This morning at 11:00 hours, myself, Jack Doxey and Jim Brown meet with Ryan Peters, Veterans Affairs Specialist in the office of Rep. Darrell Issa. We focused on our opposition to war against Iran and pointed out the various reasons why pursuing war was an act of folly. We also focused on, and urged Mr. Peters to encourage Rep. Issa to support H.R. 4173 which calls for the president to appoint a “special envoy” to Iran and calls for a diplomatic resolution to the current stand off between the US, Israel, the 5+1 nations and Iran over the issue of the development of nuclear power. We told Mr. Peters that VFP opposes sanctions because the people being harmed are innocent Iranians. Jack requested that we hear back from Mr. Peters within the next two weeks as to Issa’s position on H.R. 4173 and whether he would support a diplomatic solution rather than going to war with Iran. Our meeting with Mr. Peters, marine veteran, lasted in excess of 30 min and he appeared to support our position. He also indicated that he thought Issa would support H.R. 4173 as it is presently written. We had a opportunity to cover all the issues on our agenda and were given plenty of time to do so.
Last Thursday, Sept. 6, Jack Doxey and I met with Jimmy Thomas. legislative and military assistant to Rep. Duncan Hunter. Mr. Thomas, a marine veterans spoke to us by conference call from Hunter’s office in Washington D.C. We were given ample time to set forth our position regarding the current standoff with Iran and H.R. 4173 along the same lines as mentioned above. While Mr. Thomas agreed that diplomacy was the best option, he was quick to point out that Israel was a strong and key ally of the US and that undoubtedly, Hunter would support coming to the aid of Israel should they take action against Iran, that the US could take preemptive action against Iran, that before the US engage in direct talks with Iran that they must improve their record on civil rights. We responded that there should be no preconditions for try to avert war with Iran and that the country with less than a stiller record on civil rights was Afghanistan. We also requested that within two weeks we hear back from them on Hunter’s position with respect to H.R. 4173.
On Sept 18 at 10:00 hours we will meet with representatives of Brian Bilbray. If you are a constituent of Bilbray and would like to join us please contact Jack Doxey (doxeyassoc@san.rr.com) or myself (bdlvfp@gmail.com).
I want to thank Jack Doxey for setting up these visits and for providing excellent documentation for us and for the congressional staffs that we met. Also, thanks to Jim Brown for adding powerful comments on our visit to Issa’s office today.
