Taking antiwar struggle to GIs
By Bob McCubbin
San Diego
As part of the Stop the War Week actions called by the
International Action Center, activists from the local IAC
chapter and SNAFU--Support Network for an Armed Forces Union,
which organizes GI resistance--held a street meeting here on
Dec. 4. It was on a downtown corner where many soldiers on
leave pass by. With an amplified sound system, a literature
table, several bold banners and many signs, the protesters
spent several hours distributing leaflets to passersby and
speaking out against the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
It was a spirited and strong action. But most significant
were the reactions of GIs walking by. In the past, activists
had found it extremely difficult to get soldiers to take
anti-war literature, and almost impossible to have calm,
rational conversations with them about the struggle to end the
occupation.
Interestingly, this time there were both more expressions of
hostility--and more non-hostile interactions. A significant num
ber of individual soldiers did take news papers and flyers. And
some, significantly more than in the past, stopped to talk.
In one case, this reporter offered a Workers World newspaper
to a Marine coming down the street on crutches, accompanied by
several civilian friends. In a bitter tone of voice, he
suggested that we didn't appreciate his sacrifice and walked
on. But later, as he and his friends retraced their route, once
again approaching our rally, another IAC organizer managed to
engage him in conversation. If not overly friendly, it was at
least a respectful exchange between Carl--an anti-war activist
and veteran--and this Marine, twice wounded in Iraq.
Carl asked him why he thought it was right to invade and
occupy Iraq. The Marine replied that they were helping the
people, adding that many Iraqi children didn't have shoes to
wear. Carl suggested that a study of Iraqi history of the last
40 years or so might give this young man a very different view
of what the Iraqi people need and want. They agreed to
disagree, but as they parted, it was clear that the young
Marine no longer viewed these anti-war activists as his
enemies.
As a side note, Carl--who works part-time at an Iraqi
Chaldean center in a suburb of San Diego--mentioned his
conversation with the Marine to some of the Iraqis at the
center the following day.
They were furious. "All Iraqis had shoes before the Gulf
War!" they insisted.
Reprinted from the Dec. 16, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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