Between 80 and 100 people gathered Monday night on the street outside Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s, D-Wis., 30 W. Mifflin office as part of a series of simultaneous nationwide MoveOn.org vigils in protest of the U.S.’s potential military intervention in Syria.
The vigil began at 7 p.m. and included representatives from MoveOn.org and Veterans for Peace, according to event host Dave Leeper. The event focused on the recent debate playing out nationwide as to how the U.S. will respond to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical gas on Syrian citizens. President Barack Obama has come out in favor of intervention to mitigate Syrian chemical weapon capabilities while Congress is currently weighing the decision and is expected to come to a full decision late this week or early next week.
Leeper said he hopes Baldwin, who currently remains undecided on the issue, will “give better leadership” and eventually vote against intervention. He added intervention would constitute a “discretionary war” and would lead to more issues in Syria.
“[The U.S. intervention strategy is] purely tying somebody up in a chair and hitting them in the face over and over again until they do what they want,” Leeper said. “That’s not a good way to get people to cooperate.”
He added he would like to see an end game where the U.S. forgoes military intervention in favor of diplomacy cooperation with Russia, Syria’s ally.
“We don’t solve civil wars by fighting people,” Leeper said. “They have to be solved diplomatically.”
