A People's Petition for an Iraq Peace Process - sign it for Cindy [View All]

[WilliamPitt]

http://pdamerica.org/petition/iraq-withdraw-petition.php

A People's Petition for an Iraq Peace Process

For Mr. Bush, questions about an exit strategy in Iraq have become especially delicate as a crowd of anti-war protestors has expanded at the edge of his ranch, rallying around Cindy Sheehan, the California woman whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004." - New York Times, Aug. 12, 2005.

Like our friend Cindy Sheehan, we are tired of waiting for our troops to come home. We are tired of the bloodshed, tired of tax dollar waste, tired of torture cover-ups, tired of contractor scandals, tired of deceit and fabrication. We are tired of elected officials with profiles in compromise rather than courage.

It is dishonest not to admit there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, only to invent new reasons for inflicting mass destruction on that country.

It is dishonorable to fix the facts around the policy.

It is unacceptable to admit that going to war was a mistake, only to claim that the mistake must be perpetuated.

Because we cannot wait for our government to lead, we shall become leaders in ending the war ourselves. We shall propose an exit strategy from Iraq and demand that our government listen and follow. Because we cannot wait for our government to plan for peace, we call on civil society to make our government pay attention.

There are simply no military solutions to this bloodshed. The American military presence, threatening to Iraqi nationalism, religion and culture, is the main cause of the violent response from Iraqis. U.S. policies are pushing Iraq toward civil war, with our government funding and arming Shiites and Kurds against Sunnis. Any rhetoric about human rights, including the rights of women, is derailed by the struggle for power U.S. policies have unleashed. Since the invasion and occupation the status and safety of women in Iraq have declined precipitously. The State Department's own internal surveys show that a majority of Iraqis feel less safe in the presence of the American occupying forces.

Iraqis themselves are calling for the end of occupation. At least one third of the Iraqi national assembly has called for "departure of the occupation." One million Iraqis recently signed a petition demanding the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq. Initial peace talks among Iraqis already are underway. Our government is deaf to these Iraqi voices for peace.

It is time to shift from a military model to a conflict-resolution model aimed at a peace process and negotiated political settlement.

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