J20: We want a new foreign policy!
Press Conference 1/19/2021
My name is Drake Myers, I’m here today speaking on behalf of the Anti-War Committee, one of the groups that initiated this protest. We are an all-volunteer group that has been organizing against US wars and occupations since 1998.
Foreign policy is something that unites both Democrats and Republicans. They both love to drop bombs, steal oil, and tell other countries that their elections are fraudulent. Now we’ve gotten a little taste of that here, even, how easy it is for some racist rich guy like Trump to say an election is a fraud, a fake election. That’s what US imperialism has said about any election it didn’t like for a long time, calling on reactionaries and local white supremacists to do the dirty work just like at our capitol. Before he called our election fake, Trump attacked Venezuelan and Bolivian elections, with no evidence, because those countries wouldn’t bend the knee to US oil and lithium companies. The idea that this government should ever lecture anyone on democracy is a joke. The U.S. sponsors anti-democratic states all around the world, like the regime in the Philippines or the Zionist occupiers of Palestine.
But the people of Venezuela fought back, and US-backed coup attempts failed, so Trump put Venezuela on a starvation diet with economic sanctions. Tens of thousands of the poorest Venezuelans are dying each year as a result. The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment, food, and other essential imports. Imagine what that looks like under COVID.
Venezuelans are not alone. The US currently has sanctions on 39 other countries, nearly a third of the world’s human population, all suffering under weaponized poverty and sickness. Sanctions are war. The situation is dire.
We have 800 military bases in 80 countries and 1000 at home. No other country has more than 10. And they say we can’t afford universal healthcare or reparations to descendents of slavery or indigenous people. They say we can’t afford even to send people checks during a pandemic where hundreds of thousands of our loved ones have died. The US is responsible for 20% of deaths worldwide with 4% of the population, that’s a failed COVID response.
Recently Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism and is beating the drums for war in Iran. A lot of top military and national security officials are actually excited that Biden is a more predictable and old-fashioned imperialist than Trump. This is not exactly who we’d prefer to be taking over a situation where we’re on the brink of war on every continent.
We in the Anti-War Committee want to be clear: we have more in common with the average working class Venezuelan, Iranian, or Cuban than we do with Donald Trump or Joe Biden or any of their powerful and wealthy friends. We do not want more wars. We do not want more bases or walls or drones. We want Biden to end the sanctions on the people of Venezuela and Iran! We want money for human needs, not war!