War Protests Grow in D.C.,
Across U.S.

LARRY MARGASAK and MATTHEW BARAKAT / AP 18mar2007

Denouncing a conflict entering its fifth year, protesters across the country raised their voices Saturday against U.S. policy in Iraq and marched by the thousands to the Pentagon in the footsteps of an epic demonstration four decades ago against another divisive war.

	Mindfully.org note:  While it's admirable to be a contributing member of society, one cannot support the US when it is so absolutely wrong. In fact, it is the patriotic duty of each of its citizens to stand up against the government when it is so terribly wrong. The war was started under false pretenses by an administration that will say and do anything in order to profit. It is this same administration that, with total disregard, throws our young men into the fires of hell in Iraq, while at the same time totally ignoring the lives it is destroying there too. So, we have pity upon the counter- protestors because they have not yet seen the truth of the matter. They may never understand it because blind patriotism has a hold of their senses, just as any cult might do.  In any case, we feel sad seeing such images as these of counter-protestors and law enforcement. It is very sad for them not to understand what is going on. They believe in something that does not exist. They are truly lost.
	An important resource: The GI Rights Hotline  (877) 447-4487 (800) 379-2679 (also for international calls)  girights@girightshotline.org http://girightshotline.org

A counterprotest was staged, too, on a day of dueling signs and sentiments such as "Illegal Combat" and "Peace Through Strength," and songs like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "War (What's It Good For?)."

Thousands crossed the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial to rally loudly but peacefully near the Pentagon. "We're here in the shadow of the war machine," said anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan. "It's like being in the shadow of the death star. They take their death and destruction and they export it around the world. We need to shut it down."

Smaller protests were held in other U.S. cities, stretching to Tuesday's four-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion. In Los Angeles, Vietnam veteran Ed Ellis, 59, hoped the demonstrations would be the "tipping point" against a war that has killed more than 3,200 U.S. troops and engulfed Iraq in a deadly cycle of violence.

"It's all moving in our direction, it's happening," he predicted at the Hollywood rally. "The administration, their get-out-of-jail-free card, they don't get one anymore."

Other protests — and counter-demonstrations — were held in San Francisco, San Diego and Hartford, Conn., where more than 1,000 rallied at the Old State House.

Overseas, tens of thousands marched in Madrid as Spaniards called not only for the U.S. to get out of Iraq but to close the prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Smaller protests were staged in Greece and Turkey.

Speakers at the Pentagon rally criticized the Bush administration at every turn but blamed congressional Democrats, too, for refusing to cut off money for the war.

"This is a bipartisan war," New York City labor activist Michael Letwin told the crowd. "The Democratic party cannot be trusted to end it."

Five people were arrested after the demonstration when they walked onto a bridge that had been closed off to accommodate the protest and then refused orders to leave so police could reopen it to traffic, Pentagon police spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin said. They were cited and released, she said.

President Bush was at Camp David in Maryland for the weekend. Spokesman Blair Jones said of the protests: "Our Constitution guarantees the right to peacefully express one's views. The men and women in our military are fighting to bring the people of Iraq the same rights and freedoms."

People traveled from afar in stormy weather to join the march.

"Too many people have died and it doesn't solve anything," said Ann Bonner, who drove through snow with her husband, Tom O'Grady, and two children, 13 and 10, from Athens, Ohio. "I feel bad carrying out my daily activities while people are suffering, Americans and Iraqis."

Police on horseback and foot separated the two groups of demonstrators, who shouted at each other from opposite sides of Constitution Avenue in view of the Lincoln Memorial before the anti-war group marched. Barriers also kept them apart.

But war protester Susanne Shine of Boone, N.C., found herself in a crowd of counterdemonstrators, and came out in tears, with her sign in shreds. "They ripped up my peace sign," she said, after police escorted her, her husband and two adult daughters from the group. "It was really pretty scary for me."

Protesters walked in a blustery, cold wind across the Potomac River with motorcycles clearing their way and police boats and helicopters watching.

Police no longer give official estimates but said privately that perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 anti-war demonstrators marched, with a smaller but still sizable number of counterprotesters also out in force. An hour into the three-hour Pentagon rally, with the temperature near freezing, protesters had peeled away to a point where fewer than 1,000 were left.

Protesters met at the starting point of the Oct. 21, 1967, march on the Pentagon, which began peacefully but turned ugly in clashes between authorities and more radical elements of the estimated crowd of 50,000 on the plaza in front of the Defense Department's headquarters. More than 600 were arrested that day.

That protest has lived on in the popular imagination because of the crowd's attempts to lift the Pentagon off the ground with their chants; they fell short of their fanciful goal.

Veterans lined up at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and waved U.S, POW-MIA and military-unit flags. Not all were committed to the U.S. course in Iraq, however.

"I'm not sure I'm in support of the war," said William "Skip" Publicover of Charleston, S.C., who was a swift boat gunner in Vietnam and lost two friends whose names are etched on the memorial's wall. "I learned in Vietnam that it's difficult if not impossible to win the hearts and minds of the people."

But Larry Stimeling, 57, a Vietnam veteran from Morton, Ill., said the loss of public support for the Iraq war mirrors what happened in Vietnam and leaves troops without the backing they need.

"We didn't lose the war in Vietnam, we lost it right here on this same ground," he said, pointing to the grass on the National Mall. "It's the same thing now."

In Sacramento, Calif., nearly 200 veterans and parents of troops gathered on the steps of the state Capitol to rally in support of U.S. troops in Iraq.

"This is not a war that can be fought under a white dome in Washington, D.C.," said Kevin Graves, whose son died in Iraq. "If politicians can't support the troops, they should go fight instead."

Opening weekend events, more than 200 were arrested in a demonstration late Friday in front of the White House and charged with disobeying a lawful order or crossing a police line.

Associated Press writers Ann Sanner and Cal Woodward contributed to this report.

Almodovar Joins Thousands in War Protest 

CIARAN GILES / AP 17mar2007

MADRID, Spain --Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar joined tens of thousands of people in a march through the Spanish capital on Saturday to protest the war in Iraq and to demand the closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Chanting "No to War" and "The People of Madrid with the People of Iraq," the protesters marched along a 2 1/2-mile route from central Cibeles Plaza to Atocha Square. Organizers estimated the crowd at 400,000, but eyewitnesses put the attendance at less 100,000. Police did not give an estimate.

Other rallies were held around Spain, with some 2,000 gathering in Barcelona and 500 taking part in Seville, according to news reports.

Almodovar told the private Europa Press news agency he was protesting "the barbarities they have been committing in Iraq for the past four years."

"We're here for peace and for the closure of Guantanamo because it is a disgrace for civilization," he added.

Spain was the scene of major anti-war protests in the run-up to and during the first months of the war, with demonstrations in Barcelona and Madrid attracting more than 1 million people apiece.

Former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was one of the strongest supporters of the U.S. invasion Iraq in 2003. His party was voted out of office in March 2004, days after 191 people were killed in bomb attacks claimed by Islamic radicals to avenge the presence of the country's troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The country's new prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, immediately withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq, claiming it was an illegal war.

Elsewhere Saturday, thousands crossed the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to rally near the Pentagon. More than 3,000 people protested the war in two separate demonstrations in Istanbul, Turkey, and 1,000 people marched in Athens, Greece.

Christians Gather in D.C. to Protest War

SARAH KARUSH / AP 17mar2007

WASHINGTON --Thousands of Christians prayed for peace at an anti-war service Friday night at the Washington National Cathedral, kicking off a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

Afterward, participants marched with battery-operated faux candles through snow and wind toward the White House, where police began arresting protesters shortly before midnight. Protest guidelines require demonstrators to continue moving while on the White House sidewalk.

"We gave them three warnings, and they broke the guidelines," said Lt. Scott Fear. "There's an area on the White House sidewalk where you have to keep moving."

About 100 people crossed the street from Lafayette Park -- where thousands of protesters were gathered -- to demonstrate on the White House sidewalk late Friday. Police began cuffing them and putting them on buses to be taken for processing.

Fear said 222 people had been arrested by Saturday morning. The first 100 were charged with disobeying a lawful order, and the others with crossing a police line. All of them were fined $100.

The windows of the executive mansion were dark, as the president was away for the weekend at Camp David in Maryland.

John Pattison, 29, said he and his wife flew in from Portland, Ore., to attend his first anti-war rally. He said his opposition to the war had developed over time.

"Quite literally on the night that shock and awe commenced, my friend and I toasted the military might of the United States," Pattison said. "We were quite proud and thought we were doing the right thing."

He said the way the war had progressed and U.S. foreign policy since then had forced him to question his beliefs.

"A lot of the rhetoric that we hear coming from Christians has been dominated by the religious right and has been strong advocacy for the war," Pattison said. "That's just not the way I read my Gospel."

The ecumenical coalition that organized the event, Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, distributed 3,200 tickets for the service in the cathedral, with two smaller churches hosting overflow crowds. The cathedral appeared to be packed, although sleet and snow prevented some from attending.

"This war, from a Christian point of view, is morally wrong -- and was from the beginning," the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, one of the event's sponsors, said toward the end of the service to cheers and applause. "This war is ... an offense against God."

In his speech, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, lashed out at Congress for being "too morally inept to intervene" to stop the war, but even more harshly against President Bush.

"Mr. Bush, my Christian brother, we do need a surge in troops. We need a surge in the nonviolent army of the Lord," he said. "We need a surge in conscience and a surge in activism and a surge in truth-telling."

Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia recounted how she learned of the death of her son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, who served in the National Guard. When a uniformed man came to her door asking if she was Baker's mother, she said yes.

"'Yes,' and then I fell to the ground and somewhere outside of myself I heard someone screaming and screaming," she said.

The Friday night events mark the beginning of what is planned as a weekend of protests ahead of Tuesday's anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion, which began on March 20, 2003.

On Saturday morning, a coalition of protest groups has a permit for up to 30,000 people to march from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial across the Potomac River to the Pentagon. Smaller demonstrations are planned in cities across the country.

Anti-war Protesters Gather in
Connecticut and Nationwide

STEPHANIE REITZ / AP 17mar2007

HARTFORD, Conn. --More than 1,000 anti-war demonstrators rallied Saturday at Hartford's Old State House, adding their voices to nationwide protests as the Iraq war enters its fifth year.

The demonstration, organized by the Connecticut Opposes the War coalition, drew buses full of college students and suburban activists into downtown Hartford despite the day's brisk temperatures and sloppy post-storm conditions.

"That is why we are here in the cold and snow -- because we care," said state Rep. Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, who held up a letter signed by 177 Connecticut state legislators urging an end to the Iraq conflict.

The Hartford gathering was among several nationwide Saturday.

In Washington, D.C., thousands of protesters marched to the Pentagon bearing signs, chanting anti-war slogans and singing songs like "War (What's It Good For?)."

A counter protest shadowed the anti-war crowd, and included people carrying signs with sentiments such as "al-Qaida Appeasers On Parade" and "Fight Jihad Not GIs."

Rallies also occurred in several other cities including Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Oklahoma City and Lincoln, Neb. Overseas, thousands of others protested in Turkey, Spain, Greece and elsewhere.

At Hartford's Old State House, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., vowed to the cheering crowd that she would "work my heart out" to push for legislation to curtail war spending and start bringing troops home.

The war, she said, is "a mistake of gigantic proportions."

Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., was campaigning in New Hampshire and did not attend Saturday's event in Hartford, but sent a letter of support that DeLauro read aloud to the approximately 1,500 people in attendance.

Henry Lowendorf, a member of the Greater New Haven Peace Council, said he believes oil is the real reason for the war.

"The war has to come to an end now -- and now means now," he said. "The only way to stop the war is by cutting funding."

Although people held opposing rallies to support the administration at some other events nationwide, no counter-protesters came forward or made their presence known at Saturday's event in Hartford.

Gregory Spear, a member of the coalition that organized the rally, said they hope to convince U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., to reconsider their stances supporting the Bush Administration on the war.

Boos rang out from the demonstrators when both lawmakers' names were mentioned. The loudest were reserved for Lieberman, who won re-election to his seat as an independent candidate over anti-war Democratic candidate Ned Lamont.

U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., encouraged people who attended Saturday's rally to continue to make their opinions known.

"America has found its voice, in large part because of you," he told the crowd. "Now let's have Congress find its voice."

U.S. Deserter Joins
Canadian Antiwar Demonstration

CARY CASTAGNA / Edmunton Sun (Canada) 18mar2007

U.S. soldier Kyle Snyder says 4 1/2 months in Iraq was all he needed to make up his mind about his country's Middle East efforts.

"It was enough for me to make an educated decision on whether it was right or wrong," Snyder told Sun Media yesterday.

The 23-year-old war resister said he deserted his platoon during a two-week leave in the spring of 2005 and came to Canada.

He calls the war illegal and is still haunted by the sight of a fellow squad member shooting an innocent Iraqi civilian in the leg. Snyder said there was no reason why the 20-something civilian was wounded.

"He was no threat to me, the convoy or the major we were escorting," Snyder said, adding the U.S. army never investigated the senseless shooting. "I don't think the United States's involvement in Iraq was ever about peacekeeping."

The military deserter, who now lives in Nelson, B.C., was in Edmonton to lend his support to the local antiwar crusade.

Snyder was one of a couple of hundred protesters who marched along Whyte Avenue yesterday on the fourth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The march, organized by the Edmonton Coalition Against War and Racism (ECAWAR), began with the forming of a human peace sign at 82 Avenue and 112 Street, and culminated with a rally at the TransAlta Arts Barns.

"We support the troops. Bring them home. Why have them stay there and die?" said one protester, who identified herself as Lyn X.

"I want peace in the world. I want the United States and Canada to stop occupation of other countries," said Corinna Nielson, a 28-year-old American who moved to Canada shortly after the last U.S. federal election.

source: 18mar2007

7 U.S. Troops Die in Iraq Violence

LAUREN FRAYER / AP 18mar2007

The U.S. military on Sunday announced the deaths of seven more troops in Iraq, including four killed by a roadside bomb while patrolling western Baghdad — the latest American casualties in a month-long security crackdown in the capital.

Though violence has receded slightly in the capital, a car bomb killed seven Iraqis in a predominantly Shiite district on Sunday, police said. The attack targeted people cooking food at open-air grills in the street, to offer as charity on a Shiite Muslim holiday. Police said 26 people were wounded.

A U.S. official, meanwhile, blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for chlorine bomb attacks that struck villagers in Anbar province earlier this week but said tight Iraqi security measures prevented a higher number of casualties.

Three suicide bombers driving trucks rigged with tanks of toxic chlorine gas struck targets in the insurgent stronghold including the office of a Sunni tribal leader opposed to al-Qaida. The attacks killed at least two people and sickened 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops, the U.S. military said Saturday.

U.S. military spokesman Adm. Mark Fox said at least one of the attackers detonated his explosives after he was unable to get past an Iraqi police checkpoint in Amiriyah, just south of Fallujah, killing only himself. Fox conceded that many Iraqis were exposed to the chemical fumes but insisted that steps Iraqi security forces were increasingly effective

"Insurgent attempts to create high-profile carnage are being stopped at checkpoints across the country," he said at a news conference in Baghdad.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh appealed to Iraqis to help stop the violence.

"Opportunity is still available to all honest Iraqis to rescue this country from the criminals," he said at a joint news conference with Fox. "The chlorine attack was a kind of punishment against the people who stood against terrorist organizations."

There is a growing power struggle between insurgents and the growing number of Sunnis who oppose them in Anbar, the center of the Sunni insurgency, which stretches from Baghdad to the borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The Anbar assaults came three days after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, traveled there, hoping to reach out to Sunni clan chiefs and to undermine tribal support for the insurgency.

After the explosion that killed four U.S. soldiers on Saturday, the unit came under fire and another soldier was wounded. During this month's crackdown in the capital, the battalion had found eight weapons caches and two roadside bombs and helped rescue a kidnap victim, the military said.

An explosion in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad killed another soldier Saturday and injured five. A sixth soldier died Saturday in a non-combat related incident, the military said. A U.S. Marine also was killed Saturday in fighting in Anbar, according to a separate statement.

Saturday's deaths brought to at least 3,217 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

A Web video surfaced Sunday showing an alleged insurgent crawling under a U.S. military vehicle in Iraq and purportedly planting explosives in full daylight. Seconds later, the video cuts to an explosion ripping the vehicle apart.

The footage was stamped with the emblem of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida-linked militant group that disavows Iraq's elected government and seeks to establish Muslim law.

The video was posted on an Islamic Web site that frequently airs insurgent messages, but its contents and authenticity could not be independently verified.

The footage shows a man in beige pants and a dark sweatshirt, crawling through mud puddles underneath a Bradley fighting vehicle and hauling an object about two feet long. Then the video switches to a wider view of the vehicle exploding in a ball of flames and smoke.

A caption says the incident happened in western Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.

In violence Sunday, gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying civilians northeast of Baghdad, killing seven men and wounding four others, police said. The attack occurred in Hibhib, just east of Baqouba, in the area where al-Qaida in Iraqi leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike on June 7.

A roadside bomb also hit an Iraqi police convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding five, authorities said. Later, police said a mortar round landed near a house in central Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding another.

In Shorja market, Baghdad's most popular central shopping district, a man tossed a grenade into a group of workers, police said. One worker was killed and another was wounded. The suspect escaped through an alley, they said.

The Shorja market, which has been attacked several times, was turned into a pedestrian zone after a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown began in Baghdad on Feb. 14.

An abandoned hotel exploded Sunday in an industrial area of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. Police said insurgents had planted bombs in the three-story building and then detonated it at dawn. Half of the building was destroyed.

Iraqi troops had taken over part of the building's roof as a base, police said. There were no reports of casualties.

In Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, fierce fighting erupted between U.S. troops and elements of the Shiite Mahdi Army, police said. There were no reports of casualties, and the U.S. military had no immediate comment.

Eleven bodies were found — six in Baqouba, in Diwaniyah and four in Mosul — many with signs of torture and all apparently victims of sectarian killings.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said American troops captured 12 suspected militants Sunday in raids across Iraq, all accused of plotting attacks on U.S. troops.

Fox, the U.S. military spokesman, also said Iraqi forces acting on a tip found a huge weapons cache Friday on the outskirts of the northern city of Mosul, including 1,800 pounds of bulk explosives.

He said the military was seeing "glimmers of good signs" in the security sweep that began in mid-February to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad.

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