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WASHINGTON, DC—On Saturday, Jan. 27, huge numbers of antiwar
marchers encircled the Capitol to demand that Congress cease funding the war
in Iraq. Over 100,000 marched here, over 15,000 in Los Angeles, and
around 10,000 in San Francisco.
Banners
and signs indicated that protesters journeyed to Washington from every
corner of the United States. Activists waiting for the march to begin could
be overheard exclaiming, "I just met someone who came with three
buses from Kalamazoo, Mich.!" or "I just saw a sign from
Montana!" The number of banners from state and regional coalitions
testified to the growing level of grassroots organization of the movement
to bring the troops home.
The
assembly area on the mall between 3rd Street and 7th Street was not so
packed that one could not move from group to group and observe the
tremendous diversity of contingents.
By
far the most poignant scenes occurred in the area of the assembly nearest
the pre-march rally stage. There the Appeal for Redress, Iraq Veterans
Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, and Veterans for Peace
staffed card tables, and vets recently returned from Iraq could be
overheard introducing themselves to each other.
Next
to the veterans’ area was the labor assembly point, and there the
overwhelming color was the purple of an extremely large SEIU/1199
contingent, clearly the most multinational grouping in attendance.
Unitarian Universalists mobilized in numbers equal to Code Pink. A small
but spirited U.S. Out of the Middle East contingent organized by Adala of
New York City tried to educate about the related occupation of Palestine.
Signs
from MoveOn.Org, which said simply, "Out of Iraq," co-mingled
with others provided by the ANSWER coalition and those of the organizers
of the march, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ).
Leslie
Cagan, the spokesperson for UFPJ during the rally, spoke for the majority
of those attending when she said, "Not one more penny! Not one more
death! Congress, use your constitutional authority to end this war!"
The presence of Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, and
other celebrities registered the popularity of antiwar opposition in the
country as a whole.
The
real stars of the rally, however, were the father of antiwar resister
Army Lt. Ehren Watada, currently on trial for refusing to lead his
soldiers back to Iraq, and the co-founders of the Appeal for Redress, a
campaign by over 1000 active-duty soldiers, sailors, and airmen, to end
the war.
Fred
Mason, speaking for AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and U.S. Labor Against
the War, seemed to use his talk to legitimize protest in the minds of all
the working people who would hear him on C-Span: "… when there are
questions as to whether those elected are heeding the people's
will," he said, "we have a responsibility to speak with a
louder voice, and we do that in the streets and communities of America!"
Clayola
Brown, the president of the A. Phillip Randolph Institute, gave one of
the talks that emphasized the need for more movement marches and for
immediate withdrawal, leading the crowd in chants of "Bring Them
Home Now!"
Brown's
talk stood in contrast to those of Congress members Lynne Woolsey and
Maxine Waters, who demonstrated their ability to please a crowd but
offered a more suspect approach to ending the war in Iraq. Woolsey
(D-Calif.) stopped her talk to lead chants, but not for "Out
Now!" Instead, she urged demonstrators who were staying to lobby
Congress to answer all questions from the opposition with the mantra,
"Pass H.R. 508, Pass H.R. 508!"
Woolsey
described H.R. 508 as a bill that would "put us on a fast track to a
fully funded rapid withdrawal from Iraq." She declared that “in the
name of national security," Congress will bring the troops home.
U.S.
Rep. John Conyers assured the crowd that "all we members of Congress
are with you." Maxine Waters, chair of the Out of Iraq committee in
Congress, presented herself as a fearless warrior against Bush and
Cheney. Perhaps no one summed up the total meaning of their performances
better than the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who told the crowd in no uncertain
terms, "Demonstrators must reinforce legislators!"
Obviously,
two different strategies for ending the war were in contention on the
stage, as well as in the crowd.
At
the time of this writing, the U.S. Senate continues to struggle over the
wording of a non-binding and symbolic vote against the Bush administration’s
plan to send at least 20,000 (or perhaps even 48,000!) more troops to
Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of activists are looking to Congress to cut
off funding for the war in time to prevent significantly more bloodshed.
But it seems unlikely that the current debates in either the House or the
Senate will result in anything of the kind.
A
significant number of activists, though, are politically prepared for
this default. One demonstrator carried a hand-made sign that declared,
"WE are the Deciders!" The sentiment expressed by this
demonstrator and thousands of others at the rally is right on the mark.
To be effective, the antiwar movement must be based on continued
mobilizations in the streets for "Out Now!" This movement must
remain independent of the machinations in Congress around one or another
kind of redeployment of U.S. troops to other Middle Eastern bases.
Many
of these activists have already started reserving buses to transport
their friends and coworkers to the March 17 March on the Pentagon sponsored
by the International ANSWER coalition. March 17 actions are also planned
for Los Angeles and Seattle, with a March 18 event in San Francisco.
One
of the most striking weaknesses of the demonstration was the absence of
opposition to a possible U.S. and Israeli assault on Iran. By the time of
the march, Bush had openly moved warships into the Persian Gulf and
launched a provocative attack on an Iranian diplomatic post in Iraq.
Although
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has denied that the United States is
planning a war against Iran, his words are not reassuring. Certainly, the
Bush White House would not be the first administration to suddenly
announce that an unforeseen “provocation by the enemy” has “forced” the
U.S. to undertake military action. Yet none of the Congress members or
coalition spokespeople breathed the word "Iran" from the stage.
As
there no has been no serious opposition to Bush's buildup against Iran
among legislators, the current UFPJ strategy of orienting the antiwar
movement to orchestrate its actions in concert with various inadequate or
insincere congressional measures has left the movement disoriented and
unprepared on this question.
This
same strategy has created a deep resentment of UFPJ-sponsored antiwar
activities among Arab Americans, Palestinian Americans, and American
Muslims. UFPJ considers these groups’ opposition to U.S. aid to Israel,
to U.S. support for Israel's occupation of Palestine and Lebanon, and to
the possible joint Israeli-U.S. nuclear attack on Iran an obstacle to
effective lobbying.
A
June 10-11 action, co-sponsored by UFPJ and the U. S. Campaign to End the
Israeli Occupation, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Israeli
occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem may go part of the
way in mending this rift.
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