Anti-war actions mark 5th year of Iraq occupation

The fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq passed with a variety of protest actions, large and small, across the country. The overwhelming majority of the people continue to be against the war and want the troops brought home. The number of U.S. troops killed has passed 4,000, while the uncounted Iraqi losses can only be estimated but are believed to exceed one million—a figure of genocidal proportions.

New York ‘river-to-river’ protest, March 22. WW photo: G. Dunkel

But Vice President Dick Cheney, asked by ABC News on March 19 for his reaction to polls showing two-thirds of the U.S. population against the war, responded, “So?”

The Winter Solder hearings, held March 13-16 in Silver Spring, Md., should have been big news in the days leading up to the March 19 anniversary. Instead, they were systematically boycotted by the commercial media. (For WW’s coverage, see Vol. 50, No. 12.) Veterans and active-duty military personnel testified in detail about the criminal nature of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

FIST at Bryant Park, NYC. WW photo: John Catalinotto

Here’s a small sampling of some of the anti-war events that took place around the fifth anniversary.

The Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition led the Fifth anniversary march to an army recruiting office on March 19. Despite threats of severe weather coming just days after the tornado that dealt major damage to many Intown neighborhoods, more than 200 people took to the streets and blocked traffic in front of the shopping center where a recruiting station is located. They then went onto the property, depositing five caskets in front of the recruiting station door. Drivers honked loudly with most people almost jubilantly waving to the protest. Two days earlier a group of Atlanta Grandmothers for Peace had been arrested at that very recruiting station.

In the weeks leading up to the anniversary, S.F. Bay Area anti-war activists, workers and students protested at the Berkeley site of a U.S. Marine recruiting office, spotlighting the use of young people to fight and die for big business interests in Iraq. On March 15, hundreds rallied, marched and demonstrated in front of the Richmond, Calif., Chevron oil refinery over the giant oil corporation’s profiteering from the war for oil. Organized by the West County Toxics Coalition and many others, this action called attention to lives lost in the war abroad as well as from asthma and cancer in this heavily polluted working-class community.

Nudutol at Korea Town Plaza, March 19. WW photo: John Catalinotto

On March 19, the downtown Financial District in San Francisco saw civil disobedience actions, primarily organized by Direct Action to Stop the War, all morning and afternoon. The headquarters of the Bechtel Corporation, a major war profiteer, the Federal Reserve Bank and offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein were among the many sites of blockades and arrests. During evening rush hour, thousands more rallied in the Civic Center Plaza and marched to the Mission District, called out by Act Now to Stop War & End Racism. These and many other protests, including in Oakland and San Jose, show renewed vigor to end the war of aggression in Iraq.

On March 22, a noisy caravan of more than thirty placard-covered vehicles snaked slowly all over the city of Buffalo, snarling traffic as it called for immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many drivers slowed down and honked along with the caravan, reading the signs and waving their approval.

The moving demonstration ended in a large indoor rally with featured speaker Geoff Millard of Buffalo, now D.C. president of Iraq Veterans Against the War and a participant in the Winter Soldier 2008 hearings. The day’s events were pulled together by a very broad coalition of peace and justice groups, including the Western NY Peace Center, the Buffalo and Western NY International Action Center, Code Pink, Stop the Violence Coalition, Buffalo Forum, Workers World Party and many more.

Planned just one week in advance, a march of 100 people, mostly youth, went through the streets of downtown Cleveland on March 20 displaying the Iraqi flag, the anarchist black flag, and countless banners and placards condemning the war in Iraq. It was called not by traditional anti-war groups and peace organizations but by the Shaker Heights High School chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, which had formed earlier in the month.

Some 50 students from Shaker had defied school regulations and walked out to attend the demonstration. Another 30 young people from Lakeland Community College joined them. Supporters of Workers World Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition were present, as was the Baldwin-Wallace Chapter of Fight Imperialism–Stand Together.

FIST members carried the Iraqi flag to show solidarity with the resistance. Other FIST members distributed the group’s newsletter “Young and Furious” as well as Workers World newspaper.

One FIST member spoke to the crowd about the horrors of the war in Iraq. When he announced he was a Marxist, the crowd burst into applause. The applause grew louder when he said he felt the country needed a socialist revolution.

Chants of “Stop the war, Yes we can, SDS is back again” were raised, and “What do we want? Revolution! When do we want it? Now!” and “Power to the working class! Kick the bosses in the ass!”

Youth are clearly ready to fight back against this bloody, unjust war.

Also in Cleveland, in a dramatic display of grief and anger, on March 25 antiwar activists marked the occasion of the 4,000th death among U.S. troops. Hundreds spread out across the mile-long Superior-Detroit bridge that spans the Cuyahoga River and connects the city’s east and west sides. Stretched across both sides of the bridge was a string of 4,000 paper sheets, each with the name and age of one of the dead and each representing 250 Iraqis killed by the genocidal war. Demonstrators also held up 4,000 holiday lights and chanted “Hey hey ho ho this rotten war has got to go.” The memorial was sponsored by the Northeast Ohio Antiwar Coalition and Peace Action.

In New York, FIST youth held a picket March 19 before the new BankAmerica building near Bryant Park with the signs, “End the occupation, stop foreclosures” before joining a candle light vigil protest by organized by Nodutol in the Korea Town Plaza.

Dianne Mathiowetz in Atlanta, Joan Marquardt in San Francisco, Ellie Dorritie in Buffalo and Caleb T. Maupin and Martha Grevatt in Cleveland contributed to this article.