Hundreds of Thousands March against the War

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Sun, 25 Sep 2005 20:46:08 -0400

[GranniesAgainstGeorge] Hundreds of Thousands March against

the War

 

 

 

 

Truthout has assembled the following mainstream media reports...

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092505Z.shtml

Hundreds of Thousands March against the War

 

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/24/AR2005092401701_\

pf.html

Anti-War Fervor Fills the Streets

By Petula Dvorak

The Washington Post

Sunday 25 September 2005

 

Demonstration is largest in capital since US military invaded Iraq.

 

Tens of thousands of people packed downtown Washington yesterday and

marched past the White House in the largest show of antiwar sentiment

in the nation's capital since the conflict in Iraq began.

 

The demonstration drew grandmothers in wheelchairs and babies in

strollers, military veterans in fatigues and protest veterans in

tie-dye. It was the first time in a decade that protest groups had a

permit to march in front of the executive mansion, and, even though

President Bush was not there, the setting seemed to electrify the crowd.

 

Signs, T-shirts, slogans and speeches outlined the cost of the

Iraq conflict in human as well as economic terms. They memorialized

dead U.S. troops and Iraqis, and contrasted the price of war with the

price of recovery for areas battered by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Riffs on Vietnam-era protests were plentiful, with messages declaring,

" Make Levees, Not War, " " I never thought I'd miss Nixon " and " Iraq is

Arabic for Vietnam. " Many in the crowd had protested in the 1960s;

others weren't even born during those tumultuous years.

 

Protest organizers estimated that 300,000 people participated,

triple their original target. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, who

walked the march route, said the protesters achieved the goal of

100,000 and probably exceeded it. Asked whether at least 150,000

showed up, the chief said, " That's as good a guess as any.

 

" It's their protest, not mine. It was peaceful -- that's all I

care about, " Ramsey said.

 

The protesters rallied at the Ellipse, then marched through a

misty drizzle around the White House and along Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

The crowd thinned as events continued into the evening with a concert

on the grounds of the Washington Monument that featured Joan Baez and

other performers, along with antiwar speeches.

 

The police presence along the demonstration's route seemed more

relaxed than at recent protests, although D.C. police and U.S. Park

Police had hundreds of officers in place to deal with potential

trouble. Police said a construction fence was torn down and a

newspaper box damaged, but they reported no injuries or major

problems. They said three people were arrested -- one on a charge of

destruction of property, one on a charge of attempted theft and one on

a charge of disorderly conduct.

 

More than 200 counter-demonstrators set up outside the FBI

building on Pennsylvania Avenue, and some back-and-forth yelling

occurred as the antiwar marchers moved past. " Shame on you! Shame on

you! " one counter-protester shouted at the antiwar group. Several

dozen officers stood between the two groups, and no trouble erupted,

police said.

 

Some organizations supporting the war in Iraq plan to demonstrate

today on the Mall.

 

Antiwar groups staged smaller rallies yesterday in Los Angeles,

San Francisco, Seattle, London, Rome and other cities. In Washington,

the events were sponsored by groups including the ANSWER Coalition and

United for Peace and Justice and focused on a succinct theme: " End the

War in Iraq and Bring the Troops Home Now. "

 

Roughly 147,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq. Since the war began in

March 2003, 1,911 U.S. members of the military have been killed and

14,641 have been wounded.

 

The protest groups helped organize caravans and carpools, and many

participants began arriving early in the morning after bumpy,

all-night bus rides.

 

Leslie Darling, 60, came from Cleveland with four friends and said

it was her first antiwar protest. She said she was moved by what

happened after Hurricane Katrina.

 

" It made clear that while we spend all this money trying to impose

our will on other countries, here at home in our own country, we can't

take care of each other, " she said.

 

When the bus coming from Kalamazoo, Mich., pulled up to Freedom

Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, Sister Maureen Metty, 56, stretched her

legs and prepared for a brand-new experience.

 

" There were 250 sisters who wanted to be here today, but I'm the

one they chose to send, " she said. She carried a sign that read

" Sisters of St. Joseph's for Peace, " a folding stool and a backpack

with snacks, her toothbrush and toothpaste. She snapped a flurry of

pictures for the sisters back home, took a deep breath and headed into

the crowd.

 

People came to the Mall and Ellipse in waves. Organizers said that

several thousand never got there because of an Amtrak breakdown on the

New York-to-Washington line in the morning. Others who took Metro

faced delays because of repairs on the Yellow and Blue lines.

 

Once protesters arrived, they joined throngs headed toward the

rally on the Ellipse, which featured numerous speakers, including the

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, actress Jessica Lange and Cindy Sheehan, the

California woman who drew thousands of demonstrators to her 26-day

vigil outside Bush's Crawford, Tex., ranch last month and was the

inspiration for many protesters yesterday. Her son, Casey, 24, was

killed in Iraq last year.

 

" This is amazing! " Sheehan said. " You're part of history. "

 

Some of the biggest applause went to someone not even on the

program. Adam Hathaway, an 8-year-old who became lost while mingling

in the crowds. Before he was separated from his mother, Adam was

showing people his jar of pennies and proclaiming that " President Bush

is taking lots of this and using it in the war. "

 

Several announcements were made seeking help in finding the blond

boy from Maine. He was reunited with his mother, Julia Hathaway, as

the crowd cheered.

 

Bush was not around to hear the protesters filing past the White

House. He spent the day at command centers in Texas and Colorado,

where he assessed Hurricane Rita recovery efforts. Vice President

Cheney was undergoing surgery at George Washington University Hospital

to treat aneurysms on the back of his knees.

 

Bush and Cheney were depicted on posters, T-shirts and in

makeshift costumes. Several demonstrators wore masks of Bush's

likeness and prison jumpsuits. They were often asked to pose for

photographs.

 

Many protesters said they had opposed the action in Iraq all along

but were emboldened to demonstrate after polls showed that a majority

of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of the war.

 

The masses on the street served up a broad cross section of the

United States by age, geography religion and ethnic group. The Raging

Grannies, Presbyterians for Peace, Portuguese Against Bush and a group

of Quakers were there. The Buddhist Peace Delegation took up most of

14th Street NW with its golden banner that read: " May all beings be

safe and free from anger, fear, greed, dilution and all ill being. "

 

Protest organizers made special note of military participants in

the antiwar effort.

 

Army 1st Sgt. Frank Cookinham, with a Special Forces patch on one

shoulder, scorpion tattoos crawling across the back of his neck and

" LOCO " permanently inked on his Adam's apple stands out in most

crowds. He was pretty uncomfortable yesterday.

 

" I've never done this before, but here I am, in uniform, figuring

this is the only way I can shove it to Bush, " said Cookinham, of

Newport, R.I., a Persian Gulf War veteran who recently returned from a

second tour in Iraq. " This war makes no sense. "

 

Marching past the Treasury Building, Steven Olsen, 57, and his

wife, Brenda, 49, of Yonkers, N.Y., held signs bearing a photo of

their son, an Army Reserve sergeant sent to Iraq after enrolling in

medical school.

 

" I hear from him about once a month, " said Brenda as her husband

gently waved a placard that said, " Proud of my soldier: Ashamed of

this war. "

 

Staff writers Karlyn Barker, Jo Becker, Susan Levine, David

Nakamura, Robert E. Pierre, Amit R. Paley and Del Quentin Wilber

contributed to this report.

 

--

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092505Z.shtml#1

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/09/24/BAp\

rotest24.DTL

 

Thousands Protest the Iraq War

By Kathleen Sullivan, Chris Heredia, Janine DeFao and Todd Wallack

The San Francisco Chronicle

Saturday 24 September 2005

 

SF also crowded with Love Parade revelers.

Tens of thousands of people marched in San Francisco and the East Bay

today to urge the U.S. government to pull out of Iraq, joining

anti-war protests in Washington and other cities.

 

Elsewhere in the city, thousands of people grooved to the sound of

electronic music along Market Street and at Civic Center Plaza. And

tonight, thousands more are expected to rock-out at SBC Park to Green

Day, the celebrity punk band born in Berkeley.

 

Police estimated 20,000 people marched today. Organizers pegged

the crowd at 50,000. Either way, it was one of the largest anti-war

protests since the U.S. invaded Iraq two years ago. Protesters

gathered in San Francisco's Dolores Park this morning, then marched

for two hours to Jefferson Square Park, where the park was jammed with

a standing room only crowd of bodies.

 

As they marched, people carried signs expressing outrage at

everything from the war in Iraq to President Bush to the treatment of

Palestinians. One man, dressed as Uncle Sam, carried an American flag

with a peace sign.

 

A sixth-grader from San Jose held a handmade sign that said " No

war ever more " on one side and " No war anymore " on the other. " I am

going to be a conscientious objector, " said Dominic Dello Bueno, 11,

who was there with his father and younger sister. " I vote for peace

not war. " Some participants said they have been actively protesting

the war for months or years.

 

" I write letters, " said Isabelle Corkins, 47, of Alameda, who with

her husband and 4-year-old daughter. " This is the only thing left that

gives me a sense of doing something. "

 

A student from Laney College in Oakland prepared to help carry a

procession of black coffins, built to represent Iraqi children who

have died in the conflict.

 

" The idea is that we will stop protesting just because the war is

continuing, but we won't, " said Maryjane Jota, 20. " Just because it's

old news, doesn't mean that it's old news to the people who are dying. "

 

Douglas Fisher, 61, held a large rainbow flag that said " Peace " in

Italian. He said he got the flag in Sicily, and has taken part in

several peace marches to oppose the war.

 

" Somebody said it was a great day for a march, " he said. " I was

thinking it would be great if we didn't have to come down here anymore. "

 

Along a grassy median on Dolores Street, people set up 40 large

placards marking casualties from the war. Each poster carried 60

photos and drawings, representing American soldiers and Iraqi citizens

who have been killed in the conflict. (The U.S. military estimates

that at least 1,900 soliders have died, and thousands more have been

wounded in Iraq.)

 

Jim Haber, 43, said the posters were designed to " show the human

cost of the war. " At least a half dozen counter-protesters, including

a group of college Republicans from San Francisco State University,

turned out to the military effort in Iraq.

 

One held a handmade sign that said " Hey, losers. Stop demoralizing

the troops. "

 

Another said he thinks the U.S. military will need to remain in

Iraq for years to help the country establish a democracy. He said he

thought most of the protesters were radicals who wanted to overthrow

the U.S. government.

 

" There is a different way to peace, " said Leigh Wolf, a

19-year-old broadcast major. " This work can come to an end with

patriotism instead of a socialist revolution. "

 

By late afternoon, the crowd at Jefferson Park had thinned

considerably.

 

A smaller protest was also held in Walnut Creek, where about 250

to 300 people marched from the city's Bart station to Heather Farms Park.

 

The demonstration drew a wide range of people - from seniors to

kids- holding peace signs. Many drivers honked noisily as they drove

by marchers on Ignacio Valley Road, though some gave a thumbs down

sign or a middle finger.

 

A 52-year-old lawyer said he joined the protest because of her

outrage at the federal government's sluggish response to Hurricane

Katrina. Faith Brewer said she thought the problem was exacerbated

because too many resources were diverted to Iraq.

 

" Too many people died in New Orleans, because of the war in Iraq, "

she said.

 

Brewer said she was particularly motivated to march in Walnut

Creek, her hometown, because it's considered a more conservative city

in the liberal region.

 

" People tend to think that nobody here is against the war in Iraq

- that all the leftist, peaceniks are in San Francisco, " she said.

 

Others held signs supporting peace and a pull-out of Iraq. On said

" Moms against the War. " Another read, " Bring the troops home now. " A

third said " Peace is Patriotic. " Unlike some other war protests, the

focus appeared to be squarely on Iraq.

 

Sondra Runyan, who has a daughter in the Coast Guard, said she

worried that Americans have become inured to the news of soldiers

dying in Iraq.

 

" It seems when you turn on the radio, they mention we lost two or

three soldiers, and then they're off to the sports scores, " said

Runyan, 47, of Martinez. " People are immune to the pain these families

are going through. This is destroying families. "

 

Contra Costa County Supervisor Mark DeSaulnier, who attended the

rally, said he plans to propose a resolution next month in support of

Congressional legislation to set a deadline to withdraw U.S. forces

from Iraq.

 

" I don't see this as being out of mainstream, " DeSaulnier said, as

he looked over the crowd . " It may be the tip of the iceberg. "

 

" If enough local elected speak out, we could be saving lives, " he

added.

 

The Walnut Creek rally ended peacefully at about 2 p.m.

 

Meanwhile, thousands of electronic music lovers gathered along

Market Street for the 1 p.m. start of the city's second annual Loveparade.

 

The parade, featuring 24 floats with more than 200 disc jockeys

from as far away as Israel, was expected to head slowly along Market

Street, ending in a massive dance party at City Hall and the

surrounding Civic Center Plaza.

 

An estimated 30,000 to 35,000 people showed up for the festival

last year, and organizers hope to double that tally this year.

 

Though precise crowd estimates weren't available, the sidewalks

were packed 12-people deep in some places along Market Street as dance

party regulars mixed with tourists. " Can you feel the love? It's

contagious, " said Brian Tene, 27, of Daly City, dressed in a Superman

outfit, complete with a red cape and sculpted foam chest. " Look at

everyone being themselves and being free. "

 

Loveparade was first launched in Berlin in 1989, with the idea

that techno music would help bridge the cultures of East and West

Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall. While the Berlin event is

now defunct, other Loveparades had popped up around the globe,

including Mexico City and Tel Aviv.

 

The San Francisco event - which includes not only Euro-inspired

techno music but hip hop, house, jungle, funk, progressive and trance

music - has continued the theme that music celebrates diversity,

promotes tolerance and fosters community.

 

" The music sort of joins everyone together, " said parade

spokeswoman Jennifer Manger. " If we can put all the music in one

place, we can join those subcultures together in a community of love. "

 

The Green Day concert was expected to begin at 7 p.m., ensuring

traffic snarls would continue throughout the day. A BART commuter

reported trains were jammed.

 

--

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092505Z.shtml#2

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article314998.ece

 

Thousands March to Demand Withdrawal of Troops from Iraq

By Tom Anderson

The Independent UK

Sunday 25 September 2005

 

More than 10,000 protesters descended on London yesterday for a mass

demonstration against the war in Iraq.

 

Many of the protesters, who marched from Parliament Square to Hyde

Park blowing whistles and carrying placards, were demanding the

immediate withdrawal of British troops.

 

Buses were used to bring people from all over Britain to join the

demonstration, organised by the Stop the War Coalition.

 

Scotland Yard estimated that crowds had swollen to 10,000 people

by the time the march reached Hyde Park in the early afternoon,

although organisers put the numbers at up to 100,000. Other marches

were planned for the United States.

 

Andrew Murray, chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, said people

were marching to show their solidarity with Muslims bearing " the brunt

of attacks " in Iraq.

 

He told the crowd: " We cannot say how many are here, but there are

certainly tens of thousands from all over the country marching above

all to bring the troops home from Iraq and end the bloody disastrous

occupation. "

 

The former Labour MP Tony Benn, who also took part in the

demonstration, described the war as " unwinnable " and said it had been

waged " for oil and power " .

 

" We demand that troops come out of Iraq and that a date is set

now, " he said.

 

The demonstration, which was the 12th to be held over the past few

years, began outside the Houses of Parliament where protests have been

banned under new laws.

 

Peter Brierley, from Batley in West Yorkshire, whose son Shaun,

28, died in Kuwait in 2003, said: " My son was betrayed by Blair. If

the Government do not bring them out, there will be more families like

us. "

 

For Sue Smith, who lost her son in a roadside explosion in Basra

two months ago, the day was highly emotional. She choked back tears as

she read out a letter delivered to Downing Street earlier yesterday,

begging Tony Blair to withdraw British troops.

 

" Seven weeks ago we saw our son for the last time in a coffin at

the chapel of rest, " she said.

 

" You can never know how it feels, but you have the power to stop

it happening again. You made the decision to go to Iraq and you can

make the decision to get our sons and daughters out of there. "

 

British soldier Lance Corporal George Solomou, who refused his

call-up to serve in Iraq, was near the front of the protest as it made

its way to Trafalgar Square and on to Hyde Park.

 

He said: " I am here to show my solidarity. The British people are

realising they have been told more and more lies about this war. "

 

 

 

 

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