Scott Ritter joined Medea Benjamin and Code Pink to urgently lobby members on Capitol Hill to do what they could to stop the U.S. from starting a nuclear war.
By Joe Lauria
on Capitol Hill, Washington
Special to Consortium News
Scott Ritter, the former U.S. Marine counterintelligence officer and chief U.N. weapons inspector joined forces with Medea Benjamin and Code Pink to lobby members of the U.S. Hose of Representatives to urgently act to head off what could be impending nuclear war with Russia.
Ritter laid out the immediate peril the world faces, which is being dangerously ignored by most of the U.S. government and establishment media. That’s because U.S. intelligence services have foolishly concluded that Russia is bluffing, Ritter argued.
He told Congress members and their staffs Thursday on a day-long venture in the labyrinth of House office buildings on Capitol Hill that based on his conversations with Russian officials the U.S. could take no chances.
Ritter had direct meetings with Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and with staff members of about a dozen other members, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and Reps. Daniel Webster (R-FL), Roger Williams (R-TX), Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Delia Ramirez (D-IL).
With Benjamin, Ritter urged House members to
- sign a letter to the U.S. president urging he change course;
- co-sponsor a resolution recently introduced that would prevent the firing of U.S. long-range ATACMS into Russia;
- hold hearings of the House Intelligence Committee to challenge the intel that Russia is bluffing; and
- appeal to members of President-Elect Donald Trump‘s transition team to get Trump to make an immediate statement that after he is sworn in he will order a cessation of ATACMS being fired into Russia.
Such a statement now from Trump, Ritter argued on Capitol Hill, would lessen tension with Moscow over the ATACMS and possibly avert catastrophe.
1hr, 3 min. Camera and Interviewer: Joe Lauria, (0:50 to 4:20 courtesy of Liz Holzman). Producer and Editor: Cathy Vogan.
Scott Ritter entering a Congressional office at the Capitol to warn about nuclear war. (Joe Lauria)
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
Please Support CN’s
Winter Fund Drive!
Make a tax-deductible donation securely by credit card or check by clicking the red button:
Why waste your time? Even if staffers, or lawmakers themselves claim interest in your view, they then have the three-headed monster of their donors, their party colleagues, and their base to contend with; and if those are informed by a mainstream view, your (minority) opinion is unimportant. Don’t lobby, threaten and enforce – that’s what real lobbyists do. We on the left ought to study AIPAC and other successful movements.
This legislation will not prevent the Penis Pianist Giftzwerg Zelenskyy from launching these nuclear-war-provoking long range missiles into Russia. “Certain Elements” within the CIA Ops. will train “Certain Elements” within Ukraine to operate these weapons. The same “Elements” that Victimizer Nuland launched in Ukraine’s to spark the Maiden Revolution back in 2014.
The missiles will be launched by “Known Unknowns” giving Uncle Sam “deniability”, (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). Using RumsfieldSpeak!
There are “Certain Elements” within the US believe that the U.S. can win a war with Russia. These moronic slugs are of the same ilk that thought they could beat an in-his- prime, Mike Tyson.