ACTION ALERT:
Don’t Let the EAGLE Act Fly Through Congress
CODEPINK
Send a letter to the House of Representatives today to ask them to vote no on the latest environmentally destructive and wasteful anti-China bill, H.R. 3524 The EAGLE Act. We know US imperialism impacts people outside of the United States the most, so we invite all people to send a message to Congress that this anti-China fueled militarism must END!
Despite all of CODEPINK’s warnings and protests, the anti-China bill H.R. 3524 The Ensuring American Global Leadership and Engagement Act, or EAGLE Act, is going to a vote in the full House of Representatives.
We rallied outside of Nancy Pelosi’s house asking her to block the bill because it would appropriate more than $7 billion of our tax dollars to military contractors and $225 million to military training in the Asia-Pacific region, pollute the earth with military waste, destroy the environment with military infrastructure and exercises, and spread racist and xenophobia anti-China propaganda through the US Agency for Global Media. (Read the recap of the action and see more media here.)
We know US imperialism impacts people outside of the United States the most, so we invite all people to send a message to Congress that this anti-China fueled militarism must END!
The EAGLE Act is the latest multi-Billion dollar anti-China bill being considered by Congress, but if we let it pass the House without opposition, it won’t be the last. The EAGLE Act builds on the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 by expanding and increasing the bill’s billion-dollar allocation to the Department of Defense.
The military spending in the EAGLE Act is anything but “defense” as Department of Defense spending pays for aggressive war games at least 6,000 miles away from the US mainland. These war games like the biennial Talisman Saber exercises in Australia and the Pacific Griffin exercises in Guam destroy natural ecosystems and worsen the climate crisis; the military itself admits these exercises kill and maim over 81,000 marine animals every year in and around Guam alone.
Even more revealing, the EAGLE Act’s text refers to the Asia-Pacific region as “the United States Indo-Pacific” in a bold assertion of the US’s belief in its right to dominate and militarize the Asia-Pacific region across the ocean.
Tell your member of Congress to vote no on more funding for militarism and environmental destruction in the Asia-Pacific region. Tell them to vote no on H.R.3524, the EAGLE Act! And to read more about the dangers of the EAGLE Act, check out our article in CounterPunch here.
We have watched as numerous dangerous and expensive packages of legislation isolating China have passed the Senate with little debate and even less media coverage — now we have a chance to push back and stop The EAGLE Act in the House! Let your Representative know that China Is Not Our Enemy and that we need legislation that encourages cooperation with China, not militarized aggression and racist propaganda.
Onward toward peace,
Madison, Jodie, RJ, and the CODEPINK China Is Not Our Enemy campaign
You can read H.R. 3524 the EAGLE Act here.
THE LETTER
Dear Member of Congress,
I am writing to you today to urge you to vote no on the massive anti-China bill H.R. 3524 The Ensuring American Global Leadership and Engagement Act, or the EAGLE Act. The EAGLE Act is a wasteful piece of legislation that commits our tax dollars to funding foreign military training and education while appropriating an additional $7 billion dollars to the Department of Defense.
I find it inappropriate to allocate more than $225,000,000 dollars to international military training and education and $7 billion dollars to the US military, both of which will increase carbon pollution and greenhouse gasses in a bill that makes clear the devastating consequences Americans would face if the global average temperature rose 2 degrees Celsius.
I am also deeply concerned by the numerous references to munitions and weapons buildups that give away our tax dollars to military contractors while escalating tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. As an American, I am exhausted by foreign wars fought in our name that harm and kill innocent people overseas while making us less safe, and I do not want to see my representatives pushing for more missiles, surveillance, and mock nuclear strikes in preparation for war over the future of Taiwan. In order to truly protect Americans from actual threats like nuclear war and climate change, Congress must be willing to stop expanding our costly and polluting military-industrial complex.
The EAGLE Act brings us dangerously close to war with China by deepening the US commitment to defend Taiwan at all costs, including with nuclear warfare. This deeper commitment to Taiwan ignores years of established US foreign policy known as the One-China policy, which has delivered peace and stability to the region.
The EAGLE Act provokes conflict and begins the buildup for a protracted war over Taiwan by encouraging Taiwan and other US allies in the region to heavily invest in weapons and munitions “to meet contingency requirements and avoid the need for accessing United States stocks in wartime.” These buildups cannot reasonably be called deterrence while this bill also agitates existing agreements for peace like the One-China Policy.
While the EAGLE Act seeks to ensure American global leadership, it ignores our most pressing domestic issues, ensuring that America is not a role model for other nations as our citizens face deteriorating health systems, out-of-control police and gun violence, mass incarceration, and disastrous climate change.
Another unacceptable aspect of the EAGLE Act is the consistent anti-China rhetoric that is repeated again and again throughout the bill and in promotion of the bill. As the language in the EAGLE Act that portrays China as manipulative, distortive, and predatory is spread by mainstream media outlets, the narrative paves the way for more dangerous, and potentially deadly, scapegoating of not just China’s politicians and leaders but all Chinese and Chinese-perceived people, including other Asian and Asian American communities.
We have already seen coast-to-coast violence against Asian communities in the US in part because of this kind of political rhetoric; this is a continuation of the political rhetoric the Trump administration began.
Even more alarmingly, the EAGLE Act would invest half a billion dollars into producing, spreading, and legitimizing misinformation, propaganda, and rhetoric that demonizes China while overtly promoting US interests. This includes a minimum of $50 million dollars in funding for Radio Free Asia, which began broadcasting propaganda to mainland China in 1951, and which even the New York Times has described as “an arm of the CIA.”
Ultimately, the EAGLE Act is a wasteful, environmentally damaging, and racist bill that will exacerbate domestic and international issues that people in the US currently face. Instead of addressing issues that impact the American people like nuclear proliferation, gun violence, and poor public health systems the EAGLE Act would allocate billions to the military, enriching weapons contractors and destroying our already strained environment.
Please vote No on the EAGLE Act and use your power and authority in Congress to legislate solutions to humanity’s greatest issues by cooperating and working with China.
ACTION ALERT: Don’t Get Yanked into War With China
World BEYOND War / ActionNetwork
Appeal To: The Governments of Independent Nations
Not Obliged (and Legally Not Permitted) to Join in Another US War
We people and organizations the world over support the following petition. (We even wear it. See link.)
(August 20, 2021) — We people and organizations the world over, including in the United States and China, urge governments of the world not to allow themselves to be dragged into supporting US threats of war against China, which violate the United Nations Charter.
We implore sensible independent legislators not to swallow the propaganda. China, like every other government on the planet, has serious flaws, none of which legally, morally, or practically justify threats of war or build-up of armaments for war, and none of which might be expected to improve (quite the reverse) as a result of such threats.
China spends on its military some 14% of what the United States and its allies and weapons customers spend. China is not the nation that has been waging endless wars and building countless bases around the world. China has been investing more heavily in eradicating poverty and confronting environmental collapse. China needs, as every nation needs, to do much more of that. The nations of the world need to act cooperatively.
The relentless US push for militarization and threats of war should not be given cover any longer by international partners, coalitions, or alliances. Criminal activities should be shunned and isolated even if US veto power prevents international bodies from holding those responsible to account.
No one knows whether COVID came from a laboratory or its researchers, but we do know that that work was internationally funded, supported, and engaged in. We do know that China has provided a useful model for handling pandemics that other nations have failed to follow.
No longer can we tolerate childish accusations and hatred aimed at selling weaponry and political careers. No longer can we risk nuclear apocalypse and divert our resources from protecting the Earth.
We express our concern and affection, our brotherhood and sisterhood, for the people of China, the United States, and the rest of the planet, and for all the other living beings on Earth whose fate can be impacted by the recklessness of those who would profit from yet more organized killing.
We are greatly encouraged by the number of individual signers and the number of organizations, including both peace and environment organizations, that have signed on.
We are also encouraged by the number of independent initiatives on this topic, and the coalitions forming and collaborating.
We are encouraging groups and individuals to organize events to advance this message on or about the International Day of Peace during Climate Week, September 21, 2021, as well as on or about the big day of action in Glasgow on November 4, 2021. Resources and ideas for events are here.
We are making plans for events on and about November 4th in Glasgow.
Here are some ways you can help:
1. Reply to this email and let us know if you want to be further involved, if you’re planning an event for September or November, if your organization wants to join a coalition planning for COP26, if you plan to be in Glasgow and want to assist in events or in the petition delivery, if you would like to help deliver the petition to your national government where you are, or if you have other ideas to advance this cause (Can you make a graphic or a video? Can you bring in more allies?).
2. Share the petition with others via email, and on social media. Use this easy link http://cop26.info and this tag #COP26 and this graphic:
Peace,
David Swanson, Executive Director, World BEYOND War
