Activists across the United States will take to the streets this weekend to protest the Biden administration’s military escalation towards a war with Russia. After the Pentagon announced that “3,000 U.S. troops are being moved to Eastern Europe,” CODEPINK and other anti-war organizations organized the protests in more than 60 cities across the U.S. to stop the escalating conflict in Ukraine.
CODEPINK is calling for “serious negotiations, not military escalation, which could easily spiral out of control to the point of pushing the world to the precipice of nuclear war” as tensions at the Russia-Ukraine border exacerbate.
“Whether it’s the anti-China rhetoric causing an increase in sinophobia or the movement of U.S. troops towards Ukraine, the Biden administration is playing a dangerous and counterproductive game,” Jodie Evans, CODEPINK co-founder, said. “The chest pumping and lies that led us into the Iraq war continue to cause horrific suffering across that region and now President Biden is looking for a new war. The American people say NO WAY!”
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was a “peacetime military alliance” created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO has since expanded to 27 European countries, 2 North American countries, and 1 Eurasian country, including many former Soviet allies and members of the former Republic since 1999. The U.S. government didn’t “live up to its promise made in 1990 by then-Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would not expand ‘one inch to the East,'” according to CODEPINK.
“NATO must stop doing the bidding of the military-industrial complex,” Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK cofounder, said. “We need the money to be spent here at home on healthcare, education, housing, and the other things that improve people’s lives, not on spent more bombs.”
NATO’S expansion is said to be one of the causes of the escalation towards a war between the U.S. and Russia over Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine because “Russia has always been opposed to Ukraine entering NATO,” according to CODEPINK. In 2008, when Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko first applied for NATO membership, President Putin called Ukrainian membership “a direct threat” to Russia.
Anti-war organizations are calling on the U.S. to agree on a long-term moratorium on any further NATO expansion, “diplomacy to promote de-escalation and a negotiated solution to avoid war and advance the Minsk II diplomatic process.”
“That will be in the best interest of all NATO nations, the Russian people, all the people of Ukraine, and the world community,” CODEPINK said in an open letter.
To see a full list of cities where protests are being held, click here.
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