Write a real hard copy letter, with real paper and pen, enclosing it in an envelope, slap on a stamp and mail it.
Bush doesn’t have an email address and doesn’t read email. Congress is so innundated with email and e-petitions that you would be wasting your time.
Old fashioned letters still work.
About two seconds after Iraq actually attacks us.
Politicians don’t read their mail.
Some aide reads it and circles the appropriate words with a crayon.
S/He or someone else cuts and pastes standard paragraphs together and mails it to you.
OK. Next question:
At what point in time is it appropriate for the US to ask the UN to authorize an attack?
This question is timely, since the secretary of state said the president would press for a resolution authorizing use of force if Iraq was still not cooperating at the end of the week.
I love my country. I am afraid and ashamed of my government. We, the people who have conquored the moon with finesse, choose brute force to conquor our enemy. As the leader of the free world we have chosen to ignore the pleas of our long and hard won allies. We have become something that I don’t like much anymore.
I was once the most patriotic person you would ever meet. An Eagle Scout for Christ sake. Now I just feel sick and betrayed. Way to go America.
It wasn’t e-mail, it was some non-profit service that somehow forwards your letter directly to the politician, wish i still had the link…
I don’t have any particular mathematical formula in mind, but it would be nice if there were some specific moment that the current administration could point to that made Iraq its Priority #1 again. It would also be nice if any of the U.S.’ traditional allies besides the U.K. seemed to be backing us in any meaningful way on this one. (I’m talking concrete promises of military assistance, not just “we support you in your struggle to rid the world of tyranny” letters.) Not that I think Western Europe should be gung-ho to go to war; I just think that if they think war is a bad idea, maybe we should take their reasoned opinions into account. They have had full-blown combat on their soil much more recently than we have, so they have a perspective that the vast majority of us don’t about what war means in real-life terms.
And besides, what, there’s not enough going on in Afghanistan to keep the military busy?
:sigh:…
Iraq is not ‘priority 1’. It is simply ‘visible’.
What aid would you have Germany or Russia send, assuming they were inclinded to do so? They can’t send meaningfull forces to the Gulf; Few countries can. US, UK, and France. And France has a sizeable chunk of its rapidly deployable forces tied up in Africa.
Other then basing rights, other countries cannot offer meaningfull and timely aid for the attack on Iraq.
I can understand if someone is against attacking Iraq for some sort of ‘moral’ reasons. But I see the above points dredged up again and again. Sort of like Himmler’s ‘Big Lie’, if you say that we are tied up in Afghanistan often enough, will it make it true?
I don’t have a NYT account. My name would go on a list. 
Any time is appropriate if the authorization is respected.
Like a date; “no” means no.
Damn straight Iraq is “visible,” it’s been pretty much the primary international issue on the front page in the U.S. for weeks now. I think the Palestinians could take hostages at the top of the Eiffel Tower right now and nobody in the U.S. would notice.
And **Brutus, ** I’m certainly no military expert…but there must be something the rest of Europe could offer in the way of aid. They aren’t even supporting the U.S. viewpoint with votes in the U.N., let alone personnel, equipment, or cash. I’m sure if they really wanted to support us, they could spare a few people or tanks or planes or whatever here and there. Several European countries managed to spare a few people and some cash here and there for Bosnia, no?
As for Afghanistan: I never meant to say that the U.S. military was “tied up” there. If one wanted to pick a place that could use U.S. assistance in getting its act together, though, I’d say the effort would be far better spent in Afghanistan, though, seing as we’re already there and at least some portion of the population, not to mention the government that is (at least nominally) in power, wants us there. I’d far rather see a large chunk of the U.S. military busy building roads and schools in Afghanistan than bombing the crap out of the Iraqis.
Well, neither am I. But it takes incredible amount of supplies to move and maintain a modern mechanized force (the sort that will be used in Iraq). Its not that the Europeans don’t have the forces (Germany has some fine Panzer formations, probably close to Americans in terms of equipment and training). Its getting them to the theater that is the problem. Can’t be done in a timely manner without US aid. And what is the point of sending less (more effective) American troops and supplies just so that Belgium can get a brigade of less-effective troops in place?
Public opinion is a very poor way of deciding whether to start a war.There are many good reasons for this.
Opinion in the UK was against going to war with Hitler, just as it was in the US.The public was wrong.
I agree that saddam is worth kicking out, but I thing Bush is needlessly alienating many of the world’s most powerful counties by doing it this way.
If he agreed to be more even handed over other probs in the mideast he’d find it a lot easier & still get what he wants.
Instead he is probably going to cause the end of NATO.
France & Germany have signalled today that they’d rather see this than have the US control it.
Why is he doing it this way?Arrogance?Special interest lobby?
It seems a very silly way to proceed.
This is off the original topic, but I think it is worth mentioning here where there are so many people who are against this war.
It seems to me everyone believes the US wants to go to war for purely political reasons, but they then fail to consider the political aspect when they talk about why other governments don’t want the war.
Germany and France both have very large anti-American political movements which are key to the political leaders re-elections and popularity. To even appear to be siding with the USA makes leaders in these countries vulnerable to attack from these anti-American groups. Consequently what you see is these leaders making pains of themselves until the last moment and then jumping on board at a time where there isn’t any more opportunity for these groups to cause trouble.
Basing your anti-war beliefs on the fact that these countries don’t support the US, or saying that you want to see more international support for the US before the war starts is silly. The support will be there, just not until very late in the game.
What puzzles me is most of the rabid anti-war politicians are now in favor of this war. Following the State of the Union Address and Powells presentation to the UN there have been only two dissenting voices. Makes me wonder what is going on.
I’m not for the war, so what am I doing?
Nothing.
I think it’s the most I could do.
I’m against the war. I don’t know what to do about it. For starters, I avoid arguments about the war because they almost always turn into train wrecks and nothing is accomplished.
I do go to protests, though, mostly for the “Not in My Name” reason: let history show that ‘Canadians’ were not gung-ho about invading Iraq, only ‘Some Canadians.’ I believe that my citizenship, my status as a Canadian means I have as much right to my opinion as the people who get more press than I do but who think differently from me. We (anti-war people) don’t get to go on CNN or talk to Bush, so we have to find other ways of making our voices heard, and this is a democracy, after all. People exemplified by the so-called Patriot from the last page seem to have forgotten what ‘democracy’ means: it means dissent, public discussion, everyone’s right to their own opinion. I am exercising that right.
As for other protest ideas …
This e-mail is making the rounds. I assume it’s not copyrighted, and there’s no link, so I’ll reprint the thing
This amazing idea from the Boulder Mennonite Church:
There is a grassroots campaign underway to protest war in Iraq in a simple, but potentially powerful way.
Place 1/2 cup uncooked rice in a small plastic bag (a snack-size bag or sandwich bag work fine).
Squeeze out excess air and seal the bag. Wrap it in a piece of paper on which you have written: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. Romans 12:20. Please send this rice to the people of Iraq; do not attack them.”
Place the message and bag of rice in an envelope (either a letter-sized or padded mailing envelope–both are the same cost to mail) and send them to:
President George Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500
In order for this protest to be effective, there must be hundreds of thousands of such rice deliveries to the White House. We can do this if you each forward this message to your friends and family.
There is a positive history of this protest! In the 1950s, Fellowship of Reconciliation began a similar protest, which is credited with influencing President Eisenhower against attacking China. Read on:
"In the mid-1950s, the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, learning of famine in the Chinese mainland, launched a ‘Feed Thine Enemy’ campaign. Members and friends mailed thousands of little bags of rice to the White House with a tag quoting the Bible, “If thine enemy hunger, feed him.” As far as anyone knew for more than ten years, the campaign was an abject failure. The President did not acknowledge receipt of the bags publicly; certainly, no rice was ever sent to China.
“What nonviolent activists only learned a decade later was that the campaign played a significant, perhaps even determining role in preventing nuclear war. Twice while the campaign was on, President Eisenhower met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consider U.S. options in the conflict with China over two islands,
Quemoy and Matsu. The generals twice recommended the use of nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower each time turned to his aide and asked how many little bags of rice had come in. When
told they numbered in the tens of thousands, Eisenhower told the generals that as long as so many Americans were expressing active interest in having the U.S. feed the Chinese, he certainly wasn’t going to consider using nuclear weapons against them.”
You can make a difference!
… note that I’m not making any claims for the historical veracity of that tale. Does anyone else know? I just think it’s a neat way to protest. People who say ‘Why don’t those protesters find something better to do than break stuff and scare people?’ need to hear about these strategies, as do people who say ‘I’m against the war but I’m not interested in going to demos which so often turn scary.’