"Stop this war now" signs brought students together Tuesday Oct. 8 for the first Mac Iraq meeting of the school year. The group's main purpose is to consider ways to stop the war in Iraq.

The group encourages anti-war action on the Macalester campus through letter writing, phone campaigning, and picketing. Long term goals, such as passing a campus wide resolution, hosting educational events on Iraq, picketing at the capital and joining forces with other school's anti-war movements will be discussed at the upcoming meeting.

Mac Iraq members hope that giving students access to letters and addresses of representatives will motivate students to act. After the meeting on Tuesday Oct. 8, volunteers wrote a form letter students can sign and send to their congress people. On Wednesday, Mac Iraq members were stationed in front of the Campus Center with form letters, representative's addresses and stamps. "There are Minnesota representatives that are still undecided," Samantha Free '06 said. "If we write them now we can still influence them."

In the next week, Mac Iraq members plan to conduct a phone campaign much like the letter writing campaign already in process. Students will be stationed at Campus Center phones and library phones with telephone numbers so students can call representatives on the spot.

Mac Iraq and interested students will make anti-war signs between 3 and 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11. Students will carry signs from 4 to 6:30 p.m. along Snelling Avenue. Daniel Ungier '04 said that a few students carrying signs for 20 minutes apiece near the busy Snelling Avenue and Grand Avenue intersection during rush hour could impact a large percentage of the community.

Mac Iraq has already started collecting signatures in hopes of passing an anti-war resolution. According to the Student Government Constitution, after signatures from 15 percent of the student body are collected on a petition, MCSG can pass a resolution against the war.

Members of Mac Iraq also plan to encourage public figures such as President McPherson, Board of Trustees members and alumni to take a public stance against the war.

Mac Iraq also plans to discuss creative ideas that could put student's anti-war feelings in the news. Suggestions included signing a petition and presenting it to the community, writing anti-war messages with sidewalk chalk in front of the governor's mansion and writing letters to the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press.