Edgy Dems Snarl at Their Antiwar Base

May 1, 2007

Fear and Vitriol in the Halls of Congress

By JOHN V. WALSH

Democrats in Congress are growing increasingly hostile toward their antiwar base. David Obey has provided the most notorious example upon a chance encounter with Marine Mom, Tina Richards, in a Congressional hallway. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS4wHMCc57k). Richards had tried to talk with Obey, her Congressman, for a long time, but he had successfully eluded her until this day. Now she and other antiwar activists were lobbying in the Capitol in an attempt to get "our" Senators and Representatives to cut off funding for the war. Not surprisingly, Obey gave the standard response when Richards asked why he continues to fund the war. "We don't have the votes," he shouted at her. To which the answer is of course: "Congressman, we only want your one vote, and your help in getting the rest. You cannot win if you do not fight." Talk to any Dem politician and he or she will tell that they on your side but the others are the problem. So the votes are not there collectively, but individually everyone is on the side of peace. That is a very strange calculus.

The odious aspect of the encounter was that Obey set about attacking the Marine Mom and the handful of Democrats who, unlike him, refused to vote supplemental funding for the war. "Idiot liberals," was the first outburst, followed by: "The liberal groups are jumping around without knowing what the hell is in the [supplemental funding] bill"; "You're smoking something illegal"; and "If you guys don't stop screwing it up," we will end the war. Finally an aide pulled him away and he waddled through a door and slammed it shut in Richards face. What is wrong here? Why would he treat this worried mother in such a shabby way?

It is not just Obey; he just happened to get caught on camera. When we went to visit Senator Kerry's aide here in MA we got the same response. We were just "a bunch of liberals." Senator Kerry, the aide said petulantly, is trying to do "some good in the world", not just trying to "feel good" like "you liberals." And again from my "liberal" Congressman Capuano, the same thing. Capuano assured us that he was trying to do some real good in the world unlike "the liberals" who voted against the supplemental. Again the anger at the "liberal" groups and the ten Congresspeople (two of them Republicans) who voted against the supplemental out of opposition to the war was ferocious. Why is this?

I submit that these Democrats are running scared. They know that their antiwar base is crucial to winning their next election. Without it they might lose in 2008. In strongly antiwar districts like Capuano's in Massachusetts or Obey's in Wisconsin, there is a real danger of losing their Congressional seats, than which nothing is more important to them. And the few genuine antiwar voices in their party, Dennis Kucinich or Barbara Lee, for example, make then look bad by comparison. They wish these bothersome liberals would just go away. What if a strong antiwar Democrat were to appear in the next primary or what if a Green should run in the general against them in '08? Can they win if their antiwar base is fed up with them and turns elsewhere? And what if they also face a strong Republican opponent, which is Kerry's problem in '08?

The same dynamic showed up in the recent MoveOn town hall meeting, which featured phone presentations and questions for each of the antiwar candidates, meaning Democratic candidates. (Libertarian Ron Paul was not invited, unsurprisingly since MoveOn is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party.) A vote was taken afterwards on the favorite candidate of the antiwar participants, and the results were headlined as "Clinton suffers virtual defeat in MoveOn vote on Iraq," or "Clinton Bombs in Liberal Straw Poll.

With 43,000 people responding, the numbers were: Obama, 28 per cent; Edwards, 25 per cent; Kucinich, 17 per cent; Richardson, 12 per cent; Clinton, 10 per cent; with only Biden and Dodd lower. The interpretation is simple. If you are seen as pro-war, your prospects are dim. True to form, having taken the poll, MoveOn quickly disappeared the results from its web site. One can be fairly certain that the Dem hierarchy was displeased with the results for HRC and ordered the whole thing air brushed away. MoveOn dutifully obliged.

The striking thing about the poll is how well Kucinich did. He is the only one in the entire pack who can legitimately claim to be antiwar. Obama and Edwards were ahead of him only because they are widely perceived, or more accurately misperceived, as antiwar. And of course they get tons of sympathetic coverage in the mass media. But their true colors are becoming ever clearer. Recently (4/29) in the Washington Post, the rabid neocon Robert Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, adviser to the McCain campaign and lead proponent of war on Iran, heaped praise on Obama for being an advocate of pre-emptive war and of increasing the army and marines by tens of thousands of troops. ( For his part Edwards is now exposed by Senator Durbin's disclosure that the Senate Select Intelligence Committee knew that the administration was lying in the lead-up to the war on Iraq. Durbin excuses himself from hiding the truth from the public by saying the committee was sworn to secrecy. But that was a time to come forward with the truth and take the consequences--even jail--to stop a war based on lies. And it is even worse to have been on that committee and to have voted for the war. John Edwards was on that committee. John Edwards voted for the war. It turns out that John Edwards did in fact know then what he knows now! Durbin is the second Senator to have outed Edwards in this way, the first being former Senator Bob Graham.

The Democrats are in an awful bind. They have been complicit in this war from the beginning--up to their necks in the death and destruction every bit as much as W. That provides an opening for a new start in American politics. But this means that the Greens and the Libertarians must seize the moment, overcome their dysfunctionality and pose a serious challenge to the two War Parties. The Democrats are on the run; will we go get 'em? Will we live up to the challenge?

John Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com. He encourages one and all to join the many thousands who have signed the petition at WWW.FilibusterForPeace.org. It only takes 41 of the 51 Democratic Senators to bring the war on Iraq to an end. They have the power. Why do they not use it?

Peace Movement Must Take on AIPAC

AIPAC (the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) is the driving force behind America's uber-aggressive foreign policy. Unless the pro-peace movement takes them and their rhetoric -- not to mention their outright disloyalty on -- then we will not get anywhere in our efforts to stop future wars against Iran, Syria, and the rest of the Middle East.

Posted by Paul Gessing on April 19, 2007 12:37 AM | Permalink

Foreign policy advisers to the 'big three' Democrats bode ill for antiwar movement

April 16, 2007

Democratic Illusions

by Justin Raimondo

Anyone who had illusions about the Democratic Party as the electoral vehicle of choice for the antiwar movement has got to be dispirited by the "big three" presidential wannabes: John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. None have come out clearly and unequivocally for withdrawal from Iraq, and all refuse to rule out military action against Iran. The situation appears even worse when we look at who's advising them when it comes to foreign policy. A recent cover piece in the New York Observer throws the spotlight on these otherwise obscure (yet important) figures – hat tip: Matt Yglesias – and the result isn't pretty. The "Iraq-eteers" are a "collegial" group, we are told, and, while there are differences of emphasis, all fit within the parameters of conventional liberal internationalism – of the sort that got us into Vietnam and will help keep us in Iraq. Particularly disappointing for principled opponents of interventionism is one Derek Chollet, co-founder of the Center for a New American Security, which advocates a "centrist foreign policy," i.e., interventionism, but with less melodramatic flair than the neoconservatives over at the Project for a New American Century. As an introduction to Chollet's views, I would point to this post on DemocracyArsenal.org, the cyber-headquarters of the "national-security Democrats," who keep themselves busy coming up with alternatives to simply withdrawing from Iraq – and who were too "responsible" (that is, intimidated by Republican chest-beating) to oppose the war outright. "Time," Chollet warns, "is running out": "The hard-line mullahs and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad show little sign that they are interested in bargaining for anything less than an independent nuclear capability. They are on a collision course with the rest of the world – and rather than sensing trouble, they seem to relish the situation." No mention that the Iranians approached the U.S. government in 2003 with the prospect of negotiations for a comprehensive settlement to all outstanding issues between the U.S. and Tehran, even offering to give up some of Osama bin Laden's relatives (including a son), in exchange for some indication of Washington's willingness to engage. By dropping the context of U.S.-Iranian relations and negating the sad history of American intransigence, Chollet makes it appear as if the Iranians are solely to blame. But that isn't true. Another aspect of the Iranian-U.S. relationship Chollet fails to mention is the lack of any centralized command-and-control when it comes to Iranian foreign policy: various agencies and factions within the government pursue differing and often competing agendas. To hear Chollet tell it, however, one would think the hard-liners in Iran are in total control. Again, it just isn't true. Diplomacy, avers Chollet, is all well and good, but those hardheaded Iranians – who stubbornly insist they have as much right to develop nuclear energy as any other nation on earth, including the U.S. and Israel – are not caving: "That's why the military options are being discussed in Washington. While a U.S. military campaign remains highly unlikely, the fact it is even being considered is a reflection of how desperate – and dangerous – this crisis has become." Yes, there's "still room for creative diplomacy," but Chollet believes the prospects for war – a war he clearly thinks would be justified – loom rather large at the moment: "There is the problem of time. We face a cold reality: Better policies perfectly executed might not work before Iran has developed nuclear weapons. So while we must hold the line that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable, the limited options before us require clear-headed thinking about living in a world with a nuclear Iran. It's not just prevention we have to worry about; it's containment and deterrence. "A nuclear Iran would fundamentally alter the strategic chessboard in the Middle East, and spark a regional Cold War. The West would have to make clear the consequences of any use of Iran's weapons, and should explore offering security guarantees to Iran's most likely targets, like Israel and, perhaps someday, a peaceful and democratic Iraq. … "The consequences of Iran going nuclear are so serious that we must be placing far more energy now in a solution to stop it. But given our limited options for doing so – and the real likelihood that whatever we do, the Iranian regime is not persuadable – responsible governance requires that we begin to prepare for the worst." Why is a nuclear Iran "unacceptable" to the U.S.? Yes, surely one can see how the Israeli government would strike such a stance, but how, exactly, is America threatened by the prospect of Iranian nukes? We lived with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union for almost half a century. Pakistan has nukes, as does India – and Israel. The principle of deterrence has worked pretty effectively with them over the years, and there is no reason why it shouldn't function in much the same way where the mullahs are concerned. In any case, there can be no disarmament of Iran until the entire Middle East is turned into a nuclear-free zone. I wouldn't hold my breath, however, for the Israelis to go along with that. After all, they won't even officially acknowledge they have nukes, let alone sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (Iran, on the other hand, is a signatory.) It's funny how the U.S. didn't object to Iran's nuclear program when the shah was touting it as evidence of his country's entry into modernity. We helped them build it every step of the way, until the Iranians overthrew the widely hated monarch and set up the current regime. Now they're finishing what the shah started. That's called "blowback," as Chalmers Johnson explained in his classic book of the same title, a backlash generated by our interventionist foreign policy. After being targeted by the president of the United States as a member of the infamous "axis of evil," is it any surprise that Iran is intent on developing a nuclear capacity? This is the crucial context in which Iran's actions take place, but you wouldn't know that from listening to Chollet. The idea that Iranian possession of nuclear weapons would necessarily have to mean a regional war is odd coming from someone who clearly believes such a war might be necessary in order to ensure Iran doesn't cross the nuclear threshold. Should we go to war in order to prevent a war? This hardly makes either moral or military sense. Again, there may be interests in the region that would stand to lose if Tehran goes nuclear – Israel, for one, would lose its nuclear monopoly, and the Sunni nations, already nervous on account of Shi'ite revivalism, would be put on edge – but there is no clear reason why the U.S. has so much at stake as to launch a preemptive strike. Security guarantees for Israel are a bad idea: under the rubric of such an agreement, we could find U.S. troops deployed in Lebanon or even the occupied territories. The irony of offering security guarantees to the Iraqi state, even as it decomposes into its constituent ethno-religious components due to our actions, is likely not lost on Iraqi nationalists. Iraq does need security guarantees of a sort, however – to restrain its U.S. and British occupiers, who remain immune from Iraqi law and whose presence is overwhelmingly opposed by the Iraqi people. Chollet tells us to "prepare for the worst" – and, if Edwards gets into the White House, we may have to. With Bush and the other Republicans, at least we know what we're getting: perpetual war. When it comes to the Democrats, however, we run into the danger of thinking we are getting a foreign policy based on sweet reason when what we're in for is the same old interventionist crap. These people sit around in their offices every day thinking up new ways to meddle in the affairs of foreign peoples. They are perpetually "concerned" about this "crisis" or that "turning point," and they are constantly warning us that "time is running out." Unless "we" – meaning the U.S. government – do something, the world as we know it will end. That is a delusion, of course, and a dangerous one, but there you have it: it's the culture of the Washington policy wonks, who assume government action is the solution to each and every problem, both nationally and internationally. To these little lords of creation, there is no problem they can't come up with a government-funded solution to. Skepticism about the limits (or morality) of American power abroad is limited to "far left" commentators such as Noam Chomsky and Alex Cockburn, or Republican "realists" such as John Mearsheimer and Andrew Bacevich. Self-proclaimed "centrists" of the Edwards-Chollet variety are always interventionists. It is telling that Chollet is the foreign policy voice of the most ostensibly "antiwar" of all the Democratic candidates, John Edwards. I'll cover the others in future editions of this column, but suffice to say at this point that the prospects for finding and fielding a genuine antiwar candidate within the Democratic fold seem almost nil.

War Objector's Dad Becomes a Critic

Monday April 16, 2007 10:31 AM

By BRIAN CHARLTON

Associated Press Writer

HONOLULU (AP) - Ever since Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada refused to go to Iraq, his father has toured the country to criticize the war and gain support for his son.

Bob Watada said his life dramatically changed after his son became the first military officer to face a court-martial for publicly refusing to deploy to Iraq.

He researched events leading up the war, started criticizing the Bush administration on its reasons for invading Iraq and spent much of the past year traveling with his wife to speak about his son and raise money for his legal costs.

``It was because of him that I've gone out and educated myself,'' s't want to commit acts that he felt could be war crimes. He faces charges of missing movement and conduct unbecoming an officer. If convicted, he could be sentenced to six years in prison and be dishonorably discharged.

He faces a second court-martial July 16 after his first military trial in February ended when the judge said he didn't believe the soldier fully understood a pretrial agreement he signed.

His lawyers have advised him to stop talking about the case, his father said.

``My son has somewhat backed off a little bit,'' Watada said. ``He's somewhat become afraid of what people are going to do to him right now. He's become very cautious.''

Bob Watada, however, continues to attract attention despite canceling many of his appearances after his wife had a stroke. He said he still gets about 30 e-mails a day.

Watada, who had seven brothers in the military, also opposed the Vietnam War and extended his education to avoid the draft, claiming that that war was illegal.

He said he discussed his opinions on war with his son when Ehren decided to join the Army. ``He felt there were terrorists out there and he wanted to do his part,'' Watada said.

Tacoma to Send Pentagon the Bill for Policing Antiwar Port Protests

Last updated April 2, 2007 10:20 p.m. PT

Anti-war protests cost Tacoma $500,000

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TACOMA -- Tacoma police say last month's 12-day anti-war protests cost the city an unbudgeted $500,000 to provide a large-scale law enforcement presence.

The rough estimate covers overtime, regular compensation, equipment and food for hundreds of workers from Tacoma police and other agencies, Assistant Chief Bob Sheehan said.

The city plans to ask the Port of Tacoma and the military to cover some of the costs.

"That's a tremendous hit on our budget -- a half-million dollars of unexpected expense," said Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma, adding that the military would get the first invoice.

"I think our request is justifiable," Baarsma said. "I would expect that we would be reimbursed. I would be surprised if we weren't."

Police increased law enforcement at the Port of Tacoma during the convoying and storage of Army Stryker vehicles from March 3 until a ship carrying the military equipment left for Iraq on March 14.

Protesters were there each night.

Police Log Confirms FBI Role In Antiwar Protesors Arrests

Police Log Confirms FBI Role In Arrests
Group Detained, Questioned During D.C. War Protest

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 3, 2007; B01

A secret FBI intelligence unit helped detain a group of war protesters in a downtown Washington parking garage in April 2002 and interrogated some of them on videotape about their political and religious beliefs, newly uncovered documents and interviews show.

For years, law enforcement authorities suggested it never happened. The FBI and D.C. police said they had no records of such an incident. And police told a federal court that no FBI agents were present when officers arrested more than 20 protesters that afternoon for trespassing; police viewed them as suspicious for milling around the parking garage entrance.

But a civil lawsuit, filed by the protesters, recently unearthed D.C. police logs that confirm the FBI's role in the incident. Lawyers for the demonstrators said the logs, which police say they just found, bolster their allegations of civil rights violations.

The probable cause to arrest the protesters as they retrieved food from their parked van? They were wearing black -- a color choice the FBI and police associated with anarchists, according to the police records.

FBI agents dressed in street clothes separated members to question them one by one about protests they attended, whom they had spent time with recently, what political views they espoused and the significance of their tattoos and slogans, according to interviews and court records.

The revelations, combined with protester accounts, provide the first public evidence that Washington-based FBI personnel used their intelligence-gathering powers in the District to collect purely political intelligence. Ultimately, the protesters were not prosecuted because there wasn't sufficient evidence of trespassing, and their arrest records were expunged.

Similar intelligence-gathering operations have been reported in New York, where a local police intelligence unit tried to infiltrate groups planning to protest at the Republican National Convention in 2004, and in Colorado, where records surfaced showing that the FBI collected names and license plates of people protesting timber industry practices at a 2002 industry convention.

Several federal courts have ruled that intelligence agencies can monitor domestic groups only when there is reason to believe the group is engaged in criminal activity. Experts in police conduct say it is hard to imagine how asking questions about a person's political views would be appropriate in a trespassing case.

The Washington case centers on activities that took place April 20, 2002 -- a day of three cacophonic but generally orderly rallies that drew an estimated 75,000 people to the Mall. They included groups demonstrating against the prospect of war in Iraq, numerous supporters of the war, and Palestinians and others rallying for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and for peace in the Middle East.

The police logs for that day show how events developed: Secret Service agents had some concern about a group near the JBG Co. building's garage at 1275 K St. NW just after 5 p.m.

"Intell 53 advises that five members of the anarchist group have entered a parking garage," reads an entry from 5:12 p.m.

Ten minutes later, an entry notes the FBI's role.

"FBI, JOCC advises that an FBI intell team is responding to area of 13th and K/L Streets regarding a report of alleged anarchists in the vicinity," it reads. "There are reportedly 15 anarchists at 13th and K being interviewed. The subjects reportedly had a passkey to a building, but it's unknown how they came to be in possession of it."

The entry notes that D.C. police also were at the site. The protesters were detained at the garage for more than an hour, logs show, until police decided to arrest them for alleged unlawful entry.

D.C. police officials acknowledged in 2003 that the department had a secret intelligence unit that infiltrated and monitored protest groups in the Washington area, even if authorities had no evidence of criminal activity. The practice drew complaints from the D.C. Council, and police promised to develop guidelines.

The Partnership for Civil Justice, a civil liberties group, helped 11 protesters sue D.C. police in 2003 and the FBI last year, alleging that the questioning and detentions violated their civil rights.

In response to the suit, D.C. police at first said that no police intelligence officials were involved in the arrests. Last year, city officials revealed under additional questioning that five members of the police intelligence unit were present.

The plaintiffs argue that the newly released police logs make clear that the FBI, working hand in hand with local police, is engaged in a concerted effort to spy on and intimidate U.S. citizens who are lawfully exercising their free-speech rights. They contend that this is a national effort that abuses the FBI's broad counterterrorism powers and equates political speech with a risk to national security.

"It really is a secret police: This is an effort to suppress political dissent," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice. "If this was happening in another country that the U.S. was targeting, U.S. officials at the highest levels would be decrying this as a violation of human rights,"

FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said the agency stands by its assertion in court filings that it maintains no records of the incident.

A law enforcement official familiar with joint operations during protests said it would be typical for the FBI to hand over records of questioning to the lead agency -- in this case, the D.C. police.

D.C. police said authorities only recently found the logs of police responses to that day's events. That discovery came after three years of police assurances in federal court that no such records or logs existed showing the FBI's role.

The records turned up on the eve of a deposition in which a police records technician was to be questioned about the existence of a routine log that his office is responsible for maintaining during any mass protest in Washington.

Sgt. Joe Gentile, a D.C. police spokesman, referred questions to the D.C. attorney general's office.

Traci Hughes, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, said the city's lawyers never intentionally misrepresent evidence to the court and come forward when discrepancies turn up.

"We have to rely upon information that the client gives us," Hughes said, adding that police turned over the log as soon as they learned it existed.

In November, as the Partnership for Civil Justice continued to try to get police records of the event, the FBI officials argued that the lawsuit against the agency should be dismissed. They said that the bureau had no relevant records and that if the FBI ever had any records, they had been disposed of when protesters' arrest records were expunged, or "they remain unidentifiable for other reasons." Justice Department attorneys noted, however, that questioning people in a criminal investigation was not improper.

In their lawsuit, the partnership and protesters said the FBI's political and religious questioning was "wholly unrelated to any legitimate activities of law enforcement" and violated their free speech rights under the First Amendment. They noted that some of the protesters had parked their van in the garage and were merely retrieving food.

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

Vigorous war protests in San Francisco, Seattle, and Minneapolis

Thousands of antiwar demonstrators came out again on Sunday.

San Francisco, Seattle, and Minneapolis

Ottawa and Montreal - Day of Action: 4th Anniversary of Iraq War

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Hundreds of people once again braved icy winds and snow flurries today to join at least 37 Canadian cities and thousands of U.S. cities in voicing grave concern over the wars inflicted by the West on Iraq and Afghanistan, and currently being threatened against Iran. There was actually a global callout that included protests against regional wars such as in Somalia, Palestine and Darfur as well.

Below you will see photos from the Ottawa demo and below that are a few words and some photos of the Montreal demo, courtesy of Ron Saba, Editor of Montreal Planet Magazine.

I need to say very little about the Ottawa rally, because the protest signs spoke volumes. It was obvious the people are not fooled by the false premises - such as, we're there to "help with reconstruction" - on which the wars and horrendous human rights violations are based and by which they are lamely justified.

The Ottawa demonstration was cooperatively organized by groups such as ROCG, NOWAR-PAIX and SCAW. Information about those groups, their websites, and the names of persons who spoke at the event can be found here.

I heard several times today from people of my advanced age how wonderful it was to see so many bright young faces in the crowd. Students probably have no idea how much their enthusiasm and creativity are appreciated by worn out older activists.

On with the photos. If you notice white spots, that's falling snow. (Click on each image to see a larger version)

Gatineau, Ottawa and student groups converged at the National Art Gallery. In this photo a man is holding one of the most stand-out, homemade peace symbols I've ever seen. Someone else is carrying a sign that says: "War is a moral issue - Thou shalt not kill" It seems that even though Stephen Harper and George Bush proudly proclaim their Christianity, they have missed the point of it entirely.

"Harper Dearest: Don't Assume I Share Your Prejudices"
This sign also contains the universal symbol for "No" (a red circle with a diagonal line) and the word "Fascism" inside the circle.

"No to military attack on Iran! No to Islamic Republic of Iran!"
(Worker Communist Party of Iran)

Another sign in this photo: "The Emperor has no brain"

Two signs: "War is not the Answer" and "Stop the Bloodshed - Troops out Now!"



Two signs: "9.11 - 20.3.03; Lest We Forget - the official version IS a conspiracy!"
"Blessed are the Peace Makers for they shall be called Children of God, Matt. 5:9"



Then the march began through the Byward Market area and toward the US Embassy.
This sign says: "This is what Democracy looks like!" (In case anyone has forgotten)

"Collateral damage is not reconstruction"



"Bombs are not smart"

"We are all to blame - it's time to take a stand"

"War = The best terrorist recruitment tool our tax dollars can buy"

"Troops' lives are not worth Harper's lies"

"There is no 'reconstruction' in military destruction"

"To live the American Dream, you have to be ASLEEP! WAKE UP CANADA!"

This sign is orange and diamond-shaped like a stop sign.
It has images of Harper and Bush side by side and the words:
"Caution - War Mongers in Progress"

Here we are at the US Embassy. Photo: Girl holding bomb. I don't think it's real.



This is the speakers' dais, decorated with two wooden coffins made by a professor from one of the universities. That's the embassy in the background at which Ottawa activists have so often vented their frustration with George Bush.

Moving on toward Parliament Hill
Sign: "Our Troops are Amazing! Our Foreign Policy is Abominable!"

Banner: "Industrial Workers of the World - An injury to one is an injury to all!"

"No Illegal Imprisonment"

"Stop Fascism"
I have to assume this means the fascism in our own country. The word Islamofascism was coined by those who are trying to project our own sins onto someone else.

Taking the message right to the steps of Parliament.

The Raging Grannies received an enthusiastic response to their songs.

Here are my favourite photo subjects - I always love to see the all-important drummers and the sweet little kids

One of the drummers.

Child wearing military style helmet with the words "Class Warrior" in red at the front. The "A" in warrior is changed to a peace symbol, and there is a larger peace symbol on the back of the helmet.

This little girl made and decorated her own sign. It says "Peace on Earth" and it has hearts and stars and flowers and Mr. Sun on it, all in pretty pastel colours.

On to Montreal
Israeli Apartheid is always included in Montreal rallies. This one was no exception.

By Ron Saba: Montreal Anti-Occupation/War/Apartheid Demo, March 17, 2007
(Photo captions added by YYC)

With a cunning smile, the US Empire and its Canadian lackey offers imperial soup. And then guns them down with imperial guns. Canadians have much blood on their hands. We will have even more blood on our hands unless we act now to stop the Harper/Bush Military Industrial Complex before it attacks Iran. We the people must stand together and demand an end to the military industrial complex. We the people must stand together and demand an end to the illegal occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

Sign: "Palestiniens et Juifs Unis Contre L'Occupation Israélienne"

View of marchers in the street

Sign: "Massacre Charitable? C'est Louche!"

Street theatre - tough guy soldiers with guns

Sign: "No More Bantustans - South Africa 1988, Now Palestine"
(The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid)

A pointed message about Petro Canada : "See ya in Iran"
In other words, we're onto you guys. We know what you're really after, and what you don't mind shedding other people's blood for.

Related:
CanadaWatch: PHOTOS of Hamilton demo
CBC: Rallies in Canada and U.S. protest Iraq war, Afghan mission
More links to photos at WhatReallyHappened.com

Video of Encampment to Stop the War Arrests

Related
Anti-War Protests
Photos
---
Video of Encampment to Stop the War Arrests Yesterday
By Troops Out Now Staff
Mar 16, 2007, 16:5

WASHINGTON - Yesterday, 9 participants in the Encampment to Stop the War were arrested at the House Appropriations Committee Meeting in the Rayburn Building. The Democrat-led committee met to execute their first step toward increasing funding for the U.S. war on the people of Iraq. The following video was taken by Troops Out Now during the arrests. Our attorneys worked throughout the day yesterday to gain their release late last night. Watch for more direct action against the Democrat-backed war on Iraq as people are pouring into Washington this evening for the March on the Pentagon tomorrow. You can find more action updates on the Encampment to Stop the War Blog.

VIDEO

URL

March on Pentagon Photo Gallery

March on Pentagon Photo Gallery

4 Years After Start of War, Anger Reigns

Related
Ridiculous coverage: Goodbye WaPo
The article, entitled "4 Years After Start of War, Anger Reigns", makes some ridiculous assertions, passes more rumor and opinion as fact, and was the last straw in my ever-shortening patience for the shitrag that used to pass for the nation's preeminent political paper.
---
Is WaPo good enough to be a shitrag?
I think not
---
Photo #8 - shown above
---
Demonstrators Brave Cold to Carry Message to Pentagon, as Counter-Protesters Battle Back

By Steve Vogel and Michael Alison Chandler

Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 18, 2007; A01

Thousands of demonstrators protesting the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq marched on the Pentagon yesterday, jeered along the way by large numbers of angry counter-protesters.

Organizers billed the antiwar rally as marking the 40th anniversary of the 1967 march on the Pentagon. At times, verbal clashes during the cold and blustery day demonstrated that the bitter divisions of four decades ago sparked by Vietnam are very much alive in the debate over Iraq.

The march, part of a weekend of protests that included smaller demonstrations in other U.S. cities and abroad, comes as the Bush administration sends more troops to Iraq in an attempt to regain control of Baghdad and Congress considers measures to bring U.S. troops home.

Paul Miller, 72, a Korean War-era Marine Corps veteran who flew from California for the march with his brother, was making his first appearance at an antiwar rally. "I was like everybody else. I trusted the people who ran the country, and I'm tired of being lied to," Miller said, standing on a hill overlooking the Pentagon, a beret with a Marine Corps pin on his head. "I feel so bad for the young Marines who are getting their legs blown off and losing their lives."

Organizers said yesterday's march on the Pentagon reflected the public's sense of betrayal over the escalation of the war. As some speakers called for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, others denounced Congress in equally bitter terms for not cutting off funding for the war. Yet attendance at yesterday's march was noticeably smaller than one held in Washington in January, police said.

Much of the passion yesterday was supplied by thousands of counter-demonstrators, many of them veterans who mobilized from across the country to gather around the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Some said they came in response to appeals on the Internet to protect the Wall against what they feared would be acts of vandalism; no such acts were reported.

Others said they were tired of war protesters claiming to speak for the country. "I'm here because I think we need to commit to our troops in the field," said Guy Rocca, 63, a veteran who drove nine hours from Detroit.

Some counter-protesters yelled obscenities and mocked the marchers as traitors. War protesters responded with angry words of their own, and police intervened at times to prevent shouting matches from escalating.

The counter-demonstrators ringed the Lincoln Memorial and continued along portions of Arlington Memorial Bridge. "You've got no pride and no honor," yelled Kenneth Murphy, a Vietnam veteran from North Carolina.

When marchers reached the Virginia side of the bridge, they were greeted by more protesters at the traffic circle in front of Arlington National Cemetery, along with a banner that read in part: "You dishonor our dead on Hallowed ground." The war protesters might have found the warmest reception of the day at the Pentagon, where police had the building blocked off, but no counter-demonstrators were waiting.

"It's strange to say, but welcome to the Pentagon," said protest leader Mara Veheyden-Hilliard, speaking on a stage in the north parking lot as the first streams of marchers began arriving.

A group of protesters who tried to reach the Pentagon by charging toward the south parking lot ended up in a tense standoff with police. Five arrests were made in the incident. But beyond shoving matches, no violence was reported.

After a night of rain, sleet and snow, the day began with bright sunshine but low temperatures. Marchers assembled at first in relatively sparse numbers on a muddy playing field at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue NW.

Organizers, who had predicted tens of thousands of marchers would demonstrate, gave estimates ranging from 15,000 to 30,000. Police no longer provide official estimates of crowd size but informally put it at 10,000 to 20,000, with a smaller but sizable contingent of counter-protesters.

War protest leaders said a large winter storm that hit the Northeast hurt turnout. More than 60 bus loads of protesters who had been scheduled to come from the region canceled their trips Friday night, according to Brian Becker, national coordinator for the Answer Coalition, the event's main sponsor.

It was quickly apparent that the weather had not prevented counter-demonstrators, many in black leather motorcycle jackets, from showing up in force and surrounding all sides of the Wall.

At one point before the march started, counter-demonstrators formed a gantlet along an asphalt walkway on Constitution Avenue and heaped verbal abuse at protesters who walked through on their way to the assembly area. One Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair yelled obscenities at demonstrators, including some with children.

Some demonstrators supporting the war effort engaged in good-natured banter with war protesters. But others blocked paths and prevented marchers from getting near the Wall, particularly anyone carrying a sign. District resident Eric Anderson, 47, had his sign ripped from his hands and thrown in the mud.

Bob Anders, 60, an Iowa banker who said he served with the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam and rode a bus from Iowa to protest the war, had his heart set on seeing the memorial but turned around after seeing the situation. "I've never seen the memorial, and I wanted to see it in a spirit of protest," he said.

After speeches from antiwar activists including Cindy Sheehan, the first marchers took off across the bridge shortly before 1 p.m. The marchers began arriving at the Pentagon about 1:45, some gathering in front of the stage in the north parking lot and others perched on a hill by a Route 27 overpass.

About 2:10, a group of several hundred young people continued past the rally point and marched down Route 27 toward the south parking lot until they confronted a police barricade. Some youths who carried traffic barrels cut in half and painted red and black as shields and wore scarves over their faces pressed forward as Pentagon police, backed by Virginia state troopers in riot gear, stood two layers deep, trying to push them back. When that failed, the police donned gas masks. One of the protesters threw a firecracker, and many people ran off.

About 70 to 80 people sat down and were threatened with arrest. Protesters chanted, "The whole world is watching." Then protesters took a vote and opted to back off.

Yet, many demonstrators showed respect toward police and the military.

Among those marching on a day of cold, whipping wind was Maureen Dooley of Melfa, Va., who first marched on the Pentagon when she was 18; now she is 58. "I came, as I did today, to be quietly counted among the people opposed to this war," she said.

Dooley said she wished she could "apologize for my generation" for the way the antiwar movement treated Vietnam veterans on their return home. "This time, we're with our young men and women," she said.

The Pentagon's windswept north parking lot was cold, and many protesters did not linger long. By 3:30 p.m., only a few hundred marchers remained huddled around the stage. Most had left, with many of the out-of-towners seeking refuge on the floor of the nearby Arlington Cemetery Metro station.

One group that had come by overnight bus from Iowa City huddled on the floor near the station elevators. They had survived the 22-hour bus ride as well as the insults of the counter-protesters, only to be defeated by the bitter cold.

"We just couldn't take it anymore," said Christine Gaunt, 50, a hog farmer from Grinnell, Iowa. Now, with a voice fatigued from chanting litanies against the president and feet tired from marching on the military industrial complex, Gaunt just counted the hours to the group's scheduled bus pickup at 7 p.m.

If she was lucky, she said in a tired voice, she would get home this afternoon, just in time to haul her pigs to the Sunday market.

Staff writers Nelson Hernandez, William Wan and Theola Labb? and the Associated Press contributed this report.

Worldwide protests against Iraq war

(dpa) With the war in Iraq poised to enter its fifth year, tens of thousands of demonstrators Saturday flooded the streets of

Washington, Hungary, Spain, Australia, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, South Korea, Chile, Sweden, Iraq and elsewhere in protest.

The protests were timed to coincide with the fourth anniversary on Tuesday of the Iraq war, which has claimed the lives of at least 70,000 civilians and nearly 10,000 soldiers and police officers from Iraq, the US and eight coalition countries.

In Hungary, thousands of people holding torches formed the peace sign on Heroes' Square in Budapest.

In Istanbul, Turkish activists held up peace flags and signs saying "We're all Iraqis" and "Go back home Bush!" The Coalition against the War in Iraq gathered supporters in Nicosia, Cyprus, to protest.

Some 2,000 South Korean anti-war protestors were met by a massive block of riot-gear clad police in Seoul.

In Athens, an estimated 6,000 people, including critics of globalization, left-wing parties and unions, demonstrated at the US embassy.

A handful of Australian activists, about 300 or one-third the number organizers had anticipated, marched through Sydney, while more marched in other cities. Greens member of parliament Kerry Nettle said she had campaigned against Australian participation when it was first mooted.

"Four years on, how things have changed," Nettle told the gathering. "The issue of Iraq is the disaster we all said it would be. The predictions have not only come true, it's worse."

Thousands of Spanish demonstrators walked through the streets of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and Pamplona, accusing the US, Britain and the government of former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar of crimes against humanity.

In Washington, DC, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people braved winter weather to gather at the Lincoln Memorial and cross the Memorial Bridge to assemble in the north parking lot of the Pentagon. A number of Iraq war veteran groups and American Muslim organizations participated.

The turnout was less than a third of the massive showing organizers called for. They had hoped for an outpouring similar to the 1967 march on the Pentagon that signalled the beginning of the end of the Vietnam war.

On Friday, about 3,000 members of US Christian groups held a separate protest to pray for peace at the National Cathedral and march to the White House. About 200 were detained for refusing to stay on the sidewalk.

And also on Friday, in Sadr City, Iraq, where the US military has boosted its presence as part of a new plan to secure Baghdad, 10,000 Shiites staged a protest against the influx of American soldiers and the opening of a joint US-Iraqi force base.

Saturday's demonstrations came as suicide attacks in Iraq killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens others in the cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Baghdad. At least eight people were killed and scores wounded when two tankers filled with chlorine exploded in separate incidents in and around the restive Iraqi city of Fallujah, Voices of Iraq news agency reported Saturday.

In the four years since the US-led coalition ousted the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was executed in December, an estimated 2 million Iraqis have fled their country and another 2 million are believed to be internally displaced.

Biggest Christian antiwar protest expected at White House

Iraq war protesters to converge at White House

by Nadia Teskrat 2 hours, 1 minute ago

Thousands of people are expected to converge at the White House Friday in the first of several demonstrations marking the fourth anniversary of the increasingly unpopular Iraq war, organizers said.

Christian Peace Witness for Iraq has organized a worship for Friday night at Washington's National Cathedral to be attended by 4,000 people who will then hold a candlelight procession to the White House, the anti-war group said.

A vigil will take place in front of US President George W. Bush's official residence and 700 people have indicated their readiness to be arrested in an act of civil disobedience, the group said.

The group has billed the event as the biggest Christian peace demonstration since the March 20, 2003, US-led invasion of Iraq, but rain and possible snow forecast for Washington could dampen attendance.

Anti-war activists have heavily mobilized since Democrats took control of Congress from Bush's Republicans in November elections marked by voter anger at the war.

Activists want the Democratic-led Congress to push hard for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, where more than 3,200 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died since the war began.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to demonstrate Saturday in a march from downtown Washington to the Defense Department's Pentagon headquarters, said protest organizer Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER).

"We're feeling a shift in the general population of the country who are now opposed to the war and are now thinking about doing something about it, not only about voting but becoming active in the anti-war struggle," ANSWER spokesman Bill Hackwell told AFP.

The war has grown increasingly unpopular, with recent polls showing that a majority of Americans now say the invasion was a mistake and want the US government to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

Hackwell said more Americans are demanding change because too much money is being spent on the war rather than social needs like health care, education and employment.

"It is not an exaggeration to make this connection about the funding that gets cut for needed social programs and the money going to the Pentagon," he said.

War veterans and their families will lead the march starting at 12:30 pm (1630 GMT) Saturday.

Other anti-war events are planned in the next few days across the country.

In Los Angeles, thousands of protesters are expected to take the streets of Hollywood Saturday and another ANSWER demonstration is expected in San Francisco.

United for Peace and Justice, which describes itself as the largest anti-war coalition in the United States, said it was expecting thousands of people to turn up at a protest in New York on Sunday.

"The national anti-war movement is planning a unified surge of protest actions calling on Congress to end the occupation and for the immediate withdrawal of US troops," the group said in a statement.

The leftist group MoveOn.org is also organizing candlelight vigils for Monday in Washington and across the country, spokesman Steve Hoffman said.

The protests come on the heels of congressional votes on Iraq.

Democrats failed to pass in the Senate a plan to withdraw US troops by March 2008, although a measure calling for a pullout by September 2008 passed a key panel in the House of Representatives Thursday.

Disagree About Iraq? You're Not Just Wrong -- You're Evil.

By Shankar Vedantam

Monday, March 12, 2007; A03

The conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby last week gave Americans a chance to pick at the scab of what has become a favored obsession -- the debate over the motives of the Bush administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

The contours of that debate are straightforward. Opponents of the war believe passionately that President Bush, his neoconservative allies and a complicit Congress deliberately misled the nation into war. Supporters of the president and the war concede that mistakes were made, especially on the question of whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but say this involved no attempt to hoodwink the nation.

Antiwar groups declared that the Libby trial laid bare the Bush administration's smear campaign to discredit a war critic -- and said they hope Libby is just the first in a long line of officials to be punished. Supporters of the administration and the war declared the trial showed that Bush had done nothing to mislead the nation and that war opponents are being paranoid.

What is interesting about the clash from a psychological perspective is not that supporters and critics disagree, but that large numbers of people on both sides claim to know the motives of people who disagree with them. When was the last time you heard people say that those who disagree with them on the Iraq war are well-meaning, smart, informed and thoughtful?

A wide body of psychological research shows that on any number of hot-button issues, people seem hard-wired to believe the worst about those who disagree with them. Most people can see the humor in such behavior when it doesn't involve things they care about: If you don't care about sports, for example, you roll your eyes when fans of one team question the principles and parentage of fans of a rival team.

"We are really bad about putting ourselves in other people's places and looking at the world the way they look at it," said Glenn D. Reeder, a social psychologist at Illinois State University who recently conducted a study into how supporters and critics of the Iraq war have come to believe entirely different narratives about the war -- and about each other. "We find it difficult to grant that other people come to their conclusions in good faith if they reach a conclusion that is different than ours," he said.

When Reeder and his colleagues asked pro-war and antiwar Americans how they would describe the other side's motives, the researchers found that the groups suffered from an identical bias: People described others who agreed with them as motivated by ethics and principle, but felt that the people who disagreed with them were motivated by narrow self-interest.

There were also large differences in how the groups perceived Bush's motives. Nearly three-quarters of the people who supported the war believed that Bush was thinking about self-defense when he launched the invasion of Iraq. By contrast, fewer than 2 in 5 Americans who opposed the war were willing to grant that Bush was thinking of self-defense. Fully 70 percent of the people who supported the war said Bush was aiming to do good; only 27 percent of people who opposed the war believed that the president's motives were about doing good.

When Reeder asked the pro-war and antiwar volunteers whether they thought Bush had a hidden motive, the numbers flipped. Only 11 percent of the supporters of the president and the war said they could see a hidden agenda, whereas 50 percent of the people who opposed the war said it was plain as day that Bush had a hidden (and nefarious) motive.

It is important to note that the experiment does not establish which version of Bush's motives is true. It is possible, in other words, that everything you believe about Bush's motives is true and everything that your opponents believe is false. But a number of studies suggest people ought to be cautious about such conclusions. Studies have found, for example, that people believe that those who disagree with them are less informed and that those who agree with them are better informed. On issues in which information is widely available, people concede that their opponents are knowledgeable but insist that their conclusions are self-serving and biased.

Another study found that liberals and conservatives not only overestimate their opponents' partisan motives on questions such as abortion and same-sex marriage but also overestimate the partisan motives of people on their own side.

"Partisans within ideological groups tended to view themselves as atypical vis-a-vis their group: atypical in their moderation, in their freedom from bias, and in their capacity to 'see things as they are in reality' even when that reality proves to be ideologically inconvenient or 'politically incorrect,' " Harvard Business School researcher Robert J. Robinson and his colleagues concluded.

All this can be amusing, but the consequences are obvious. If you believe that you are a patriot but that those who disagree with you about the Iraq war are self-interested zealots intent on destroying America, what can you possibly have to discuss with them?

Reeder said he has very strong beliefs about the Iraq war, but reminds himself when he gets too heated that he might be falling victim to the very biases he studies. I asked the psychologist where he stands on the war. He declined to say. "I have done my job," he said, "if partisans on both sides think I disagree with them."

Politics Lite: No Sacrifice, No Substance, No Success: RORY STEWART

THE COMPLETE ARTICLE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
GUEST COLUMNIST

Politics Lite: No Sacrifice, No Substance, No Success

By RORY STEWART

Published: March 10, 2007

It is patronizing to assume that voters can’t handle demanding, imaginative and risky policies.

The accepted wisdom in British political circles is that Tony Blair won three elections by giving the British voters charisma and energy unfettered by dull or controversial policies. The Tories have now taken the lesson to heart. They are fighting back with feel-good, idea-light campaigns of their own, and it seems to be working. They are now significantly ahead in the polls.

This is not just electoral strategy. Many of them believe that we live in a postideological age, that there are no great questions anymore and that there can be no new solutions for domestic poverty or problems with immigration, energy or the economy.

But why do people stand as politicians if they have no policies? Many politicians claim privately that they are simply concealing their policies until they are elected. It is more likely that when the winds of office change in their favor, they will find their faces frozen into an expression of affable inaction. The role of a modern politician is apparently to be likable, to tinker with existing institutions and to manage occasional crises.

Churchill has been replaced by Bertie Wooster.

In Iraq, hundreds of thousands have died over the last few years and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent by the U.S.-led coalition. The international system is fractured; the Islamic world is angry.

--MORE

Woman Colonel Urges Troops to Refuse Orders if US Attacks Iran

Feminist Daily News Wire
February 26, 2007

Adding to the chorus of women leaders demanding that President Bush retreat from the possibility of war against Iran, retired Army Reserves Colonel and former high-ranking diplomat Mary Wright asked military personnel to refuse potentially imminent orders to attack Iran.

"Attacking Iran will be a crime against peace, a war crime," wrote Wright in a recent column published by Truthout.org. "Those conducting military operations will be violating the Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of Land Warfare... While refusal to drop bombs [on Iran] may initially draw punishment and the loss of one's military career, those who refuse will save their soul, their conscience, and will prevent another criminal action in the name of our country by the Bush administration."

Wright noted the large number of women now in the military and appealed to women military personnel, as well as their male counterparts, to consider the deaths of innocent civilians that will result if Iran is bombed. She went on to say, "We as human beings must take responsibility for ourselves and what our government may ask us to do."

Wright served 29 years in the US Army and Army Reserves, rising to the rank of colonel. In March 2003, Wright was one of the highest-ranking State Department officials to resign in protest of the Iraq war.

Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal joined with Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams of the US and Shirin Ebadi of Iran in April of last year to call for a peaceful resolution to the tensions between the two countries. A May 2006 Ms. magazine poll found that 67 percent of US women (compared with 59 percent of men) oppose the US taking a preemptive, unilateral military action against Iran.

LEARN MORE Read "The Peacemongers," a Ms. report on the creation of the Nobel Women's Initiative, a collection of women Nobel Peace Laureates and their work to convince the US and Iranian governments that negotiations and compromise are better alternatives to war.

Thousands march in capital to demand 'Troops Out'

By Lauren Veevers

Published: 25 February 2007

Thousands of anti-war protesters marched on Trafalgar Square in London yesterday calling for British troops to be withdrawn from Iraq.

Activists took to the streets with politicians, entertainers and military families, saying plans to reduce troop numbers in Iraq only furthered their cause. Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition said: "We know that many people are coming to the view that the Government is addicted to war. There could be some withdrawn from Iraq, but there are more in Afghanistan."

Stop the War estimated that tens of thousands took part in the march. The Metropolitan Police put the number at between 2,000 and 3,000.

Military Families Against the Warhas demanded to meet the PM to discuss the way troops are treated.