#International Affairs
Target:
White House, Members of Congress, Media, Committee Chairs, Peace and Justice Organizations
Region:
GLOBAL
Website:
tomhayden.com

The United States cannot afford a deepening quagmire in Libya. We call on President Obama to seek authorization from the U.S. Congress for his Libyan bombing campaign, including a mission statement limited to protecting Libyan civilians, a viable diplomatic strategy, an exact cost projection, and a timeline for the rapid withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops before the war becomes another quagmire.

We believe that Col. Quaddafi is an autocratic ruler who has controlled Libyan lives for far too long. The use of force under the international responsibility to protect civilians is justifiable.

But we also believe a further military escalation to remove or kill Qaddafi would be seen as a violation of Libyan sovereignty and a subversion of United Nations authorization 1973. Col. Quaddafi can be contained, forced into exile, or removed by the force of his own people.

We call for a responsible White House plan to end the unaffordable trillion dollar wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya. The pro-democracy movements sweeping the Middle East and North Africa deserve American diplomatic, economic and political support, but cannot become the platform for another decade of military intervention.

We support the Democratic National Committee’s recent resolution calling for a significant and substantial withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan beginning this July, and the transfer of funds for war to rebuilding our economy at home.

We further call for the most serious effort of our generation to speed the transition to energy conservation and renewable resources with the same urgency with which our government takes us to war.

It is time for a great re-thinking of American foreign policy, and a stronger movement for peace, jobs and environmental sanity.

The A Petition to Avoid an American Quagmire in Libya petition to White House, Members of Congress, Media, Committee Chairs, Peace and Justice Organizations was written by Tom Hayden and is in the category International Affairs at GoPetition.