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Monumental Life Insurance Company: Approve my moms life insurance payout. |
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Almost one year ago, we asked VoteVets supporters to write their Members of Congress urging them to oppose military intervention in Syria.
Over 50,000 of you did.
I listened to President Obama’s speech on Wednesday night with great interest, and believe he made a compelling case for the pursuit and destruction of ISIS.
But, once again, VoteVets cannot support sending arms to Syrian rebels that many reports continue to suggest are still fighting alongside some of the same groups we fought against in Iraq, and are even reportedly entering into truces with ISIS. (1) (2)
Additionally, to think that training and providing equipment to the Free Syrian Army is a decisive course of action in Syria is flawed. The United States has spent $25 billion to train and equip Iraqi Security forces (3) which were overrun by ISIS earlier this year. $500 million in arms and training to a less effective force only guarantees, at best, a stalemate that is passed to the next president. Or, worse, potentially obligate even more U.S. forces in the region at a later date.
We don’t oppose using force to attack ISIS, but the idea of utilizing the Free Syrian Army to carry the load in Syria is unrealistic.
As one of the final advisors out of Northern Iraq, I fully supported President Obama’s efforts to hold the Kurdish line and protect the slaughter of tens of thousands of Yezidis on Mount Sinjar. I applaud efforts to be more inclusive of country’s Sunni minority in a new, post-Maliki government in Iraq.
But we risk making some of the same mistakes in Syria we made during the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq, and today, I cannot support that.
Tell me what you think:
http://action.votevets.org/thoughts
Adding to this, it’s important to note just how tall of an ask this is of the American people, and those who serve, in light of recent efforts by some in Congress to block money meant to improve veterans’ health care, education, and job training.
The cost of war doesn’t end when the last soldier returns home, or missile system is sent to an enemy of our enemy. Any money Congress authorizes to expand our operations into Syria should be matched by an investment in the care of those who have fought our previous wars.
Thanks for sounding off,
Jon Soltz
Iraq War Veteran and Chairman
VoteVets.org
(1) http://www.ibtimes.com/us-backed-moderate-group-syria-signs-truce-isis-reports-1687662
(2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/12/isis-deal-syria_n_5814128.html
(3) https://twitter.com/RichardEngel/status/510200061137911808
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is doing invaluable work to make the markets for credit cards, mortgages and other financial products and services fairer and more transparent. And once again, the financial industry is going all-out to block those efforts.
The industry’s latest threat involves a proposal to make the CFPB’s complaint system more useful and user-friendly by giving consumers the right to include the specifics of their complaints in a searchable public database.
Hundreds of thousands of people have used the CFPB’s complaint system, and more than 30,000 cases have already resulted in monetary relief. Complaint data also helps the CFPB detect and respond to broader patterns of industry error or misconduct. The complaint system could be far more valuable, though, if consumers had the option of publicly describing their bad experiences. That way, consumers would be able to learn about the experiences of others and make more informed choices, and financial companies would have an added incentive to compete by actually trying to satisfy their customers, not by trying to put something over on them.
But financial companies, just as they fought the creation of the CFPB in the first place, are fighting its complaint proposal tooth and nail – through the press, through lobbying, and through a highly deceptive advertising campaign in which the industry falsely claims that businesses would not have an equal right to post their responses.
Speak up today, because the big banks are working feverishly hard to take away our chance to speak up in the future.
Thank you for your continued support for real financial reform.
Sincerely,
Lisa Donner
Executive Director
Americans for Financial Reform
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