Comments to Senator Maria Cantwell, April 14, 2026
As part of a delegation from the Friends Committee on National Legislation
Like others in this group, I am a Quaker. For decades, I have been bemoaning bloated U.S. military spending. I marched against the Vietnam War. I protested the war on Iraq.
But this war on Iran has pushed me over the edge. What’s different? I think it is because I now have grandchildren, and their futures are at stake.
My four grandchildren are 11, 13, 16, and 18. If the current trajectory of U.S. military spending continues, they will be living in a dystopia. It is easy to picture what it will look like in the state of Washington. A few very rich people will be running a few very large companies, all of which are busily making weapons or making them smarter. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people will be living on the streets, hungry, and even the farmers won’t have enough to eat. This is not the present — but it’s the trajectory into the future, if we keep defunding people to build weapons.
One of my grandchildren is a boy, and he may go into a military career; his father is ex-Army. If our family is asked to put his precious, beloved life on the line, I want it to be in a war that you, Senator Cantwell, authorized. I want Congress to debate that war and accept accountability to the families whose sons and daughters are at stake, to be sure it is worth the sacrifice. Even Quaker men fought in World War II because they knew what they were fighting against and for.
That is not the case in this war.
And finally, there are the immediate misplaced priorities. One estimate is that we are spending $1 billion a day blowing up weapons over Iran. If instead we distributed that money across the states according to population, the state of Washington, with 2.3% of U.S. population, would get $23 million a day. Three weeks’ worth of that money would fill the gap in special education funding across the entire state for an entire year. Two of my grandchildren, along with more than 160,000 others, would benefit. If the daily cost of the Iran war is $2 billion (as Senator Van Hollen told us this morning), then Washington would get $46 million a day, and the 45 days of the war so far would be enough not only to eliminate the state budget shortfall for the entire 2025-27 biennium, but also leave some funds to reduce underfunding in our public education system.
Instead, in Iran, we are blowing up schools, hospitals (one of our speakers told us 10 hospitals a day), and 30 universities already. This is not just wasteful. It is deeply immoral.
Senator Cantwell, please – DON’T AUTHORIZE ONE MORE PENNY FOR THIS WAR.
Finding My Place 