10 000 Anti-War Protesters marched on D.C. demanding the immediate and inconditionnal withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (+ videos)

Publié dans : Resistances

10 000 Anti-War Protesters marched on D.C. demanding the immediate and inconditionnal withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (+ videos)

Internationalnews
Update 23 mars 2010

7th Anniversary of invasion of Iraq

"The Obama administration is carrying out a terroristic agenda around the world.”
Protesters shouting in front of the White House

There was a protest or demonstration in over 150 cities the week of March 20th: Washington DC, New York City, Madison, Seattle, Tacoma, San Francisco, Chicago, Hollywood, Mineapolis, Los Angeles and many other cities.

This video shows video of maybe twenty events across the country combining interviews, speeches, and demonstration observations.

Saturday Protest in front of the White House

On the seventh anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, 10 000 demonstrators marched through downtown Washington after a noon anti-war rally at Lafayette Park. The anti-war protest was organized by International ANSWER (Stop War and End Racism) wich drained a broad range of groups and organizations (military veterans, trade-Unions, Peace, labor and student groups, church, Arab American organizations...) which demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The demonstrators defied orders to clear the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. Eight protesters were arrested by U.S. Park Police at the end of the march, after laying coffins at a fence outside the White House, including Cindy Sheehan (a vocal critic of the war since her young son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004) for shouting with a megaphone: “Arrest that war criminal!”, referring to Obama. "We did lose some momentum when Obama came into office, but now we have younger people that are very energetic. They know we can change the world," she said. Four of eight have been charged with disobeying an official order and four, including Sheehan, with crossing a police line. They spent the week-end in jail.

Ralph Nader said that Obama has continued the policies of the Bush administration, and it was foolish to have thought otherwise at the time he was a candidate, according to his constant warnings during his presidential campaign (Cf. Ralph NADER 2008 campaign). “He’s kept Guantanamo open, he’s continued to use indefinite detention,” Nader said. The only real difference, he said is that “Obama’s speeches are better.”

The protesters, many directing their anger at the President, carried "indict Bush" and anti-Obama signs and flag-draped symbolic coffins to dramatize the heavy toll of America’s wars among civilians and soldiers. Coffins draped with Iraqi and Palestinian flags were dropped off on sidewalks in front of offices of the war-profiter military contractor Halliburton - where they tore apart an effigy of former Vice-President and Halliburton Chief Executive Dick Cheney and trampled the pieces -, and the Washington Post (protesting the editorial board's positions on the wars). Protesters stopped at The National Endowment for Democracy, and left poster-size "foreclosure notices" at the front door of the Mortgage Banker's Association's building, held responsible for the "landslide of foreclosures", and the US Department of Veterans Affairs to highlight the "woefully inadequate treatment" of returning veterans (http://www.washingtonpost.com).

A demonstrator stomps on an effigy of former US Vice President Dick Cheney (denverpost)

"A huge part of the antiwar movement has been focused on the Bush administration and its policies in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, which organized the march. "Bush is gone. Millions of people thought his exit would mean an end to these wars. Instead, after one year of real-life experience, they're far from ending." (Ibid).

Anti war group “Funk the War” organized a mobile dance party, with slogans “Funk the war, fund our future”. “We are coming to show that we are in a bad romance with the Obama administration and the government because he is cheating on us with these corporate criminals, these war profiteers and these corporations,” said one protester.

Participants in the Hollywood “U.S. Out of Afghanistan and Iraq Now!” rally dramatize returning to life after being killed in the Afghanistan or Iraq War. The performers limped like zombies, craddled the heads of dead family members, nursed the wounded and hugged family members that awoke from the dead. (Daily Titan)

Los Angeles Protest

Similar rallies were hold in New York City, where hundreds of protesters gathered near a military recruiting station in Times Square, San Francisco, Chicago, Hollywood, Mineapolis and Los Angeles, where hundreds chanted anti-war slogans and carried mock tombstones. In SF, Daniel Ellsberg compared the protest to the demonstrations against the Vietnam War in 1969. Attorney Stephen Pearcy said the US had "essentially become a country of restrictions rather than a country of freedoms," where the government keeps violating the constitutional rights of peaceful anti-war protesters.

J. Pénochet (synthesis) for Internationalnews, 21 mars 2010

Sources: Agencies, Washington Post, Denver Post, dailytitan, american press, twincities.indymedia.org, Chicago Indymedia, Russia Today, International Answer, http://pjep.org/.

DC Anti-War Protest - 20 March 2010 par m.gross196

How many wars have they protested ? Photo: Flickr

Protesters from Maine

Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark (International Action Center) calling on the Justice Department to investigate the officials who launched the Iraq war.

A combat veteran from the Afghanistan war and two students war speak their mind.

People speak about the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The SDS at Lafayette Park

Photos: commons.wikimedia.org, la.indymedia.org, twincities.indymedia.org, Flickr

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