Council and protect the independence of our national security from Donald Trump's political meddling. This isn't just about sending a message. Bannon is reportedly the driving force behind the extreme, un-American executive orders Trump has issued in his first week in office. In fact, according to CNN, Bannon personally spearheaded Trump's order banning all immigrants and visa holders from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S., and slamming America's door to all refugees indefinitely. Congress must immediately undo this politicization of America's national security. Bannon represents the worst of the Trump administration's hardliners. He has made a career out of facilitating the rise of white nationalism, argued that being perceived as evil is a source of political power, has been praised by the KKK and neo-Nazis, and more. All signs suggest that Bannon believes deeply in the so-called clash of civilizations and that the United States needs to be made into a hub for a new kind of right-wing populism centering on white identity politics. We cannot let this vision be the beating heart of our nation's national security policy. We know that this is terrifying. But the amazing mobilization of our movement over the past 10 days shows that we have the power to stop this. Millions of us have taken to the streets: from the unprecedented Women's March to the actions across the country at airports that helped reunite families torn apart by Trump's Muslim ban. Now it's time to keep the architect of Donald Trump's hateful and dangerous agenda away from America's national security. Take two minutes to make sure your members of Congress hear loudly and clearly that they must act.

  442,494 of 500,000 Signatures

  Created by Stephen Miles
• Tell the Media: War is not entertainment

  When U.S. presidents order military action, the American people need and deserve a strong, vibrant, and independent news media, one that not only challenges the assumptions that lead us to war, but also one that holds our leaders accountable for the way in which they are conducted. When President Trump illegally launched military strikes on Syria, and later, when the U.S. military dropped one of the largest conventional weapons in its arsenal on a target in Afghanistan, we witnessed some of the most irresponsible and reckless coverage from the corporate media since they helped President Bush launch the Iraq war. War is not entertainment. But the media is glorifying Donald Trump’s warmaking, and it’s time we make them stop.

  23,224 of 25,000 Signatures

  Created by Stephen Miles, Win Without War
• 

  Congress: Cancel the Failed F-35 Fighter Jet

  After 20 years and BILLIONS of dollars it still has NINE deficiencies so serious they could “cause death, severe injury, or severe occupational illness” to the pilots flying them. ENOUGH. From Los Angeles, CA to Burlington, VT, too many of us are struggling to recover and rebuild from the worst of the pandemic. Classrooms have no heat or AC, families go hungry to pay for prescription medicines, a massive climate crisis is coming straight for all of us because lawmakers say the solutions are too expensive — because lawmakers say the solutions are too expensive. One way we could save BILLIONS every year is obvious: Add your name to tell Congress to cancel the F-35 Failed Fighter Jet!

  20 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Stephen Miles
• Eliminate the Pentagon’s Slush Fund

  By the end of this year, most of our troops will be home from Afghanistan and our nation will finally turn the page on more than 13 years of war. The President has promised to pivot our nation from its war-footing, do some nation building here at home, and put our fiscal house in order by finally reining in the Pentagon's bloated and waste-ridden budget. But the Pentagon has a trick to keep the money flowing, a massive slush fund known in Washington as the 'Overseas Contingency Operations' (OCO) account. By using that slush fund, the Pentagon and its friends in Congress have managed to not only protect billions of dollars in wasteful spending, but to completely avoid any of the dramatic cuts that domestic programs like education and health care have faced over the past few years (1)! It’s time to get rid of the Pentagon’s slush fund. Our troops are finally coming home from the Middle East, yet the Pentagon's budget remains sky-high. Over the past year, more than half our troops in Afghanistan came home, yet the Pentagon's account for the war actually increased! This wasn't because the 30,000 troops in Afghanistan were suddenly twice as costly. Rather than bringing our tax dollars home with our troops - and using some of that money to pay to heal the wounds of our veterans from over a decade of war - Congress chose to protect the profits of Pentagon contractors by adding billions to the Pentagon's OCO slush fund on spending that had nothing to do with the war in Afghanistan and everything to do with special interests in Washington. Recently, the Pentagon released its budget for the coming year, and it looks ready to continue the gimmicks, keeping its slush fund for years to come. Every dollar the Pentagon puts in its slush fund is a dollar less for early childhood education, nutrition assistance, and health care, all of which are being slammed by deep budget cuts. Some in Congress are calling for giving the Pentagon even more money and paying for it by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Congress and the Pentagon are depending on Americans not noticing their budget gimmicks. They're hoping that they can keep using the pretext of the war in Afghanistan to throw tens of billions of dollars into failing weapons systems and wasteful spending at the Pentagon. Thankfully, we can stop them. Sign this petition today to demand that Congress get rid of the Pentagon's slush fund, cut wasteful spending at the Pentagon, and bring our tax dollars home after 13 years of war. (1) http://huff.to/1fQJmaa

  15,192 of 20,000 Signatures

  Created by Angela Miller
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  The 4th Amendment is not for sale!

  The U.S. military, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Secret Service were *ALL* recently caught buying location tracking data from shady “data mining” tech companies. They’re using a flimsy legal loophole to bypass the Fourth Amendment and spy on all of us. This is unacceptable. Fourth Amendment protections exist to protect us all. U.S. government agencies should not be able to side-step these requirements just because data collection makes it easy. Sign now and demand Congress close these loopholes and protect our privacy by passing the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act.

  45 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Stephen Miles
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  It's BEEN time: Let's end endless war in Afghanistan

  Right now, the United States is sending people in uniform to fight and die in wars that the majority of current members of Congress have never even voted on. Now, because of the Trump administration’s sheer recklessness, utter incompetence, and flagrant disregard for life these troops been at greater risk than even we imagined — recent reports reveal that for MONTHS the Donald Trump has known that Putin's government has been offering bounties to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan…and has apparently done nothing. Such inaction is unconscionable. And a critical reminder of the long-overdue need to END the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Let’s make this the tipping point to end endless war. Add your name to demand Congress repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force NOW.

  50 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Stephen Miles
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  Cut the Pentagon Budget!

  Despite being elected to move away from Trump policies of the past, despite a clear reckoning on our priorities in the wake of COVID, and despite the fact that budgets are moral documents, President Biden is likely to propose a $740 BILLION budget that would keep Pentagon spending at Trump-era levels. Disappointed doesn’t begin to cut it. We’re furious. A growing chorus in Congress is too. But while Congress, not the White House, is ultimately in control of the purse strings, progressive champions can’t stop this budget on their own. That’s why we need to turn the pressure up even higher, and remind everyone in Congress and the White House: We want our priorities put back in order and that means cutting the Pentagon budget.

  37 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Stephen Miles
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  Tell the Biden COVID-19 task force: Vaccines must be free & accessible worldwide!

  Two U.S. companies — Pfizer and Moderna — have reported that their vaccines are 90%+ effective in providing immunity from COVID-19. This is groundbreaking, game-changing news for people here in the United States and all over the world — but only if everyone can access these treatments. NOW is the time to demand these treatments be free and accessible to EVERYONE. We have a tiny window to pressure President-elect Biden's COVID-19 task force to ensure PEOPLE come before PROFITS. A Biden administration must not only immediately rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO) — the United States has got to go further. Add your name now to urge President-elect Biden's COVID task force to support the global COVAX initiative AND ensure that any FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine is made COMPLETELY free and fully accessible to everyone, as quickly as possible.

  52 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Stephen Miles
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  Tell Congress: The U.S. must welcome refugees NOW

  President Biden is breaking promises he made on the campaign trail to follow in Trump’s footsteps and keep the U.S. refugee cap at an all time low. It’s abhorrent. Earlier this year, Biden pledged to raise the refugee cap for the next fiscal year to 125,000. Yet not even 100 days in office and his administration is backpedaling from that goal at a breathtaking pace — keeping the cap at 15,000 for the time being — and slamming the door shut on thousands of people who urgently need our help. If President Biden does not raise this cap immediately, the current pace of admissions will mean just 4,510 refugees will be resettled this year — far below the current limit and the lowest of any president ever. The U.S. has an obligation to open its doors to refugees. In fact, it’s a failed violence-first U.S. foreign policy that has driven displacement around the globe — exacerbating violence, systemic inequality, and the effects of the climate crisis — for decades. Congress must save the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Add your name to tell Congress to act immediately and stop Biden from further dismantling the U.S. refugee program.

  309 of 400 Signatures

  Created by Stephen Miles