Mike Prysner, who is the executive director of the Center on Conscience & War, along with other veteran groups like About Face, Veterans For Peace, Common Defense, Fayetteville Resistance Coalition, Military Families Speak Out, and 50501 Veterans, went to the US Capitol to protest against Trump’s aggressive war against Iran.
(WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW.)
The veterans and military families asked Speaker Mike Johnson to meet with them so he could accept a folded flag and promise not to fund the war any longer.
The veterans shouted, “Not another nickel, not another dime!
We won’t pay for Trump’s war crimes!”
Speaker Johnson didn’t show up.
Instead, he had the veterans, many of whom are disabled, arrested.
In a statement, Mike Prysner said they wanted to bring attention to the possibility of US troops using their right to be a conscientious objector to avoid serving in Trump’s war, and encouraged them to do so.
“The war I was sent to senselessly claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and a million Iraqis.
Like the other veterans here with me today, I have spent the last two decades wishing I could turn back the hands of time and refuse to go. Service members have that chance right now.”
“Conscientious Objection is your legal right, and we have professional counselors who will fight to ensure you are approved and kept from deployment.
I am getting arrested to raise awareness about that option, because now is the time. This war is already deeply unpopular, and it is already a crisis for the Trump Administration. More than 100 service members have already started to file as COs, but if even more stand up, and some speak out, we have a real chance of deepening this crisis for Trump in a way that forces them to pull back from this war.”
Speaker Johnson’s cowardice has no limits.
He refuses to do his duty as a constitutional requirement to decide when and where America goes to war, and now he won’t even meet with the veterans of America’s last disastrous, destructive war that ruined so many millions of lives.
Our veterans deserve so much more than to be arrested and booked for speaking out against an illegal war that never should have been launched, by a demented and unhinged president that Johnson won’t lift a finger to hold accountable.
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