Resisting War: October 25 and Beyond

Suarez del Solar is clear about the forces behind his son’s death. “The illegal war on Iraq is about geographic political control. Presi- dent Bush lied to the American people about the weapons of mass destruction and Al-Qaeda’s relationship with Iraq. He used the September 11 horror to persuade the U.S. population that Iraq is an enemy, but he has never proven any relationship.” 

End The Occupation 

O n October 25, tens of thousands gathered in Washington, DC to protest the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq as well as general U.S. foreign policy. Police estimated the crowd to be 50,000, while the organizers placed it at 100,000. The event was organized by the country’s two largest anti- war coalitions: Act Now To Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) and United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). 

The array of signs that day reflected the diversity of the crowd. Queers for Peace and Justice held a banner declaring “From Stonewall to Baghdad, People Fight Back.” Others held signs calling for the freedom of the Cuban five political prisoners, as well as prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier. The Code Pink women’s anti-war organization dropped a banner from a building on the march route declaring: “Bush Lied. Fire Him.” 

In an interview following the demonstration, Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator of UFPJ, explained that the event’s message “was first and foremost to end the occupation and bring the troops home. Second, we wanted to show that there still is a very viable and dynamic anti-war movement delivering the first message. 

“The U.S. is in Iraq for a variety of reasons that include Iraq having the second largest oil reserves in the world. It’s really about the larger-scale global interests of the major international corporations. 

“Second, the world’s only military superpower needs to flex its military muscle and send a message everywhere—not only to people in that part of the world. 

“Third, because of how the Bush administration has used the so-called ‘war on terrorism,’ they have to act as if they really are engaging in a war on terrorism. For ideological reasons, they had to do something concrete. This helps to justify high military spending and the military on alert and active on the frontlines.” 

One of the most significant aspects of the October mobilization was the growing participation from the military. A contingent of 1,000 veterans, family members of soldiers, and supporters marched near the front of the demonstration. Many different organizations were represented. Interviewed during the march by Counterpunch , Nancy Lessin, one of the founders of Military Families Speak Out, said “We started out with two military families last November in the run-up to war. We’re now up over 1,000 military families. In the beginning, there was a very clear understanding that this war was not about defending the U.S. It was about oil. ” 

The presence of military families and veterans clearly contradicted the mainstream media’s historical depiction of anti-war protesters as being against the soldiers. 

“The only way to ‘support the troops’ is to bring them home and treat them fairly upon arrival,”said David Cline, National President of Veterans for Peace and one of the coordinators of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. 

“Being a Vietnam veteran, I know about government lies. During Vietnam, the government made all these claims, but it was only with the release of the Pentagon Papers that we found out that the whole thing was a lie. Today, we’ve been in a war for seven months and we already know that it’s based on misrepresentations, distortions, and outright fabrications. Having been sent to fight and seen guys killed, my eye is drawn to the Vietnam Memorial right over here with 58,000 names. Two to three million Vietnamese died because of politicians’ lies and to preserve their ‘credibility.’  

“They shouldn’t do this to our young men and women. The military should only be used to defend the nation; not to attack others. When we tried to prevent this new war, they called us ‘unpatriotic’ and said we had to ‘support the troops.’ However, we’re here to say that waving a flag and cheering on Bush is betraying the troops. They should not be sent to die and shed their blood for an unjustified cause.” 

The Poverty Draft 

M ario Hardy Ramirez is the founder of the Philadelphia-based AWOL magazine (a joint project of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors and the War Resisters League), published to challenge the U.S. military’s recruitment of youth of color. CCCO is one of the founders of the toll-free GI Rights Hotline (1-800- FYI-95GI). Active duty service people can call and get counseled on discharge from the military. This year they’ll take between 35,000 and 40,000 calls from people in the military. 

Calls received on the GI Rights Hotline reveal deceptive recruitment tactics and serious resentment from soldiers. Hardy reports that many callers proclaim: “I was lied to by my recruiter. I was told I would learn computers, but now I’m out here in the middle of the desert with shit going off all around me. I was promised $50,000 for college and I’ve never gotten 50 cents….”  

Hardy and CCCO argue that these deceptive tactics are part of the U.S. military’s overall “poverty draft” strategy. “During the Vietnam War, you were pretty much snatched off the street physically and told in a very straightforward manner: ‘You’re going to Southeast Asia to kill and be killed.’ Today’s poverty draft is much more insidious—400,000 young people a year are being lured into the military using the poverty draft. That’s way more people than were ever conscripted under the actual ‘snatch you off the street’ draft. 

“People of color and all poor people are the most heavily targeted. Recruiters capitalize on the lack of opportunity and the terrible conditions in the community by holding themselves up as the only viable way to escape that. They’ll tell the youth: ‘Look, you’ll wind up dead or in jail.’ If you grow up in the hood or a poor community, you know somebody who’s been killed or in jail. I talk to young people around the U.S. who go to two or three funerals a month. Their friends’ heads are blown off just like if they were in Iraq. If you’re in that situation, it sounds good hearing, ‘All you have to do is graduate from high school and we’ll guarantee you $50,000 for college.’” 

Winter Mobilization 

T he October 25 demonstration was the largest anti-war protest since February 15 when 350,000 to 500,000 protesters gathered in New York City while millions of others around the world marched and demonstrated against the escalation of the U.S. and British war on Iraq. The size of the international protest was truly historic. Between two and three million turned out in Rome. The turnout of one and a half million in London was the largest political demonstration in England’s history. The half million that turned out in Berlin was the biggest demonstration since the week before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Philadelphia Inquirer declared on February 16 that the demonstrations “taken as a whole, may have been the largest simultaneous, single-day antiwar protest in history.” 

When asked about tactics and strategy for organizing against U.S. militarism, Cagan replied, “We need to keep using all of the tactics we have been using. These are the tactics that any social change movement uses: mass protest, civil disobedience, silent vigils, marches, lobbying, media work, educational forums, and sending U.S. citizens to Iraq and other parts of the world, etc. I don’t think it’s rocket science, but we need to be open to new ideas. 

“One challenge is how to function in an election year. How do we keep a focus on the issues and not have people feel that they need to only focus on electoral work? While this can be important work, it’s certainly not the only thing that we need to be doing.” 

UFPJ and ANSWER are organizing an anti-war mobilization for March 20, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. On November 27, Fernando Suarez del Solar and others from military families traveled to Baghdad with Global Exchange to meet with Iraqis and show them that the people in the U.S. are not their enemy. 

The struggle continues.

Hans Bennett is an anarchist and independent photojournalist currently working with Philadelphia’s INSUBORDINATION and AWOL magazines.