Obama to Congress: rubber-stamp my perpetual war

Likewise, "[b]ombing different groups who live in the same area as ISIS has helped unite ISIS with more moderate groups, more reasonable groups, who could have been persuaded to rejoin the political process," according to Raed Jarrar of the American Friends Service Committee. Sarah Lazare reports that in December 2014, a US coalition bomb hit a jail operated by ISIS in al-Bab, Syria, killing at least 50 civilians.

We need to stop using military force as a solution to everything - indeed, it is a solution to nothing. We must focus on diplomacy, including, as Phyllis Bennis advocates, pressuring our allies such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE to stop allowing ISIS to cross their borders and stop financing and arming all groups who claim to oppose President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

There are groups pursuing nonviolent solutions in Syria, Damascus-born author and poet Mohja Kahf notes. We should support the Organization of Women's Freedom and the Federation of Workers Council and Trade Unions in Iraq.

We must also push for the repeal of the 2001 AUMF and prevent the passage of a new AUMF.

We cannot rely on Congress or the president to reverse the course of rampant US militarism. It is up to us to make our voices heard. Mass opposition in the United States to Obama's proposed airstrikes on the Assad regime in 2013 was instrumental in preventing those strikes. Congress and the White House do respond to popular pressure. We must call, write, email and demonstrate, write letters to the editor and op-eds, and voice our disapproval of Obama's perpetual war.