FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2023
Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
CODEPINK Calls Out Blinken for Being a War Hawk During Senate Hearing
“Blinken, be a DIPLOMAT not a WAR HAWK!”
WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, CODEPINK activists interrupted Anthony Blinken at the Foreign Relations Committee Senate Hearing “American Diplomacy and Global Leadership: Review of The FY24 State Department Budget Request.” CODEPINK showed up with signs and messages reminding the committee members and Blinken that the United States should actually start practicing diplomacy before they discuss how to fund it.
One by one the group stood up holding signs and referenced key areas where Blinken is failing as a diplomat. The signs read:
Ukraine: Peace Talks Now!
China is Not Our Enemy
Free Palestine
No $$$ to Israeli Apartheid
Cuba Off the Terrorist List
Lift Sanctions of Venezuela and Cuba
No War!
As soon as each CODEPINK member stood and delivered their message, police moved in and removed them from the room and immediately arrested them.
The messages delivered:
“Blinken! Cut the $3.8 billion to Israel’s apartheid! Stop funding Palestinian oppression and Ben Gvir’s army. Send Netanyahu to the International Criminal Court. You met with Palestinian civil society yourself. Who will protect the Palestinians?” - Maya Garner
“Why are you following the Trump administration’s inhumane policy and not the Obama/ Biden administration’s policy of normalizations and cooperation? Cuba does not deserve to be on the terrorist list and president Biden has the power to take it off with a stroke of his pen. We need to be cooperating with our neighbors, not subjecting them to our interests.” - Samantha Wherry
“We need peace talks now to end the war in Ukraine. There is a stalemate and too many people are dying. Sec. Blinken, you are supposed to be our top diplomat. Start negotiating.” - Medea Benjamin
“You are not engaging in diplomacy with Cuba and Venezuela. You are starving the most vulnerable in these countries with brutal US sanctions! Shame on you! Venezuelan and Cuban sanctions violate the UN charter and the OAS charter!” Gregory Wilpert
“China is not our enemy! China is an economic competitor, not a national security threat to the United States. I live in Hawaii and you’ve made a target out of Hawaii and Guam & the western Pacific. Be a diplomat, not a warmonger.” - former State Department official and retired Army Colonel, Ann Wright.
CODEPINK plans to continue to disrupt power as long as the United States pursues a war economy over a peace economy. People want a better world where we resolve issues through diplomacy and dialogue, not through war and destruction. A world where diplomats actually practice diplomacy and where the people’s money actually funds the people’s needs.
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