Olympia City Councilmember TJ Johnson responds to the Council's resolution to end the US Occupation of Iraq

author : T. J. Johnson topic : Iraq occupation | Olympia City Council

[On February 6, the Olympia City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on the President and members of Congress to end the Occupation of Iraq and bring our troops swiftly and safely home. Following the unanimous ratification of the resolution, Councilmember TJ Johnson offered these comments:]

I am disappointed that this resolution is necessary.

I am disappointed at the Bush administration's arrogance, incompetence and unwillingness to listen to the clear majority of US citizens who believe that the Iraq war was a mistake and who have said that the time has come to end this national nightmare.

I am disappointed that the US Congress only yesterday refused to even debate a tepid non-binding resolution opposing the president's dangerous escalation of the war, and that Congress appears more interested in ensuring the continued flow of campaign contributions from defense contractors like Boeing than in exercising their constitutional obligation to curb the excesses of the executive branch by cutting off funds to this illegal and immoral war.

I am disappointed that the per capita cost to the residents of the City of Olympia for this war now equals $53 million (National Priorities Project). Had this money not been spent to kill men, women and children in a country that posed no threat to our citizens, it could have been used to:

* Build 478 units of affordable housing. This would have helped ensure that people were not forced to sleep in a downtown parking lot.

* Hire 921 public school teachers

* Provide 2,578 four year college scholarships. In other words, this money could have sent every graduate of both high schools in Olympia to college for four years

* Send 7,045 preschoolers to Head Start for 1 year.

I am disappointed that a Harvard Study released today estimates the lifetime costs of medical care and benefits for Iraq war veterans will exceed $700 billion. How this will be paid for has not yet even been considered.

I am disappointed that we will likely never know the total number of civilians killed in this war because in the words of former Defense Secretary and international war criminal Donald Rumsfeld, "we don't do body counts."

I am disappointed that the budget President Bush has submitted to Congress calls for an increase in defense spending of 11% to $481.4 billion, plus $245 billion more for Iraq & Afghanistan. This is more money than the rest of the world spends on the military combined.

I am disappointed that according to our own government's assessment the Iraq War has made Americans more vulnerable to a terrorist attack, while further eroding our civil liberties and our already fractured standing among the community of civilized nations.

When I took the oath of office as a member of this Council, I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Article 6 of the Constitution states that all treaties made under the Authority of the United States shall be the Supreme Law of the Land. The Iraq War is a clear violation of the United Nations Charter, which only allows military action against another nation if done to counter an imminent threat of attack, or if authorized by the UN Security Council. The US attack on Iraq met neither of these conditions. Therefore it is a violation of the Constitution, and I am bound by my oath of office, as are all the members of this body, to oppose it.

So, of course I will vote in favor of this resolution, which I believe reflects the view of a clear majority of Olympia citizens. The sooner we end this tragedy the better, and if passing this resolution tonight helps achieve that goal then the time spent preparing and debating this resolution will have been time well spent.

But I am also disappointed that our national debate over the Iraq War appears to be based on the assumption that the United States is a peaceful country and a force for good and stability in the world, and that this war is somehow an aberration or an anomaly. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the Iraq War is the inevitable result of a political system that has become captive to the interests of multinational corporations and defense contractors, and a population obsessed with violence and systematically conditioned to live in a state of perpetual fear.

The reality is that the United States has become the most militaristic nation on the planet. Since World War II, the US has used violence and intimidation, as well as direct military intervention in dozens of countries, from Vietnam to Guatemala, the Balkans to Somalia, Panama to Libya. No other country even comes close.

93% of our foreign policy budget is controlled by the Pentagon; only 7% is administered by the State Department. Military budgets have steadily increased under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and now exceed the combined amount of all other federal discretionary programs combined. Bush's plan to increase the size of the military by an additional 92,000 soldiers and marines has drawn wide bipartisan support, with many calling for even larger increases.

The American military empire now includes over 700+ bases in over 100 countries. International concern about the reach of the US military is at an all time high, and has prompted the organizing of the first ever Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases, to be held next month in Quito, Ecuador.

This nation routinely rejects its obligations under existing international treaties, such as the Geneva Convention, the Nuremberg Principles, the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and the 1967 Space Treaty, when they are at odds with our military objectives. Our national scientific, research and development programs are focused increasingly on designing even more horrific ways of destroying life than the lethal means we have already achieved.

Meanwhile US military contractors like Boeing and Raytheon rake in record profits, campaign contributions ensure that Congress keeps the contracts flowing, and the revolving door between private defense contractors and senior government officials now swings directly into the office of the Vice President.

In the final analysis, we have achieved precisely what President Eisenhower warned the nation about in his farewell address in 1961. The strength of the US military industrial congressional complex has become the dominant power on the planet, and a threat to our democracy and the very existence of continued life on this planet.

So while we take this small step tonight to demand that our federal officials act to end the War in Iraq, it is essential that we understand that unless all of us directly begin to address the underlying issue of what author Andrew Bacevich calls "The New American Militarism" wherever it rears its ugly little head, from the Port of Olympia to the textbooks used in our public schools to the surveillance and persecution of peaceful grassroots organizations, it is only a matter of time before we find ourselves opposing yet another war, with citizens of conscience again turning to their local City Council for the moral and courageous leadership so lacking in our statehouse and national capitol.

Visit http://www.omjp.org to read the text of the Olympia City Council resolution.