Back to Iraq Campaigns

Defederalize the National Guard

Bring the Guard Home (It's the Law!)

BRING THE NATIONAL GUARD BACK TO YOUR STATE NOW! A national campaign is underway in multiple states to bring attention to the fact that the October 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force, sending our National Guard to Iraq, has EXPIRED. The Guard must be returned to the command of our Governors and be employed at home where we need them most.

In Maryland of the Campaign to Keep the Guard Home. The Peace Action Affiliate there has a bill in the state senate, with a senate hearing scheduled for March 4. They got the bill introduced in the House of Delegates, with 17 cosponsors. They'll have a House hearing, but don't know the date of that yet. They'll have a lobby night on Feb. 23 in Annapolis.

We are cautiously optimistic that we will be successful in getting our legislation passed, which would be beyond fantastic.

There are 22 other states with active campaigns, some of which are being led by PA affiliates. This is the Web site for the national campaign.

This campaign is sponsored by the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution; contact them to get this campaign started in your state:

Liberty Tree Foundation
Phone:
(608) 257-1606
Mailing Address:
Liberty Tree
P.O. Box 260217
Madison, Wisconsin 53726-0217

Facebook: Join their Facebook page by clicking here.

States & Peace Action Affiliates Currently Running Campaigns

Pennsylvania
New Jersey
New York
Oregon
Wisconsin
Maryland

Launch a Campaign in Your State
The movement to bring home the National Guard is growing. State representatives and senators in Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island have joined Vermonters in drafting and introducing legislation to keep their state Guard units where they belong. With the latest news out of Iraq and Washington D.C. -- that the troop escalation has failed to end the violence and that the Bush administration will attempt to issue additional call up orders for Guard units this summer and fall -- the time is ripe for state action to keep the Guard in the United States.

SAMPLE LEGISLATION

This campaign began earliest in Vermont, and it is in Vermont that the effort has made the most progress. The Vermont Senate held hearings on the legislation last month. The Vermont public is debating the issue. Media outlets from the Topeka Capital Journal to CBS national news to the Houston Chronicle have covered the debate. For the first time, Americans are becoming aware of the illegality of National Guard deployments to Iraq. The Vermont debate is educating all of us; we are learning that:

* The President may only call the Guard into National Service after Congress has granted him/her that authority; otherwise, the Guard remain under the command of state officials.
* The 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq (2002 AUMF) was the act of Congress under which National Guard call ups for deployment to Iraq have occurred until now.
* The 2002 AUMF set a clear mission for the invasion of Iraq, and that mission is over. Saddam Hussein and Iraq are no long a threat to the United States or the region (if they ever were), and the UN Security Council resolutions on which the 2002 AUMF was based are no longer relevant.
* Some state elected officials are willing to stand up and defend the constitutional guarantee of a federal government of limited and enumerated powers, a military designed for national defense and not empire, and a government of laws and not of men!

All of this is already coming to light with a simple legislative push that doesn't even challenge the unconstitutionality of the war itself, or challenge the deployment of the Guard for purposes other than those spelled out in the Constitution. All this legislation says is, "Federal government, we're not even telling you that your laws are unconstitutional, we're just insisting that you to obey your own laws." Is that such a radical thing to ask? Let's find out.

Participating national organizations: AfterDowningStreet.org, Cities for Peace, CODEPINK, Courage to Resist, Iraq Veterans Against the War, LIBERTY TREE Foundation for the Democratic Revolution, Military Families Speak Out, Peace Action, Progressive Democrats of America, United for Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace, U.S. Labor Against the War, Women Legislator's Lobby, Women's Action for New Directions