declarationofpeace.org/a-call-for-nonviolent-civil-disobedience

Defund the War and Declare Peace:
Nationwide Nonviolent Civil Disobedience
To End the Deepening US Quagmire in Iraq

As the violence in Iraq escalates, the Declaration of Peace is organizing nonviolent civil disobedience -- and other forms of powerful and dramatic peacemaking – to urge the nation and its leaders to end the US quagmire in Iraq. We invite people everywhere to respond to this growing emergency by participating in this campaign of conscience and nonviolent action to defund the war, to support the troops by bringing them home safely, and to launch a comprehensive peace process.

Why We Must Act
The continuing US military occupation of Iraq is fueling a cycle of devastating violence, a fact confirmed by a growing number of analysts and military leaders. The prompt withdrawal of US troops and the closure of US bases will help quench the fire fanned by the occupation and will pave the way for a comprehensive Iraqi-led peace process. Now is the time for the US occupation to end, for a peace process to begin, and for the US to shift funding from permanent war to reconstructing Iraq and meeting human needs at home.
The November 2006 midterm elections delivered a clear mandate to our elected leaders: Congress and the Bush administration must take swift steps to end the war in Iraq. Congress must resist the administration’s plan to send thousands of new troops to Iraq and declare an emphatic “No!” to the administration’s supplemental funding request (expected in early February) of upwards of $100 billion for the war. It also must not approve funding for war-making in Iraq for fiscal year 2008. The new Congress must exercise its most tangible means of charting a new course on Iraq: ending the financing of the war and occupation.
Between now and mid-March -- the fourth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq – the Declaration of Peace Campaign is calling on members of Congress to make a public commitment to defund the war and occupation; to co-sign legislation calling for the safe and rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq and the closure of U.S. bases there; and to work to establish a comprehensive plan for peace in Iraq, including support for an Iraqi-led peace process. The Declaration of Peace will organize visits to Congressional offices, phone and email campaigns, rallies and vigils, town hall meetings, and media outreach to call on all US policymakers to take these steps for peace.
If the Bush administration and the new Congress fail to carry out their clear mandate for peace, we will be led by conscience to respond to this growing emergency with dramatic and creative forms of peaceful resistance – including nonviolent civil disobedience –across the country March 16-19.

Nonviolent Civil Disobedience
Throughout our history, people have responded to numerous social and political emergencies and transformed systems of institutionalized violence by engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience. Changes such as women's suffrage, establishing workers’ rights, ending legal racial segregation, protecting the environment, establishing a moratorium on nuclear testing, and ending the Vietnam War were the direct result of broad-based networks of ordinary citizens who took action. These and many other movements have featured nonviolent civil disobedience as a way to sharpen for society the crucial choice for justice and peace.

“There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a red light,” wrote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his book The Trumpet of Conscience. “But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes right through that red light... Or when a [person] is bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed... Disinherited people all over the world are bleeding to death from deep social and economic wounds. They need brigades of ambulance drivers who will have to ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved. Massive civil disobedience is a strategy for social change which is at least as forceful as an ambulance with its siren on full.” The growing emergency in Iraq calls us to organize dramatic and widespread civil disobedience with its “siren on full” until the present crisis is solved.

Responding to the Emergency of the Ongoing War
Civil disobedience is a powerful tool for change because it consciously interferes with the operation of systematic violence and publicly withdraws consent from it. It involves risking arrest in a principled and conscientious way either by breaking an unjust law or by breaking a law that directly or indirectly supports an unjust policy, condition or system. It acts on behalf of a higher law or principle, including the worth and dignity of all human persons. In legal terms, this is known as a necessity defense: we are obliged to break a specific law to uphold a higher one (for example, the Nuremberg obligations of international law opposing torture, wars of aggression and crimes against humanity). The power of civil disobedience flows from a disciplined commitment to refrain from violence and a willingness to accept the legal and social consequences of one’s action.
In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King wrote “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such a creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” As the US war in Iraq escalates, the Declaration of Peace will organize nonviolent civil disobedience across the US to strategically, publicly, peacefully, and dramatically challenge this growing violence so that it can no longer be ignored. In the face of this growing emergency, it is crucial that we take action to make unmistakably clear the need for a new course in Iraq and in the world.
We have more power than we think. In the next months, we will exercise this nonviolent people-power in many forms. We invite all signers of the Declaration of Peace to consider engaging – as conscience leads them – in nonviolent civil disobedience.

Action Plans
The Declaration of Peace is organizing civil disobedience March 16-19, 2007 in cities and town across the United States. In addition, Voices for Creative Nonviolence and the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance are organizing civil disobedience initiatives beginning February 5 to resist the Bush administration’s supplemental request for new war funding. The Declaration of Peace supports these campaigns.

If you are considering engaging in civil disobedience, we strongly urge you to prepare for this by taking Nonviolent Action Training. The Declaration of Peace has designated February 17-25 National Nonviolence Training Week in preparation for the March actions. To learn about – or to host – a training in your area, please contact us at info-AT-declarationofpeace.org.