Take A Stand!
-Nathaniel Batchelder, 8/29/07
Tuesday night (8/28/07) there were 675 "Take A Stand" MoveOn vigils and rallies calling for an end to the US military nightmare in Iraq.
NOW is the moment to translate that passion into millions of communications to Members of Congress and newspapers across America, that WE THE PEOPLE call Congress to End The War and Bring The Troops Home Now.
Click on the 2 website below to write a CongressMember or a newspaper.
Congress will act when they know that the POLITICAL WILL of Americans is a demand to end the war and bring the troops home now.
The most effective communications are brief -- 100 to 200 words -- personal, passionate, and asking for action. Include your name, address, phone, etc. Hand written letters are best, but emails and phone calls work too.
Here are the websites. Some "Talking Points" are below.
On the newspaper site, select the newspaper of your choice and go to "COMPOSE MESSAGE." Then click on "COMPOSE YOUR OWN MESSAGE" because they will suggest one.
SUGGESTED TALKING POINTS:
Miscalculations: Almost all Americans agree the Iraq invasion was a terrible mistake. We were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq had connections to Al Quaeda; that Iraq was a threat to its neighbors and to the US. Dick Cheney said to Tim Russert in a TV interview, "I don't know if it's going to last six days or six weeks, but I think American forces will be welcomed as liberators and showered with flowers." None of it was true. There was worse: Five years ago in August of 2002, seven months before the Iraq invasion began, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma said, on KTOK radio, "We know Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons and that he has missiles capable of hitting Great Britain. We want to stop him before he gets missiles capable of hitting Oklahoma." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "We can't wait for the smoking gun to be a nuclear cloud."
Unprepared: Ignoring the advice of its own military advisors, the administration sent American forces into war in inadequate numbers to do the job; inadequately equipped; and inadequately trained (for a long-lasting insurgency). Terrible miscalculations and fatal mistakes throughout the war, reflecting gross incompetency and shallow understanding of complicated Middle East religious and political realities, are causing deaths and injuries to US troops doing their best to carry out a catastrophically flawed policy. It's time to say: "No more!" Not one more life lost for an indefensible policy!
Civil War: Now, Iraq has descended into a religious and political civil war with US troops trying to be the referees, while the Iraq Parliament took a month vacation in August.
Unwelcome: The Iraqi people don't want us there: Two years ago, a majority of Iraqis surveyed supported a timetable for US withdrawal from Iraq. NOW, a majority of Iraqis surveyed report that they support or endorse violent attacks against US forces.
Republicans saying "Out Now!": Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia was Secretary of the Navy and Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He just returned from Iraq, and is calling President Bush to set a date to begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq. Ditto Republican Senator from Indiana Richard Lugar.
Terrorism Worse: Many experts have stated that the US invasion of Iraq has INCREASED Middle Eastern hostilities against the US and FUELED the recruitment efforts of terrorist organizations like Al Quaeda.
The US war in Iraq has turned much of the world against the US -- even traditional friends and allies -- so that we now stand alone, perceived as a clumsy military giant, willing to torture and kill for a policy that had nothing to do with its original justifications. Most of the world has concluded: "It's about controlling Iraq's OIL, and it's about huge profits going to hundreds of military contractors and subcontractors." America's rich are getting richer, while America's poor fight and die.
Many project the final costs of the war, including rebuilding Iraq and the after-care of 30,000 US troops maimed and psychologically damaged, will be a trillion dollars. It's all debt -- the first war waged simultaneously with tax-cuts benefitting primarily the rich -- to be paid back after this administration leaves office.
IRAQ. Of 24 million Iraqis when this war started in 2003, estimates of the dead range from 500,000 to a million. Some 5 million have been wounded or injured. Some 2 million have fled the country. Another 2 million are homeless refugees inside Iraq. Thus, some 30% to 40% of Iraqis have been directly killed, injured, or made refugees. Little wonder that so many have taken up arms against US forces, or quietly support those who do.
NOW IT'S UP TO YOU AND ME TO TAKE WHATEVER ACTIONS WE CAN!
TELL THEM: End the war. Bring the troops home now.
