Giving the President Authority to Wage War with China Puts the Entire Planet at Risk
CODEPINK
https://www.codepink.org/luria
(October 25, 2021) — Representative Luria wants to give Biden the power to go to war with China without Congressional approval, risking nuclear war and diverting more of our tax dollars toward militarism — all while US citizens suffer in turmoil at home!
Just four days after the public disclosure that US special operations forces and Marines have secretly been in Taiwan for more than a year conducting training for Taiwan’s ground and maritime forces, Democratic Representative Elaine Luria wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, entitled “Congress must untie Biden’s hands on Taiwan,” advocating for the passage of Republican Senator Rick Scott’s Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act. By expanding President Biden’s authority to go to war with China over Taiwan, the bill would endanger the entire planet, risking nuclear war.
Before serving as a Congresswoman (including as vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee), Luria served in the Navy for 20 years. She takes pride in being one of the first women in the Navy nuclear program and having served her entire career on combatant ships. She’s one of the Democratic Party’s most outspoken supporters of US’s funding of Israeli apartheid and war crimes against Indigenous Palestinians. Luria is the last person the United States should trust to prevent more cyclical violence and war.
Luria’s call for the expansion of the president’s war powers come after China’s recent flights into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), a concept created by the US Military during the Cold War to counter China. An ADIZ is unilateral, meaning not recognized as sovereign airspace by any international laws or treaties, and the southwest corner of the ADIZ where Chinese war planes flew is nowhere near Taiwan’s actual air defense zone or land.
More importantly, the uptick in Chinese military activity in the region follows an increase in Washington’s military footprint and aggressive activity in the region, including fleets of US and ally warships sailing through the Taiwan Strait. As Benjamin Norton, Assistant Editor of The Grayzone News remarks, top US general Douglas MacArthur repeatedly referring to Taiwan as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” “says a lot about how US imperialists see the island.”
Now Luria is allying with Republican war hawks like Rick Scott to escalate the war on China! Luria argues in her op-ed that expanding the president’s legal authority to use military force against China would “de-escalate the situation” and “deter an all-out war” — never mind the fact that a US-China conflict would de facto be a global conflict.
This is a page right out of the US Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex’s playbook, and we’ve seen it end before in mass death, devastation, and more cyclical violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Vietnam, and countless other regions.
A US Military intervention over Taiwan would severely risk nuclear war, a subsequent nuclear winter, and planetary extinction. The United States already came narrowly close to nuclear war with China and the Soviet Union over the Taiwan Strait in 1958.
THE LETTER
Dear Congress Member Elaine Luria:
As a concerned citizen, I am reaching out to ask that you stop advocating for an expansion of President Biden’s war powers through Senator Scott’s Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act or through any other means. More overseas US Military interventions won’t make Americans any safer; they will only endanger us and the entire planet!
Your recent op-ed in the Washington Post, “Congress must untie Biden’s hands-on Taiwan,” argues that this expansion of the President’s authority to go to war with China over Taiwan would “de-escalate the situation” and “deter an all-out war.” Yet, a US-China conflict would in fact constitute a global conflict, a conflict which could easily turn nuclear, risking nuclear winter and planetary extinction. Furthermore, a top Taiwanese security official, National Security Bureau Director-General Chen Ming-tong, has also stated that the chances of a war with China within the next few years are “very low.”
In order to truly “deter an all-out war,” we in the US desperately need you to use your power in office to support life-affirming policies that address food insecurity, housing and healthcare inequality, climate catastrophes, and much more.
Respectfully,
If Elaine Luria really wants to “deter an all-out war,” she should support life-affirming policies that US citizens so desperately need to address domestic food insecurity, housing and healthcare inequality, climate catastrophes, and more! No US war on China!
Onward toward peace,
Madison, Jodie, the CODEPINK China Is Not Our Enemy campaign, and CODEPINK
P.S. Don’t miss the next China Is Not Our Enemy webinar, A View from India: The Quad & AUKUS, THIS Wednesday, 10/27 at 12pm ET with Prabir Purkayastha of Newsclick & CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans! RSVP now!
