Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide

"You only leave home," writes Kenyan-born Somali poet Warshan Shire, "when home won't let you stay."

A fraction of the millions of people driven from their homes by political, economic and military forces find temporary asylum within the Western nations that precipitated the mass exodus in the first place. Many others without means to flee are subject to the dictates of Empire: that might-makes-right and winner-takes-all, that "America Comes First," as President Donald Trump would have it.

The number of civilians killed by U.S. air strikes in Syria and Iraq has skyrocketed over the last several months, reports New York Magazine Journalist Benjamin Hart: the watchdog organization Airwars found that the total number of dead since Trump took office is roughly equivalent to all civilian casualties during President Obama's entire tenure.

We ignore crimes against humanity at our peril. U.S. citizens have a special responsibility to halt the atrocities committed in their name. Occupations, bombs, and secret operations have wreaked havoc in the Middle East for decades. We must forge another path, where humanity and the planet come first.

Stop the Desperation of Refugees, Stop Bombing Their Countries

The pretense of "humanitarian aid" fails to disguise the true motive for armed intervention -- the enforcement of U.S. global hegemony. While Islamic Fundamentalism does not represent anything emancipating or liberating, military incursions by the United States have occasioned ever more suffering to nations that challenge the notion of American exceptionalism. Want to end the humanitarian disaster unfolding before our eyes? Stop U.S.-sponsored bombing of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.