Anti-War Protests Gather Storm in Europe & US

by Mushtak Parker

Over 100,000 protesters took to the streets of central London yesterday in yet another demonstration against the war in Iraq. The route not surprisingly took in Whitehall, Parliament Square, along Piccadilly before reaching Hyde Park, with a
motley of campaigners shouting “Down with Downing Street, “ and “Stop the bombings” as they passed No 10 Downing Street.

Parliament Square and the West End was virtually at a standstill as protestors gathered to give Prime Minister Tony Blair an unequivocal message on the eve of the Labour Party’s annual conference in Brighton.

The march coincided with a call yesterday morning from the opposition
Liberal Democrats urging Prime Minister Tony Blair to immediately
start negotiations with the Iraqi government for a phased withdrawal
of British troops, to be replaced by a UN peacekeeping force comprised
mainly of soldiers from the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)
countries.

The raid by British soldiers on a jail in Basra ostensibly to free two
colleagues who were detained by the local police and allegedly on the
verge of being handed over two local militia; and yesterday’s reported
arrest warrant issued by an Iraqi judge against the two soldiers, has
once again focused opposition to British involvement in the occupation
in Iraq.

The protest march organized by Stop The War Coalition, the 12th
anti-war march since the invasion of Iraq two years ago, attracted
politicians and campaigners from all sides of the political spectrum
and relatives of those British soldiers killed in action in Iraq.

Opposition leaders such as Charles Kennedy of the Liberal Democrats,
who have opposed the war in Iraq from the onset, warned that Prime
Minister Blair was living “in denial” and his pride and “blind
support” for President George Bush are costing lives in Iraq.

Kennedy in his closing speech to the Lib Dem conference in Blackpool
on Friday said the presence of British troops in Iraq was now part of
the problem. And he claimed the “war on terror” had increased the
threat of terrorism.

“You cannot move on, when the prime minister remains in denial,”
Kennedy chided Blair. “You can’t move on when people are dying every
day. And you cannot move on when our British troops are still in the
firing line. After this week’s events in Basra we cannot sustain the
myth that Iraqis see coalition troops as liberators. What they see is
an occupation. The prime minister’s pride should not get in the way of
finding a solution for the people of Iraq. His blind support for
George Bush is continuing to cost lives - Iraqi citizens and coalition
soldiers. It’s time he laid out before Parliament a proper, structured
exit strategy for the phased withdrawal of British forces from Iraq.”

Kennedy said British troops had “served with distinction, courage and
great skill. Please listen, as you didn’t before, to millions of
people in our country, who are asking louder and louder as every day
goes by - ‘when can our troops go home?’

The so-called war on terror, he added, has been so badly implemented
that it has actually boosted the terror threat not diminished it.

Indeed, relatives of soldiers killed in the conflict, had a clear and
present message for Blair. Sue Smith from Tamworth in Staffordshire,
whose son Phillip Hewett died in July when a roadside bomb exploded
under his vehicle near Basra, delivered a letter to the prime minister
urging him to pull British troops out of Iraq and stressing: “I am
sitting writing this letter hoping that you will understand how we
feel, but I know that you don’t.”

She was joined by Reg Keys, whose son Tom was one of six Royal
Military Policemen killed in June 2003, and Peter Brierley, whose son
Shaun died in Kuwait in April of that year. British soldier
Lance-Corporal George Solomou, who refused his call-up to serve in
Iraq, turned up “to show my solidarity. The British people are
increasingly realizing that they have been told more and more lies
about the war.”

In contrast to the anti-war coalition, the main Conservative
Opposition warned the prime minister that there must be a real attempt
to confront militia in Iraq because the current UK strategy is not
working.

Tory leader Michael Howard said pulling UK troops out of Iraq could be
disastrous and make the country a centre for world terrorism.

In addition to London, opponents of the war in Iraq rallied by the
thousands yesterday to demand the return of US troops, staging a day
of protest, song and remembrance of the dead in marches through
Washington and other cities in the US.

More than 2,000 people gathered on the Ellipse hours before the
showcase demonstration past the White House, the first wave of what
organizers said would be the largest Washington rally since the war
began.

President Bush himself was out of town, monitoring hurricane recovery
efforts from Colorado and Texas.

“We have to get involved,” said Erika McCroskey, 27, who came from Des
Moines, Iowa, with her younger sister and mother for her first
demonstration, traveling in just one of the buses that poured into the
capital from far-flung places.

“Bush Lied, Thousands Died,” said one sign. “End the Occupation,” said
another.

While united against the war, political beliefs varied in the
Washington crowd. Paul Rutherford, 60, of Vandalia, Mich., said he is
a Republican who supported Bush in the last election and still does -
except for the war.

“President Bush needs to admit he made a mistake in the war and bring
the troops home, and let’s move on,” he said. His wife, Judy, 58,
called the removal of Saddam Hussein “a noble mission” but said US
troops should have left when claims that Iraq possessed weapons of
mass destruction proved unfounded.

“We found that there were none and yet we still stay there and
innocent people are dying daily,” she said.

Arthur Pollock, 47, of Cecil County, Md., said he was against the war
from the beginning. He wants the soldiers out, but not all at once.

“They’ve got to leave slowly,” said Pollock, attending his first
protest. “It will be utter chaos in that country if we pull them out
all at once.” Rallies were planned, too, in Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Seattle, Florence, Rome, Paris and Madrid.

In a hitch for some coming to the protest, 13 Amtrak trains running
between New York and Washington were delayed for up to three hours
yesterday morning for repair of overhead electrical lines. Protest
organizers said that held up thousands coming to the rally.

“We believe we are at a tipping point whereby the anti-war sentiment
has now become the majority sentiment,” said Brian Becker, national
coordinator for ANSWER, one of the main anti-war organizers.

Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who drew thousands of
demonstrators to her 26-day vigil outside President Bush’s Texas ranch
last month, joined the protest. Sheehan’s 24-year-old son, Casey, was
killed in an ambush in Sadr City, Iraq, last year.

Supporters of President Bush’s policy in Iraq assembled in smaller
numbers to get their voice heard in the day’s anti-war din.

Gary Qualls, 48, of Temple, Texas, whose Marine reservist son, Louis,
died last year in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, spoke in
support of continued US involvement.

“If you bring them home now, who’s going to be responsible for all the
atrocities that are fixing to happen over there?” he asked. “Cindy
Sheehan?

The protest route runs to the front of the White House, down to the
Justice Department and then back to the Washington Monument, site of
an 11-hour concert and rally featuring folk singer Joan Baez and
stretching well into the night. Sheehan and other mothers against the
war held a small rally near the Washington Monument on Friday. They
spoke just a few feet from 1,000 white wooden crosses tucked into the
grass to symbolize the more than 1,900 members of the US armed forces
who have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003. At a rally
at the US Navy Memorial put on by Protest Warrior and other groups
supporting Bush’s policy, demonstrators denounced Sheehan as a mother
exploiting her son’s death. “If I were to die in Iraq, I wouldn’t want
my parents to be like Cindy Sheehan,” said Army National Guard Spc.
Julie McManus, 20, of Drexel Hill, Pa., who was among more than 100
people holding signs. “I’d be ashamed of them.”

McManus said she drove to Washington with her boyfriend; she wore a
white tank top with the words “American Solider” in black marker.