An announcement about our fast however had been placed in a major Iraqi newspaper. A group of five members of Iraq’s Parliament were so moved to read of this fast, that they invited representatives of the Washington fasters to travel to Amman Jordan to meet with them to discuss reconciliation and exchange ideas about how to end the violence in Iraq. You may not have read about this in the mainstream press, so far I have seen nothing about it there. One of the conditions of the invitation was that the fasters break their fast in Jordan so that the whole group could “break bread,” together united in their desire for peace.
The rest of us have been asked to continue our fasting and I have committed to doing so for the time being. The delegation of fasting activists took academics and journalists along with them and left for Jordan on August 2nd. I pray that they will begin a process there that will help our two countries find a way to move Washington to withdraw from Iraq militarily. This would give the people of Iraq a chance to come together to heal their country, difficult as that may be. I look forward to hearing about the results of the peace mission when the group returns and I will update you here.
In the meantime, I ask that all of you contact your members of Congress and entreat them to redouble their efforts to bring the troops home without delay. In addition, if you are able to, please contribute to the House and Senate campaign
committees to help maximize the Democrats chances to retake the Congress which can stop the war by refusing to fund it.
Linda Sophia Pinti
Cambridge
Day 34: Since I sent my post yesterday about the Peace delegation to Jordan, I discovered that included in the delegation is our own Dal LaMagna–go Dal!
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For those of you who don’t know Dal from his work at The Progressive Government Project here in Cambridge and The Kennedy School of Government, here is what is listed about him at the Troops Home Fast website.
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Dal LaMagna, founder of Progressive Government, a member of the Dean’s Council for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He is a successful businessman, having founded TWEEZERMAN Corporation, a multi-national personal care tool company, a member of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities and the Social Venture Network, and is on the board of directors of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, a MBA program that teaches sustainable business and responsible capitalism. Dal is an Executive Producer of The Ground Truth, an Iraqi war documentary that was selected for screening at Sundance; Co-Executive Producer of The War Tapes, an Iraq war documentary shot and narrated by soldiers; and Executive Producer of “Iraq for Sale, War Profiteering.” He is a partner of the Huffington Post and Air America.
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I look forward to hearing from him about the effort.
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For peace,
LSPinti