Strong Peace Movement Needed to End War in Ukraine

By Peace Fresno Board

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words are as true now as they were on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City when he said that “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today [is] my own government.”

When Rev. King spoke those words, the national Peace Movement had just taken off. Young men were being drafted to fight in the American war in Vietnam. The Peace Movement played a major role in ending the war.

There was a brief flurry of antiwar activism in the early 2000s as our country brought its war machine to Afghanistan and Iraq. Now there is little national interest in curbing U.S. militarism abroad as we don’t feel the effects here.

The leadership team of Peace Fresno is passionate about the well-being of our fellow humans and other creatures on this planet. War and its devastation are intolerable to us.

We, the people, must demand a change in U.S. policy regarding war in Ukraine because

• Supplying arms and support to Ukraine intensifies and prolongs the killing and destruction.
• It reduces the possibility of a negotiated resolution of the war.
• People in the United States, Europe and worldwide are experiencing economic collapse, energy infrastructure decline and food shortages due to the war.
• It is causing nations large and small to join together against U.S. domination.
• This war could purposefully or accidentally trigger a nuclear war that would end life on earth.
• Money spent on war by all parties reduces money that could be spent making the world a better place.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the U.S. Congress approved $68 billion in aid to Ukraine, which is about $235 million per day. In December, Congress appropriated an additional $345 billion in aid to Ukraine.

In his address to the Riverside Church, Rev. King said that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Peace Fresno believes opposing war is our moral responsibility.

The reasons for the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has a backstory. And the reasons for the U.S. funding, arming and supporting Ukraine are much more complex than the stories told to us by our government and repeated by big media. As citizens, we have a responsibility to learn more about why the United States wants war in Ukraine—which is, admittedly, a proxy war against Russia.

An effective Peace Movement needs thousands more individuals coming together and standing against our country’s addiction to war and international domination.

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Peace Fresno is an antiwar education, advocacy and activist organization. Its goal is the abolition of war. Peace Fresno works to build the peace movement locally and nationally.