I’ve shared the following with the five members of the City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia.
DRAFT RESOLUTION FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE
In Opposition to President Donald Trump’s Threats and Acts of War Against Venezuela
Whereas the United Nations Charter makes it a crime to threaten war and a crime to wage war except in defense or by UN authorization, neither of which is the case here, and neither of which has even been alleged here;
Whereas the misdeeds of a government provide no legal basis for a foreign government to attempt to overthrow it;
Whereas the illegal drug trade, even where real, provides no legal basis for waging war or committing murder;
Whereas President Donald Trump’s claims about the illegal drug trade regarding both Venezuela and approximately 100 people thus far killed in boats with U.S. missiles from drones are without evidence and widely considered not even plausible;
Whereas seizing a nation’s oil provides no legal basis for waging war or committing murder;
Whereas sanctions illegally imposed on Venezuela by the United States, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, have now been exacerbated by acts of war including the declaration of a no-fly zone and of a naval blockade;
Whereas even graduates of the United States Army’s law school in Charlottesville for Judge Advocates General have denounced Trump’s actions as “patently illegal”;
Whereas 63 percent of people in the United States, a purportedly representative democracy, in the most recent poll oppose military action in Venezuela;
Whereas wars normalize killing, degrade our culture, proliferate weaponry, fuel arms races, devastate the natural environment, cost a financial fortune desperately needed for human and environmental crises, shred the rule of law, spread bigotry and xenophobia, and increase terrorism;
Whereas Charlottesville has a particular responsibility to reject Trump’s recent announcement of support for an imperialistic corollary of the Monroe Doctrine;
Whereas Virginia’s Senator Tim Kaine has repeatedly attempted, as have members of the House of Representatives, to pass resolutions to prevent war on Venezuela and the murders of boaters in the Caribbean, and thus far failed narrowly;
Whereas U.S. cities and towns routinely and properly send petitions to Congress for all kinds of requests as allowed under Clause 3, Rule XII, Section 819, of the Rules of the House of Representatives, and the same is established in the Jefferson Manual, the rule book for the House originally written by Charlottesville’s Thomas Jefferson for the Senate;
Whereas Charlottesville’s City Council has passed multiple resolutions in support of No War on Iran, of No Drones, and to Move the Money, and resolutions for Divestment from Weapons and Fossil Fuels, the Demilitarization of Police, and Clean Elections, as well as quite recently for a Ceasefire in Gaza;