FCNL in the News

Officials are suggesting the 9/11 law used by three presidents to justify every intervention of the last 18 years is applicable to Tehran, too.

When it comes to the war in Yemen, Congress has made its feelings known: It wants to end any U.S. participation, as well as block the sales of weapons to the countries carrying it out.

A new amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act will give Congress the opportunity to wrest greater control over its authorization of war under this and future presidents.

“Today is a historic day for peace,” Diane Randall, the executive director of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, which has been in the forefront of the struggle to end US support for the Saudi-led war and the de-facto blockade of Yemen, declared shortly after Thursday’s vote.

Recent Kennett High grad Fiona Davis-Walsh spent part of her spring break in the nation’s capital lobbying lawmakers about immigration. The teen was in Washington, D.C., with about 500 other young people from around the country who are part of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a lobbying organization in the public interest founded in 1943 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

Enacting the Elie Wiesel legislation represented a major victory for activists and advocates. But our work is not over.

Like many West Virginians, I am thinking of our troops serving overseas during this Christmas season. It is hard for families to be separated during the holidays. That is why many of us are sending thoughts, prayers, even gifts to adopted soldiers.

Here is a gift idea. Let’s be very careful with how and where we ask our soldiers to serve.

The Founders carefully constructed a system of checks and balances on decisions over war and peace, which has completely broken down. The biggest foreign policy choice of all — going to war — now lies with just one man.

“There are new members of Congress, new voices on this issue and they are doing this because they are hearing from their constituents,” says Kate Gould, legislative director for Middle East Policy at the Quaker lobby group.

With the recent escalation of the war in Syria, it is clear that Congress needs to demonstrate their leadership and pass the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act (H.R.3030; S.1158).