Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Will Iraq be for the US what Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union: The Beginning of the End of Empire?

A US Army report has compared US involvement in Iraq to the disastrous involvement of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the early 1980s--an intervention that sapped the strength of the Soviet Union's military and economy, and helped to bring about that country's dissolution within a decade. Will the imperial overreach of the US intervention in Iraq sap the strength of the US military and economy in similarly disastrous ways in the decade ahead?

This question underlines how important the US intervention in Iraq may be for determining not only the history of the middle-east, but the history of the US, in the years ahead. And far from transforming the middle-east for the better, we may already be seeing the terrible consequences of the assertion of a foreign policy governed more by hubris and the interests of war profiteers, than by any real interest in benefiting the people of the middle-east or the people of the United States.

AS MICHIKO KAKUTANI concluded in his New York Times review (July 25) of the book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas Ricks:
While the occupation of Iraq (which Mr. Wolfowitz had predicted would basically pay for itself through oil revenue) was costing American taxpayers an estimated $5 billion a month in 2004 and 2005, the chaos-ridden country was replacing Afghanistan as a training ground for a new generation of terrorists. Meanwhile, writes Mr. Ricks, the United States Army found itself in a strategic position that “painfully resembled that of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the early 1980’s.”

Not only had the war “stressed the U.S. Army to the breaking point,” a study published by the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute declared, but it had also turned out to be “an unnecessary preventive war of choice” that “created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland” against further attacks from Al Qaeda. The war “was not integral” to the global war on terrorism, the report concluded, but was a costly “detour from it.”
Now the question is: What will the US do to get out of a bad war that could still get a lot worse for our soldiers and our country?

Unfortunately and tragically--as the Vietnam war demonstrated--there may be no good way to get out of a bad war that was entered into via lies and hubris. The main question may already be not whether we can find a good option (as if there is one), but whether the best bad option is keeping our soldiers there to stay and die for a failed policy, or admitting that the policy was wrong and getting out of the mess before it gets much worse?

Over the next year we may reach the point where the nation will have lost more of its citizens from a deliberately chosen war in Iraq, than were lost on 9/11. Is this how we as a nation want to be expending the lives of our fellow citizens and billions of our tax dollars?

These are the questions the citizens of the United States need so urgently to consider. Every day we lose more lives, even as the violence that is killing on average a hundred Iraqis a day continues to grow. If the US presence in Iraq is part of the problem rather than part of the solution to this terrible violence, then perhaps it is not only morally wrong for the US to continue to remain there, but it may be morally and politically right for the US to leave, for the sake of the lives of our US soldiers, and the lives of Iraqis, and the future of the middle-east.

The big question this time is: How long, and how many more lost lives, will it take for the US to admit the mistake of its policy in Iraq, and change its course?

The world is watching, and history-making decisions are being made. Will the citizens of the US help to make this history for better or for worse? We see where the Bush administration and the Republican Congress have been taking this country. Hundreds of billions of our tax dollars, that could have been used to address problems of poverty, disease, and global warming, for the good of our own citizens and humanity abroad, have instead been getting used for a bad war and for weapons of mass destruction.

If we want to see a significant change in this policy of expending our tax dollars and the lives of our fellow citizens, we can begin to change the history of the present today by joining together with our neighbors, friends, and colleagues to demand a change in the people who represent us in Congress this election year. Let the change begin now....

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

How Do We Move beyond the "Fiasco" the Bush Administration has helped to create in Iraq?


To move beyond the mistakes of the present, we have to understand how we allowed our leaders to get us into this mess, and then we need to organize socially and politically to get ourselves out of this mess by demanding policy change and choosing the political representatives who will do what the citizens of this country need them to do--


For extensive documentation of the "fiasco" of the Bush administration policy in Iraq, see the newly published book by Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks, FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.

From July 23 Washington Post article, by Ricks, "In Iraq, Military Forgot Lessons of Vietnam: Early Missteps by U.S. Left Troops Unprepared for Guerrilla Warfare":
The real war in Iraq -- the one to determine the future of the country -- began on Aug. 7, 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy, killing 11 and wounding more than 50.

That bombing came almost exactly four months after the U.S. military thought it had prevailed in Iraq, and it launched the insurgency, the bloody and protracted struggle with guerrilla fighters that has tied the United States down to this day.

***
But there is also strong evidence, based on a review of thousands of military documents and hundreds of interviews with military personnel, that the U.S. approach to pacifying Iraq in the months after the collapse of Hussein helped spur the insurgency and made it bigger and stronger than it might have been.

The very setup of the U.S. presence in Iraq undercut the mission. The chain of command was hazy, with no one individual in charge of the overall American effort in Iraq, a structure that led to frequent clashes between military and civilian officials.

Read more of this article here--

This is the first of two articles adapted from the book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" by Thomas E. Ricks. Penguin Press, New York, © 2006.

Friday, July 21, 2006

The Visionary Words of a Former President in a Time of Crisis

From Common Sense in a Time of Crisis:
"This Nation asks for action, and action now ... We must act and act quickly ...

"Our task now is not discovery or exploitation of natural resources, or necessarily producing more goods ... [Our task] is ... distributing wealth and products more equitably, of adapting existing economic organization to the service of the people.

"This election is not a mere shift from the ins to the outs. It means deciding the direction our Nation will take over a century to come."

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts....

(All the above are the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt, as cited in Arthur M. Schlesinger's The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933)

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Framing a New Democratic Policy Vision: Common Sense for a Time of Crisis

"[Our economic and political rulers] have failed through their own stubborness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated [their responsibility] ... They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish. ... They have shown no realization that what they call free enterprise means anything but greed." (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

From New Democratic Agenda:
For a new Vision and Framing of a Democratic Policy Agenda, check out this new version of "Common Sense," published on July 4, 2006: Common Sense for a Time of Crisis, by TomPaine06--

This Framing of a Democratic Policy Vision begins by reminding us of the vision of Franklin D. Roosevelt who--after a Republican policy agenda of tax cuts for the wealthy and do-nothing government had driven the country into the depths of the Great Depression-- understood that control of the government of the country needed to be taken back from the corporations and placed into the hands of the people.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Time for the Democratic Party to Develop Vision by Learning from the People It is Supposed to Represent


From New Democratic Agenda

“Ours must be a government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people.' That means all of the American people. Republicans have made it a government of, by, and for a few of the people. America can do better. We can and we will. With this agenda, Democrats will create the most open and honest government in history, and put power back where it belongs – in the hands of all the people.”

--Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

Yes, America (and the Democratic Party) can do better!--

Unfortunately, while the so-called "New Direction for America" Agenda announced last month by the Democratic Party leadership is certainly better than the prevaling Republican agenda, this so-called "New" Agenda is still far too thin on both new direction and imagination to provide the inspiration and confidence many voters desire in 2006.

The main problem for Democrats, if they want to win back control of Congress this November, is to reignite the political imagination of the American people, and then provide the kind of political vision and policy framework that can convince voters that the Democratic Party actually understands what it means to offer a new political direction for the country.

An authentic "new direction" for the country must involve at least as much of a change in political vision and policy approach as that embodied by Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" in the 1930s. As the election of 2004 so terribly proved, it is not enough to criticize and point out how wrong and harmful to the country the dominant Republican Agenda has been--

The Republican Party achieved its current political position by capturing the political vision of many voters, and by convincing voters that Republicans offered a specific strategy for bringing that vision to fruition in political reality. Sadly, Republicans have been largely successful in doing exactly that, and we have witnessed the tragic consequences of this success. But realizing and denouncing what is wrong with the Republican Agenda is not enough to change the country's direction.

It is also not enough to offer a piecemeal list of Democratic policy positions, and call it a "New Direction." While the specific points listed in last month's Agenda are ok so far as they go, such a laundry list cannot by itself constitute a "New Direction."

"Without Vision, the People Perish." As this great democratic proverb suggests, and history demonstrates, no democratic political movement can be successful without a clear vision to inspire and guide the creative and collective action of political engagement and policymaking.

If the Democratic Party wants to regain political initiative in this country, and win back to its side this November the kind of democratic majority necessary to begin to govern for the common good, and oppose the destructive course of the Republican Party, it must demonstrate to the American People in the coming months that it has an inspiring vision to offer--a vision of governance and the common good that will convince Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters that their own best interests, as well as the future of this country, depend on their coming out to vote this year for an authentic and clear new political direction.

Short of offering new vision and inspiration, the Democrats may begin to win back some Congressional seats this fall, but they will not be able to renew the political power and confidence of the American people, which is now so desperately needed to allow the people of this country to counter and reverse the destructive direction in which the Republican elite have taken the country.

As a foundation for recreating an inspiring and progressive democratic vision for the country, Pelosi's invocation of the ideal of democratic government begins to strike the right chords:

“Ours must be a government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people.' That means all of the American people. Republicans have made it a government of, by, and for a few of the people. America can do better... With this agenda, Democrats will... put power back where it belongs – in the hands of all the people.”

But if we are to build a truly inspiring democratic political agenda for the future on the firm foundation provided by these opening chords, Democrats must begin to think much more deeply about what it will take to "put power back where it belongs." After the several decades during which the elite of both parties have benefited from allowing power to consolidate itself at the top of the economic spectrum--instead of protecting the democratic interests of the country and of working people--it is no simple or easy task to create a political agenda that will "put power back where it belongs."

If Democratic politicians want to understand what it will take, and what it means, to put power back in the hands of all the people, they will need to begin to listen much more carefully and deeply to what the many community-based social justice and public advocacy organizations created by their constituents have been trying to tell them. They need to begin to listen much more actively to these organized grassroots, rather than to the political consultants and corporations that dominate the Washington DC political sphere. And they need to learn from these grassroots, and begin to think much more creatively about the need to frame a visionary Democratic Agenda for the 21st century that responds to the aspirations and ideas of these grassroots.

Whether or not the Democratic Party is able to rise to the democratic political challenge of this moment in history will depend on whether it can envision and construct an inspiring Democratic Agenda for 2006 and the years to come.

"Without Vision, the People Perish." And as the People perish, so will the country and what remains of the Democratic Party.

As Pelosi said, "America can do better." Indeed, we can and we must....

Monday, July 17, 2006

Joseph Wilson and His Wife Initiate Courageous Civil Suit to Defend the Democratic Rights of All Citizens

For All Who Are Interested in Helping to Shape the History of the Present (rather than merely watching it be shaped for you by others who do not have your interests in mind!):

Listen to the excellent program on the courageous civil suit Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie have initiated against the Bush administration, listen to this morning's Diane Rehm show here.

Since Congress has not been fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to hold a run-amuck executive administration in check, perhaps civil suits by courageous citizens like Joseph and Valerie will help to defend the democratic rights of the citizens of this country. They are filing this suit in defense of the rights of all American citizens, as Joseph Wilson made clear at the very beginning of his interview with Diane Rehm this morning.

For more information on this civil suit, or to make a donation in support of it, click here. It is the courageous acts of citizens like the Wilsons that will help to determine the direction of the history of our present.

But while this legal case is making its way through the court system, the rest of us do not have to sit around with nothing to do. If we wish to defend our rights, and do our part to join with the courageous efforts of people like the Wilsons, we need to be active in our practice of citizenship, and one of the best ways to do so, in addition to joining with others in active association to support the cause you are most interested in--whether it be the fight against global warming, or struggles against violence and injustice--is to ask persistent and vigorous questions of our public officials, including all of our political representatives in Washington:

Every Senate and House member should be asking the President the kinds of questions listed here. But they will only do so if we, their constituents, demand that they do so.

Journalists, especially, have a responsibility as citizens to be asking hard questions at this time of constitutional crisis in our country, when so much is at stake. For examples of the kinds of questions all patriotic citizens of the United States should be asking their political representatives now, see the entry below--

Questions for the President All Journalists and Patriotic Citizens Should Be Asking

The History of the Present will be made by citizens who either act to defend their democratic rights, or fail to act, and lose what remains of democratic government as a result--

So, in our current constitutional crisis, here are some questions all patriotic citizens of this country should be asking their public officials in Washington, and especially their representatives in Congress, and people in the White House, including the President:

For all journalists and citizens:

From Policybusters:

For anyone who might have an opportunity to ask the President or others in the Administration a real question or two about what is really happening in this country, here are a few sample questions you might ask, to begin to put some patriotic pressure on our political representatives for real answers:

(For background reading on basis for some of these questions, check out two great articles by New Yorker investigative reporter Jane Mayer:

THE HIDDEN POWER: The legal mind behind the White House’s war on terror

THE MEMO: How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted

*****

Real Questions for the President:

Mr. President, in a recent profile of the Vice-President's Chief of Staff David Addington for the New Yorker (by Jane Mayer), Addington is said to have asserted that he and Dick Cheney were interested in "merging the VP's office with the President's office into a single Exec. Office." Any comment?

*****
In accepting the Office of President of the United States, you swore to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution reads:
"The Congress shall have power to …provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; [The explicit stated powers of Congress include]:
"To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
"To declare war, …and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
"To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces"--

Do you believe that during time of war the President has the authority to ignore any of these congressional powers in the name of national security?

*****
Your administration obviously believes in a strong and robust executive authority in relation to Congress. Do you believe that your authority as commander in chief during time of war extends to ignoring or circumventing Congressional authority to oversee and limit the power of the president in accord with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, or to set aside congressional statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance, as in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act?

Example: The US War Crimes Act passed into law by Congress, forbids the violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions, which bars cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, as well as outrages against human dignity. By not accepting the relevance of Common Article 3 in your conduct of the war on terror, and the establishment of detention centers at Guantanamo and elsewhere, are you not ignoring or contravening laws established by Congress?

*****
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has stated that a state of war does not give any President a blank check to ignore constitutional limitations on presidential power. Do you disagree with Justice O'Connor?

*****

Do you believe that in the name of national security you have the authority to ignore or defy congressional oversight laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or to set aside congressional statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance?

*****

If the American people, through a majority of their elected representatives in Congress, pass a law that says the President cannot do such and such a thing, as happened after Watergate in response to Nixon's abuse of executive powers when Congress enacted the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] law to protect civil liberties and keep future Presidents from abusing their authority-- do you believe the President has the right to ignore or defy that Congressional legislation?

*****

The well-respected presidential historian Arthur Schlesinger has stated that this administration has turned historical aberrations of executive overreach, such as Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus rights during the Civil War, into a regular policy of government? Any response?

*****

Your administration's interpretation of law has been challenged on several major issues, including your conduct of surveillance in seeming defiance of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and your appointment of military commissions, along with your very liberal use of signing statements (over 750 so far)—

This has suggested to some that the policy strategies being employed by your administration amount not only to defying Constitutional law, which gives Congress significant responsibilities of oversight, but to setting your office in defiance of basic constitutional doctrine of checks and balances. Any comment?

*****
On Signing Statements:

The American Bar Association has recently started an investigation into your use of signing statements as a potentially unconstitutional method for simply ignoring the laws passed by Congress. Instead of being accountable to the public by openly vetoing the law or committing yourself to following it, you seem to be reserving the right to ignore Congressional legislation as you wish.

Bruce Fein, a lawyer and former deputy attorney general in the Reagan admin, and someone who voted for you in both elections, argues that Addington’s signing statements are “unconstitutional as a strategy,” because the Founding Fathers wanted Presidents to veto congressional legislation openly, as part of the balancing process, if they thought the bills were unconstitutional, and that this was a way of keeping both the President and Congress accountable to the American people for their actions. Fein has also stated the Founding Fathers would be shocked by what you have done…. Why are you using signing statements in a way that seems to make you unaccountable to both Congress and the American people?

On Military Commissions:

David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, has been directly involved in the creation of the military commissions that the Supreme Court recently declared unconstitutional, even as other senior cabinet officials, including Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, were left out of the process of decision-making related to the creation of those commissions--

Since there has been so little positive progress on this issue, and now that the Supreme Court decision has declared these commissions to be unconstitutional (as you were warned they would), do you have any regrets about the form of decision-making within your administration, which seems to have handed over to one person in the VP's office unprecedented latitude to define the policy of your administration on such important issues as this? Have you learned any lessons about the positive value of involving a much wider number of senior cabinet officials, such as the secretary of state, in key decisions such as this?

Any thoughts of taking responsibility for these mistakes of overreach by asking David Addington (who is also involved in the signing statements and in articulating the administration's position on surveillance issues) to resign?

On FISA:

Fourteen prominent constitutional scholars have written an open letter to Congress arguing that the N.S.A. surveillance program violates constitutional law, because your administration has not amended the FISA law, but has chosen simply to ignore it--

After the abuses of executive power by President Nixon that led to Watergate, Congress passed laws designed to protect civil liberties and curb abuses of executive power in order to protect civil liberties and try to insure that no President would repeat Nixon's abuses. Yet it is a matter of record that within your administration head legal advisors, such as David Addington, Cheney's Chief of Staff, and Cheney himself, believe these laws are not legitimate because they put too much restraint on the president's power. Do you agree with Cheney and Addington in thinking that the legal restrictions placed on presidential power after Watergate ought to be abandoned?

*****

All of these questions address real and serious crises that need immediate attention and strategic action NOW, not 2 or 4 years from now. Yet none of these crises are being meaningfully addressed by the President or Congress or the Press in a sustained way, even as much energy is focused on debating symbolic issues like flag burning, and on depriving gay people of the right to marriage and a family, all in the name of so-called "family values." (Presumably, this is why the anti-gay crowd would rather have foster children needing adoption remain in foster homes, rather than have them adopted by loving gay parents!)

Apparently, what these anti-gay values people "value" is more about discriminating against gays, than it is about offering as many people as possible in this country the opportunity to participate in the institutions of married and family life. For those who subscribe to the "Heterosexuals Only" Family Policy, "family" is only what homophobic heterosexuals define it to be. If you're not heterosexual, or if you're a child looking for loving parents, who might happen to be gay, too bad for you!

This country's "Heterosexuals Only" Family policy would rather keep kids in foster homes or send them and their potential gay adoptive parents to hell than allow them to participate in the very institution these anti-gay heterosexuals say is the bedrock of a "decent" moral society. How wonderfully "decent" and hypocritical it is for the laws of this country to deprive an entire class of persons in our society the right to equal participation in the very institutions of marriage and family so-called pro-family advocates say they value as the bedrock of our civilization.

But so it goes in this country that seems to have lost its mind, along with its heart and soul, as decisions are made, like those in New York and Georgia this week.

And meanwhile, the forests of this country--which help to absorb carbon dioxide and keep global warming from worsening--are burning. This is an issue that should be of REAL and immediate concern to pro-family advocates, since all families will suffer from the effects of global warming --including those loving gay families that will continue to exist in spite of all efforts to discriminate and legislate against them.

And to the extent that this country continues to invest its time, energy, and political focus on passing laws to discriminate against gay families, rather than to address the serious policy issues of energy, global warming, and the preservation of our democratic constitutional order, well--what can we say about such insanity, other than--For Shame!

--What a tragic shame, for all Americans, our children, and the people of the rest of the world--

*****

As many commentators have noted, this country is facing a perfect storm of mounting crises of national and global significance. Yet members of the Press, like Larry King, who have rare opportunities to seriously interview or question the President, continue to fiddle with the President and members of Congress, and to offer us lovefests rather than serious interviews, while the country burns (perhaps this was a condition of permitting Larry to do the interview: Did you have to sign a prior restraint agreement, Larry, promising to ask only lovefest questions? If not, all the more reason you should be ashamed of yourself for not fulfilling your obligations as a journalist to your fellow citizens--)

We don't need to wait for terrorists to attack to have a crisis or disaster of national proportions, as Katrina proved. And this disaster, which is already here, is growing worse every day, as the President, Congress, and the national Press seem to do little more than help each other to avoid addressing the real issues inflicting pain and suffering on the lives of American citizens every day: inadequate health care, poverty, lack of effective and adequate disaster relief aid, global warming, non-existent energy policy....

There is a growing constitutional crisis over the Executive Administration's deliberate defiance of Congressionally-mandated laws like FISA, as well as multiple international crises (the worsening wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the missile crisis in N. Korea), and growing domestic crises related to rising poverty rates, terrible health care, a non-existent energy policy, and global warming.

Meanwhile, the President and Congress are fiddling while the country is burning (in some places literally: witness the many fires burning in the West, which a recent scientific study has attributed to global warming)-- the President and Congress would rather spend tax-payer money advocating flag-burning amendments and anti-gay constitutional initiatives and discriminatory legislation, than address the real life-or-death crises facing the citizens of this country.

And what is the Press doing, when it has a chance to ask the President direct questions? Larry King's birthday lovefest with the President yesterday still seems to be all too typical of the way the people of the Press (& especially those in Washington who are privileged with the power and access to challenge political leaders to get off their butts and do something real) are continually failing to fulfill their responsibility to US citizens.

Larry King had a whole hour with the President in the White House yesterday, and yet not one tough question was asked. The whole interview amounted to little more than a publicity event for the President. Thank you, Larry King, for helping the President once again to avoid addressing any serious questions. Once again I naively hoped that at least one solid and real question would be asked of the President, but alas--how foolish I was to hope....

I once believed the members of the National Press were supposed to be concerned about more than simply providing politicians free opportunities to bloviate and obscure all that they are not doing to address this country's pressing problems. But except for the rare instances when a newspaper like the New York Times actually has the courage to challenge the status quo, the national Press seems to be failing to ask the hard questions of our political leaders that need to be asked, if our democratic system of government is to be preserved in this century.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Join the Struggle to Turn US Policy Away from Its Violence

From Ann Wright, one of the leaders of an ongoing hunger strike campaign dedicated to changing US Policy away from its pursuit of violence:

--July 12, 2006, Washington, D.C.
This is Ann Wright, one of the most unlikely fasters in the world. I am a 29 year retired Army Colonel and a US diplomat who resigned from the State Department in March 2003 in opposition to the war in Iraq. In my 35 years of US government service, I never thought I would be fasting for anything, but here I am—and here you are!!!!!

I am writing on Day 8 from the encampment in front of the White House. We are here from 10am to 7pm each day to sit as witness in front of the People’s House to tell the Bush administration that we demand that the war on Iraq end and that our troops be brought home now. After 8 days on the fast we want to check in with all you fasters, no matter if you fasted for one day or are still fasting after 8 days. In this letter, I will share with you what's happening in DC, and how you can take part in the Troops Home Fast from your city, or join us in DC.

We have fifteen longer term fasters (two weeks or more) at the White House who are drinking mostly water with a little juice or Gatorade (or another electrolyte supplement). A few of those fasters are drinking only water but are watching their physical and emotional conditions closely. We have a circle each morning and evening to discuss how we feel and pass on any tips for fasting that we have heard during the day. We are amazed that we don’t feel hungry and have remarkable energy for having not eaten for days.

Doing this fast in front of the White House makes us feel good. At lunch and dinner times we walk with our banners to the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, get on the bullhorn and talk to the White House, asking what George and Laura are having for their meals while we fast for peace. The many American and international tourists are quite amazed that we have fasted for so long. So far we have had no response from the White House.

Our on-site fasting gurus, Dick Gregory, Diane Wilson and Jane Jackson, give us moral support and practical advice. Dick Gregory, who has done 70 fasts for social issues over the past 40 years, suggests that a faster drink a combination of one tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, one tablespoon of molasses or dark maple syrup in one cup of water with a dash of cayenne pepper. He says one should drink a gallon of water each day and should not do any unnecessary exercise as the fast continues as one needs to conserve one’s energy for the long fast instead of short term events.

Diane Wilson continues to be an inspiration with her fasts for environmental and political issues. Jane Jackson, from her motorized wheelchair, has done fasts with Cesar Chavez and Dick Gregory and gives us historical perspectives of social justice issues from Washington to California. Jane just returned to her home in Oakland, California, where she plans to continue her fast outside the Federal Building. We would like to invite you to continue to take action to bring our Troops Home Fast! In the box below, we've listed some of the ways you can support the fast:

Take Further Action to Bring the Troops Home Fast!

With your help, the Troops Home Fast will be an effective nonviolent resistance action that will galvanize public support--and make legislators take action--to stop the war in Iraq!

Plan a Public Fast: Please consider creating a public fast in your city or town. We can help you connect with other people who signed up to fast and live in your area, and we can help you plan a local Troops Home Fast action. Consider planning a public fast once a week outside your Congressperson's office, a military recruiting center, a military base, or a public place with a lot of foot traffic. To add your event to our online calendar and find tips for planning a local action, click here.

Join Struggles in the Present to Change the Direction of History

Over the July 4th holiday, thousands of people across the country joined a fast, coordinated by CodePink, to begin to mobilize a new nonviolent movement of spiritual/political action in this country directed toward bringing about significant change in our country's policies of violence.

While CodePink initiated this action on July 4, people across the country will continue to build this movement over the summer through this hunger strike action, modeled on the Satyagraha movement of Gandhi in India. You may join this effort by signing on with the national organiner, CodePink, and by finding or creating your own local manifestation of this movement, as the people of Bangor, Maine, are doing--

Invitation to Join a Rolling Fast to Bring the Troops Home
in Solidarity with Code Pink
From July 11th to August 6th (Hiroshima Day)
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. --Mahatma Gandhi

US soldiers have been forced to put their bodies on the line; the lives of the Iraqi people are at risk every day. It's time for us to do something to show the depth of our commitment to bring our troops home and allow the Iraqis to rebuild their own nation.

That's why CODEPINK and Gold Star Families for Peace, together with activists across the country, will be starting an open-ended hunger strike. With your help, this fast will awaken the public, pressure elected officials and move us closer to peace. Please join us for a day or more as a show of support for the Iraqi people and our soldiers, and your commitment to bring our troops back home-FAST!