As American citizens (I fully recognize that there are plenty of overseas readers of this, but I'm talking to folks who are constituents of the people on Capitol Hill), we do have a right to be heard by Congress. There's only so far that right can extend, of course, but no matter who the nuts in your district (or wise wise people, if you feel differently from most of us) put in the House, they still have to, at least nominally, listen to you. Here's what I want you to say to them, and more importantly, how I think we need to say it.
I'll start with my argument, and tell you what I want to do about it. Here's your job: I want you to spread the message, specifically to Congress, that the best way to end the occupation is to start impeachment proceedings.
Does your Congressperson even nominally pay lip service to the idea that the war was a mistake? This is a yes-or-no question, one that it should be fairly easy (for people like readers of dKos, at least, who happen to love following news stories and what have you) to find out empirically. If their position isn't one of the cornerstones of their images, get a direct quote that you can cite. I have it easy: I'm technically represented by one Ron Paul (who, for the record, I find to be a dangerous, anti-life, libertarian nutcase who scares the hell out of me, but at least his stance on the war is easy), but you might need to dig a little to find an interview or something by your Rep that says that no, it's not in fact good that we're causing death and destruction on a repulsive scale in a country we have no right to be occupying. I'll wait here while you dig something up. If you have a truly frothing war-freak (I don't know any Representatives who willingly don that image off the top of my head, but I confess I haven't done a lot of research outside of my own Rep), you'll just need to throw some facts around... there's no shortage of horrors that are detailed in ways much better than I could put them all over this site and others. But it shouldn't be that hard to introduce the premise that regardless of how you or they felt four or five years ago, we should NOT still be in Iraq. I'm working off of this premise for the rest of the diary, and I'm fully aware that there will be plenty of folks in Congress who might not want to say it like that... so be prepared to show a quote where they said something to that effect, facts which few but the most soulless could look you in the eye and say that they support. Anyway, I've established my premise. I don't think I'm saying anything that folks reading this will disagree with. Let's move on.
The phone, almost ignored in our conscious minds these days, is still a ridiculously powerful means of communication compared to the Internet. Now, I love this old series of tubes, but think about the effect that it has on your psyche compared to the telephone. Speaking from my own experience, I know that unless I get some really ridiculously bad news (e.g. death of a pootie, cancellation of a scholarship, lawsuit, etc.), I can get way more bummed and/or stressed out over a ten-minute phone call than I can by reading my email for ten minutes. I believe that calling Congresspeople is far, FAR more effective than emailing them, because you control the time commitment, and it's easier to force the aide (because let's be reasonable, the odds of an actual Congressperson picking up the phone for John Q. Constituent are slim, compared to, say, John Q. Lobbyist.) Emails can be skimmed, the contents of them often lend together in the mind of the poor intern reading them, and there's a detachment there. What's more, it's a one-sided conversation. You can't respond to their "yes, but..."s. They can read it, mentally add whatever "yes, but..." they choose, and basically mentally squish what you're trying to say, especially if they don't want to deal with it. On the phone, though, you can make sure that your entire argument is heard, if not appreciated. You can respond to whatever counter-arguments they have prepared. You force the aide to spend five or ten minutes thinking about what you're saying, instead of skimming your message and clicking on to the next one. This isn't to say that email is useless, far from it, but I think that it's important to call Reps rather than email them.
The past two paragraphs have just been setup. I haven't said anything that 90% of you weren't already thinking, chances are. Here's the meat of the request I'm trying to make of you: I want each and every one of you to call your Rep and say that if the war is a mistake and the legislature has done little to stop it, the best way to fight this is to remove, or IMPEACH, its biggest supporter, a man named George W. Bush. Request (I would say demand, but we have to remain civil so we don't get filed in the "raving idiot" category) that your Rep start articles of impeachment against Bush, for the purpose of removing the biggest roadblock in the way of our friends, family, and neighbors (a little bit of pathos, perhaps, but it's also TRUE) from coming home from Baghdad or worse. This is a message we need to send, and keep sending. Of course, impeaching Bush won't get our military back home overnight. That would be an oversimplification analogous to saying that toppling a statue of a military dictator counts as "Mission Accomplished." But without Bush beating on the bully pulpit, demanding budgets for "surges" and other terms for endless war, and promising to veto anything that implies that we should not be at war with Eastasia, passing bills that will actually get us the hell out will be a LOT easier.
Don't just throw this at them. Point out that mountains of objective, empirical evidence exist to indict Bush on every front. Point out that just promising to "support legislature" limiting or ending (ha!) the occupation is not effective and has not improved the situation of anyone involved in the quagmire (not the soldiers, not the Iraqis, not the constituents who are having infrastructure money funneled away into the pockets of neocon corporations... well, ok, the neocon corporations are benefiting, but we can neglect to mention that) in the past four years. Point out that We, The People are relying on the Reps to get rid of problematic executives, and without doing so, We, The People will have to exercise OUR right to get rid of problematic legislators (remember, keep this civil!).
They'll undoubtedly bluster at you. The aides will almost certainly mumble some talking points about how "members of the other party have declared opposition to this" or "we don't have the votes to pull this off" or other such crap. Civilly, but firmly, call bullshit. Tell them that to knuckle under to "not having the votes" is nothing more than cowardice, and that they swore to uphold the Constitution and the well-being of the citizenry, not of their public popularity. Tell them that if no one did the right thing because someone might fight against them, we'd probably still have slaves. The truth of the matter, and I think most of us know this, is that there is no Constitutional or legal reason for resisting impeachment, only political ones, and we all know that you can fight politics. If they try to mumble political reasons at you, counter them. It's not hard to do. Don't let them cut you off or leave a "yes, but..." unchallenged. There is no valid reason to argue against impeachment, and we have the fundamental right to make them listen to our arguments. This isn't a talk show where they can shout us down or cut our mics, this isn't talking with your wingnut cousin who can choose to ignore you, this is presenting a civil, cogent argument to someone who is legally bound to listen to you. We NEED to take advantage of that.
Call them. Call them every week. Every day, and you might get written off as a nutcase; only once, and you might be forgotten. Don't let them forget. Choose an hour every week (it won't take an hour, I promise, but give yourself some room for error) and call your Rep with this argument. They have to listen, so hold them to it.
There are plenty of excuses. Hell, I'm writing this, and there's part of my brain, the Lazy Lobe, who's trying to form excuses to not do this. Guess what? I don't care. Excuses are what we've gotten from Congress; we don't need more of our own. Here's some examples:
"I'm a busy person, I don't have time to do this!" I don't think any of you would come out and say this, but that doesn't mean that you won't think it. I repeat, I'm hearing arguments to this effect from the whining Lazy Lobe of my brain to this effect, but you know what? Bullshit. You have time to read dKos, especially non-FP diaries like this, you have time to call your Rep.
"But my Rep's a Republican/Blue Dog who won't listen!" Bullshit. They don't have to act on it, but they DO have to listen, and we have to get this idea out there. The aides still have to say "yeah, some lefties called and demanded impeachment." And guess what? I bet 90% of us have friends or family members, co-workers, neighbors, roommates, etc. who have differing views from us. We still talk to them. Who's to say that your phone call couldn't spark a conversation between an aide and his (or her) friends, spreading our message? Call them anyway.
"I'm not a very good speaker or debater!" Bullshit. If you're on dKos, chances are damn good that you know how to think things through and reason about them. It's a hallmark of progressives: we don't just take what we're given, but we think about it. And if you're still not confident, remember that you don't have to work alone in this. On this site alone, there's countless arguments and points that you can bring up to share with your Rep. Just because you didn't think of them doesn't make them any less true.
"I've already called my Rep about this, doing it again won't do any good!" Bullshit. We need to repeat our message over and over and over and over until something happens. Making one phone call or writing one LTE isn't being active. Call them again, make this argument, and schedule a time (for yourself, not for them) to do it again next week. There's not a limited number of phone calls that you can make to Congresspeople. This isn't a prison. Talk, and keep talking.
And don't shut up until they do something.