I’m no general, but if I was, I think it would be more intelligent and effective to just surround the city, keeping all the alleged “insurgents” inside, and all supplies and utilities from reaching them. No water. No sanitation. No power.

In that heat do you think it would be very long before everyone inside would either perish or surrender? WITHOUT A SHOT BEING FIRED?

To hunker down in your little fort in the middle of town, surrounded by “insurgents” who have full access to all they need to survive forever, is about the STUPIDEST IDEA that it’s possible to come up with, in my opinion.

But then, as far as STUPID goes, invading Iraq in the first place is hard to beat. Why stop the “stupid” now?

With the carnage in Iraq affecting innocent men, women, and children in numbers—and an accompanying horror—beyond our comprehension as this article describes, I think it is time to consider joining Cindy Sheehan in her hunger strike that began yesterday—the 4th of July.

Those of us who believe in the core values of our nation—whether Democrat or Republican; or liberal, progressive or conservative—need to make a statement that we want to return to their supremecy in our country ... to being governed in accord with the transcending ideals clearly expressed in the our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

2006 can be the year when we take our nation back from the Neocons and their ilk who have diverted us from the path laid out by our founders. In their ideological mirroring of the Nazis, they are the radicals. It is they who have brought about a cult of “all power to the leader” (where has the world heard THAT before?) and the attempted trashing of the separation of power under law.

What better way to make ourselves heard than in a peaceful, nonviolent—and time honored—demonstration of sacrifice for our beliefs by fasting?

What better contrast than between the humble, quiet reason of Cindy Sheehan and the swaggering ignorance of George Bush No. 43?