{"id":32342,"date":"2018-12-21T12:35:12","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T20:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=32342"},"modified":"2018-12-21T12:35:12","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T20:35:12","slug":"a-christmas-miracle-usa-stopping-a-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/21\/a-christmas-miracle-usa-stopping-a-war\/","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas Miracle? USA Stopping a War?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump has \u201ccommander in chiefed\u201d an end to the illegal US role in the war in Syria. And there are reports the Commander in Chief may order a draw down in Afghanistan, the war that keeps on giving! Knock me down with a feather! Turns out it ain\u2019t that hard to end a war! It must be a Christmas Miracle! In the lifetime of the post 9-11 generation, the USA has started many a war, but ended nary a one. Is this a new era? Is it evidence that this Christmas Christ may return? I do not know how else to understand it.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the usual suspects are grumbling about this, Lindsey Graham among them, but let us give Trump credit for standing up to the war profiteers and their bought and paid for apologists, peace may break out before anyone thought possible! Even the Senate has gotten into the act, moving to end the US war on Yemen fought by Saudi Arabia, a lapdog dependency if ever there was one, so the USA could pretend it was just \u201csupplying aircraft fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Can this Christmas Miracle continue? Dare one hope it spread? Imagine, as John Lennon musically urged, no war. Impossible? That is what Christmas Miracles are all about, accomplishing the impossible.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The U.S. is officially fighting undeclared wars in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawfareblog.com\/document-white-house-legal-and-policy-frameworks-use-military-force\">seven countries<\/a>, according to the White House\u2019s latest war report, known as the \u201cReport on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding the United States\u2019 Military Force and Related National Security Operations,\u201d the unclassified portion admits the USA has ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Niger \u2013 all under authority granted in the <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/national-security\/363182-heres-why-authorization-to-use-military-force-is-so-important\">2002 Authorization <\/a>for the Use of Military Force to fight al-Qaeda-linked militants. Wouldn\u2019t it be a miracle if all seven of these \u201cofficial\u201d wars ended over Christmas by order of President Trump?<\/p>\n<p>Wouldn\u2019t that be an amazing reaffirmation of the teachings of Christ, who told St. Peter that violence was not the answer, not even to defend Christ himself from arrest by the Romans? Wouldn\u2019t that be a wonderful Christmas gift to all the soldiers at risk of death and disability, their families and the people of those ravaged, war torn countries? A Christmas miracle indeed!<\/p>\n<p>Now that I am ramped up, why not go for the whole enchilada! Let\u2019s end \u2018em all, not just the \u201cofficial\u201d wars but all those unofficial wars as well. \u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly where we\u2019re at in the world, militarily, and what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Sen. Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2017\/10\/23\/politics\/niger-troops-lawmakers\/index.html\">said<\/a> in October 2017. That was in the wake of the combat deaths of four members of the Special Operations forces in the West African nation of Niger. Turns out the US has Special Ops forces deployed to 149 countries in 2017. Because these are \u201csecret\u201d not \u201cofficial\u201d wars, just like Lindsey Graham, one cannot be sure how many of these secret wars are still going on, or how many were added in 2018. It would take a Christmas Miracle just to keep track of them. <i>So<\/i> why not a Christmas Miracle to end them all at one fell swoop?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it is a propitious time to end all these wars. Given the danger of a confrontation with Russia over Ukraine and China in the South Seas, where significant opponents with nuclear arsenals await, maybe the USA should stand down from the brink and embrace the Christmas Miracle. I am ashamed to admit it, but I was losing my belief in Santa Claus given the plethora of unremitting bad news. But now I am going to sit down and write Santa a letter \u2013 I am asking him for a Christmas Miracle!<\/p>\n<p><i>Kary Love is a Michigan attorney who has defended nuclear resisters, including some desperado nuns, in court for decades and will on occasion use blunt force satire or actual legal arguments to make a point.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump has \u201ccommander in chiefed\u201d an end to the illegal US role in the war in Syria. And there are reports the Commander in Chief may order a draw down in Afghanistan, the war that keeps on giving! Knock me down with a feather! Turns out it ain\u2019t that hard to end a war! [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":342,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-32342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/342"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32342"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32344,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32342\/revisions\/32344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32342"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=32342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}