Code Pink’s Call to War?

You remember Code Pink, right? The anti-war organization that got tons of press attention against President George W. Bush’s War in Iraq, calling out to the country (but especially the media) with a “feisty call to wage peace.”

But the organization that was so outraged by Bush’s “war of choice” because it could harm millions of innocent civilians in a foreign country where America had little interest is now calling for a war of choice that could harm millions of innocent civilians in a foreign country where America has little interest.

Ah, I love the smell of irony in the morning.

Code Pink sent out an email alert today by its Founder Medea Benjamin calling for “action” in replacing the current President of Honduras with the ousted leftist President of Honduras Manuel Zelaya. They are asking President Obama to initiate and enforce a trade embargo on Honduras. Embargoes are typically seen as an act of war and are enforceable only by the military.

What? Is Dick Cheney running Code Pink now?

Here’s some excerpts of the press release full of incendiary warmongery goodness:

It’s past time for Manuel Zelaya to come home and get back to the job he was elected to do: president of Honduras. Enough is enough. It has been three weeks since the military rousted the president from his bed at gunpoint and whisked him away–in his pajamas–to Costa Rica. It has been almost a week since Costa Rican President Arias came up with a compromise that was rejected by the coup leaders. Please join us, as we did yesterday in Washington DC (see photos here) in demanding that the Obama administration take a tougher stand and support Zelaya’s immediate return! No more mediation. No more delays.

Sounds like a call to arms to me. Why the rush to war? Stop the madness!

The verbiage even escalates:

“The Obama administration has condemned the coup and cut off military aid, but that’s not enough,” women’s rights leader Sara Elisa Rosales told me. “The U.S. should recall its ambassador, freeze the assets of the coup leaders and deny them U.S. visas, and cut all financial aid. It should go even further by imposing a trade embargo. If the U.S. cut commercial ties with Honduras, the coup would fall in a day.”

This is the same Medea Benjamin who often talked about an inflated number of innocent civilians that George W. Bush’s war of choice affected and even said that the death of civilians negates any heroism performed by our troops:

“I wouldn’t characterize anybody who fought in Vietnam as a war hero. In 23 bombing sorties, there must have been civilians that were killed and there’s no heroism to that.”

So, Just out of interest, who does she think would be affected most by a trade embargo on Honduras? But I guess installing a leftist dictator like Hugo Chavez back to Honduras is more important than the lives of those pesky innocent civilians.

So Medea Benjamin is calling for a trade embargo to be enforced by the military that she said the country didn’t really need at all in 2007:

“I actually think it is people like myself who have been fighting for our rights to free speech and I would like the right to defend my own right to free speech, not have soldiers doing it for me. I don’t think I need soldiers.”

Hey Medea, trade embargoes have to be backed up with arms, you know. The kind of arms that shoot bullets and missiles. I thought you were against all that stuff.

For weeks now, Code Pink has been pushing an initiative to “Stop the Next War Now.” “

We are dedicated to creating a movement that is capable of stopping the next war, whether it is in Syria, Iran, North Korea or anywhere else. We need to educate ourselves, expose the truth to the public and create a culture of peace and compassion before we are saddled with another expensive, unjust war.

Well, so much for that. Maybe the new initiative should be called “Start the Next War Now.”