...one individual at a time. After hearing testimony for three weeks, the World Tribunal on Iraq released its preliminary report on June 27th. Now the final report has been released, and the authority and validity of the United Nations is being tested with an appeal to the International Criminal Court to bring indictments and to the General Assembly to enforce the Recommendations. I propose the following individual action plan.

Congress is in recess right now, and that means your Representatives and Senators are in their local offices. Step One is to make them aware of the World Tribunal's proceedings and findings, and ask them to draft a resolution to submit to the higher authority of international law. If they won't do that, then ask them to read the Recommendations into the Congressional Record so that they will become a part of our nation's history. If you can't get your congresspeople to meet with you, then your second best option is to use the telephone. Third is to write a paper letter. Finally, if you are persistent and innovative enough, your email will eventually get through.

Step Two is to address the immediate withdrawal of all troops and bases from Iraq. The Tribunal has granted conscientious objector status to your loved ones and has asked the nations of the world to grant them political asylum until we can restore sanity and order in our government. You can get help for your enlisted loved ones from the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors and Amnesty International. Meanwhile, recruitment is suffering badly while the Iraqi patriotic resistance is flourishing. Even if a small percentage of soldiers comply, that point of diminishing return at which the cost in dollars and lives becomes too great for even the current administration to justify a continued military engagement will be reached quickly. There will unfortunately be a greater loss of life in the short term, but the more quickly we can catalyze a collapse of military effectiveness, the fewer will die in the end.

We all know that we owe a huge debt to Iraq. We also know that about 1/3 of our federal spending is for this war. (It's close to half for military in general, but we want to support our troops when they come home and honor our obligations to veterans and their families.) Does your conscience dictate that 1/3 of your federal tax liability should be paid into a trust fund to rebuild Iraq? If so, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee wants to hear from you. Withholding those dollars may be an act of civil disobedience, but do you really think the federal government has the resources to prosecute such cases? I don't think so. This is where strength in numbers comes into play. Your ability to take this action legally may require you to change your withholding status with your employer. If you reduce the amount withheld from your paycheck, maybe you will end up owing 1/3 of the amount for which you are liable. Plan for this by spending that third on things that earn tax credits. These are better than deductions; they are subtracted dollar for dollar from your tax liability. Converting to renewable energy (for example) will not pay our debt to Iraq, but at least you will not be contributing to the war effort.

The World Tribunal has made it clear that, while nations go to war, individuals are guilty of and accountable for war crimes, and they want these individuals removed from office and prosecuted. Now that we have a higher authority, we don't have to whisper the "i" word any more. I did a quick search of "impeach George W. Bush," and I got over 800,000 results! "But Cheney would be even worse!" Professor Francis Boyle at the University of Illinois knows that, and his Campaign to Impeach Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld (CIBCAR) will guide us through Step Four. There is even an on-line petition!

Finally, Step Five of the individual action plan is to bring down the corporate war profiteers. The World Tribunal asks that we boycott, divest, and walk out, and again names are named. At the top of the list of corporations, of course, is Halliburton. But how do I recognize Halliburton in the marketplace and in my stock portfolio? In today's corporate environment, there are subsidiaries, conglomerates, umbrella corporations, corporate contractors - a mess! Surely someone in the propeace community has the expertise to take that list of corporations and tell us in plain English what products and services not to buy? Meanwhile, we can only do what we can do. Everyone knows that, at least on the surface, this war was about oil, and the Tribunal names ExxonMobil, Texaco, and British Petroleum as war profiteers. I'm not sure if one of these owns Citgo or Hess, the two other gas stations common in my area, but I'm not sure it matters. The object is to disrupt their commerce without resorting to violence or otherwise breaking the law, so I'll continue to buy my gas at Citgo until someone tells me they belong to one of the indicted corporations. And in areas with more activism, perhaps your group could picket just seven stations - one for each day of the week.

Divestiture is also a complex issue. In today's world, investment is most often done through mutual funds, retirement portfolios, and other such "one-click" instruments. Does anybody actually look beyond the expected yield and read the prospectus? Please do that. Some investment instruments have roll-over provisions whereby you only pay a small service charge to put your investment elsewhere. If you can't roll it over, then see above regarding tax resistance. I hereby promise on my honor that I will review my TIAA-CREF portfolio before Thanksgiving, and if I see any of those names in there, I'll divest before the end of '05, even if it means I have to let them withhold 25% or whatever it is. I am accountable to the authority of the Tribunal. Are you?

The walk-out is the most demanding of the Recommendations since you would have to find another job or you don't get a paycheck any more. You will be taking a risk. There will be a great deal of shuffling around as the big umbrellas fold due to boycotts and distribution problems, and locally owned and operated businesses will experience both horizontal and vertical growth. In the end, though, when you can say to a prospective employer that you quit your last job as a matter of conscience in order to honor the Recommendations of the Tribunal, you will find yourself respected rather than rebuffed.

These are the steps I can define that you can take as an individual to comply with the Recommendations of the World Tribunal on Iraq. Please act on some or all of them to the extent of your ability and the dictates of your conscience. How far are you willing to go to empower the world community?