The U.S. Peace Council condemns the U.S. government\u2019s escalating wars abroad and its deepening war against working-class, Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, and other oppressed and vulnerable communities here at home. The same imperialist system that wages aggression against Venezuela and Iran intensifies repression in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and communities across the United States. These are not separate wars \u2014 they are fronts of a global imperialist system in decline, struggling to maintain its exploitative, unilateral hegemony in the face of a rising multipolar world.<\/p>\n
In Our Americas and West Asia, the U.S. invokes \u201ccounterterrorism,\u201d \u201canti-drug operations,\u201d and \u201cnuclear deterrence\u201d to justify overt and covert forms of intervention, sanctions, and regime change in order to secure trade routes and geostrategic assets and maintain access to vital natural resources as China deepens its economic and political relations in the region. Venezuela is targeted for reclaiming its oil and building South-South unity; Iran for defying imperialist domination, supporting the Palestinian national liberation struggle, and advancing multipolar cooperation. Both nations are punished not for aggression, but for asserting sovereignty and helping shape a new world order no longer under the U.S. unilateral domination.<\/p>\n
On 10 October, Venezuela formally brought its case before the United Nations Security Council, warning of the imminent danger of a U.S. armed assault in the Caribbean. The emergency session, requested by Caracas, followed a series of U.S. strikes on small vessels that killed over twenty civilians under the manufactured rationale of an \u201canti-narcotics\u201d mission, provoking international outrage. Venezuela\u2019s UN Ambassador Samuel Moncada denounced Washington\u2019s \u201cfabricated pretext for war\u201d and urged the Council to act to prevent \u201cthe execution of an international crime.\u201d China and Russia condemned the unlawful use of force and called for strict adherence to the UN Charter. The Maduro government demanded that the Security Council adopt a resolution affirming Venezuela\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity \u2014 a call that, though supported by much of the Global South, was stonewalled by Washington and its allies.<\/p>\n
The accelerating drive toward war reflects the crisis of U.S.-dominated global imperialism. The U.S. can no longer extract the imperial rents that once sustained its global dominance, because nations of the Global South are increasingly trading in local currencies, eroding the dollar hegemony that for over eight decades has enabled U.S. billionaires and military contractors to amass vast profits. As countries \u201cderisk\u201d \u2014 that is, reduce dependence on Western financial institutions vulnerable to sanctions \u2014 they are developing alternative financial and trade systems and deepening economic, security, and social development cooperation through new regional alliances.<\/p>\n
The rise of multipolarity \u2014 and with it, new economic and security architectures independent of the imperialist core that has long extracted the South\u2019s wealth of natural resources while simultaneously creating eternal debt \u2014 threatens the very foundation of the U.S. imperialism. In response, Washington resorts to the militarism of bombings, coups, and assassinations, alongside threats of invasion and genocide, coercion, and straightforward gangsterism: snapback sanctions, trade and tariff wars, and blockades. This desperation for total control is the logic of a decaying system.<\/p>\n
At home, that same logic takes shape in the form of starving people\u2019s basic needs, extracting even more wealth by freezing workers\u2019 wages, moving to destroy Social Security, deteriorating benefits, and failing to maintain essential physical infrastructure \u2014 all to continue funneling billions of dollars into the coffers of monopoly corporations and oligarchs as income from abroad is threatened.<\/p>\n
That same logic of violence erupts as domestic occupation. For example, in the early hours of September 30, 2025, Blackhawk helicopters and armed federal agents stormed a majority-Black apartment complex in Chicago, dragging residents from their homes and zip-tying children. Regular, heavily armed ICE raids, kidnappings, and National Guard occupations of predominantly working-class cities across the country \u2014 with majorities of people of color \u2014 are now blanketing the nation. This is occupation.<\/p>\n
The ruling class\u2019s relentless campaign to dehumanize immigrants serves this same system. It diverts popular anger away from the capitalist class responsible for economic decline, manufacturing consent for repression and militarization, and providing a pretext for surveillance, border expansion, and the growth of the carceral state. The criminalization of migration sustains a massive deportation and detention industry while reinforcing racialized divisions that weaken working-class solidarity at home and abroad.<\/p>\n
Police, National Guard, and ICE raids on working-class, Black and Brown, and predominantly immigrant communities, militarized \u201cCop Cities,\u201d and surveillance programs enforce the same imperialist order that bombs Gaza, sanctions Caracas, and surrounds Tehran. The 1033 and 1122 Programs funnel billions in war mat\u00e9riel to police, while ICE collaborates with local forces through 287(g) agreements \u2014 turning every city into a battlefield.<\/p>\n
Imperialism\u2019s internal and external wars are inseparable. Just as during earlier colonial eras, militarization of policing and the expansion of the surveillance state mirror the tactics of imperialist occupation. Programs like the \u201csnapback\u201d sanctions against Iran and the deployment of U.S. warships in the Caribbean to threaten Venezuela are symptoms of the same imperialist panic that drives Blackhawk raids in Chicago.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Peace Council calls for:<\/p>\n
\u2013 Hands off Venezuela and Iran \u2014 end sanctions, blockades, and war plans.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Abolish ICE \u2014 end deportations, raids, and detention.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Dismantle the 1033 and 1122 Programs \u2014 end police militarization.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Shut down Cop Cities \u2014 stop domestic counterinsurgency training.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Redirect war budgets to life-sustaining institutions and meeting human needs \u2014 housing, healthcare, education, and climate justice.<\/p>\n
This is a war to preserve a defunct capitalist system in crisis \u2014 a system unable to rule without repression and unable to extract without genocidal violence. The struggle for peace must confront both the global architecture of domination and its domestic foundations in exploitation of the masses.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We must all move fast to stop this destructive madness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
October 12, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. Peace Council condemns the U.S. government\u2019s escalating wars abroad and its deepening war against working-class, Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, and other oppressed and vulnerable communities here at home. The same imperialist system that wages aggression against Venezuela and Iran intensifies repression in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and communities across the United States. These are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19,52,31,48,41,51,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-act-now","category-call-to-action","category-iran","category-news","category-u-s-peace-council","category-uspc-statements","category-venezuela"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17034,"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions\/17034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}