Local residents from Berkshire, Saratoga, Rensselaer, Schenectady,Columbia Counties and many other surrounding areas traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend the March To The Pentagon which drew crowds of about 10,000 in a rally to end all wars, occupations and to call for justice and peace, money for jobs, health care, education etc. rather than for private contractors, military operations here and abroad .
Many groups were represented including A.N.S.W.E.R, Iraq Veterans Against The War ( IVAW), Military Families Speak Out, SOA Watch, Peace Action, Veterans For Peace ( VFP), Code Pink, Campus Antiwar Network and many other groups. Pictured are Pete Looker and Jeffrey Halperin of Saratoga Peace Alliance, Jeff Turner of Berkshire Citizens For Peace, Connie LaPorta of Troy Neighbors For Peace and Wendy Dwyer of Southern Rensselaer Neighbors for Peace ( of Canaan) with the "End The War" billboard from Columbia County Citizens For Peace which was up on Rt 66 for more than 2 months last fall!
The walk was about 3 miles, passing the Pentagon and ending at Kellog Brown and Root (KBR), war profiteers and former subsidiaries of Halliburtan, a private military contracting firm that has links to former V.P. Cheney in addition to horrendous crimes against employees such as rape (by fellow employees ) that they tried to cover up, an article can be found at The Nation April 3, 08.
Code Pink will be hosting a sleep over in Lafayette Park across from the White House for Mothers Day, information at Code Pink.org .
Local vigils were also held in Delmar Monday, Schodack and Albany Wed, Schenectady Thursday, Albany Friday, Saratoga, Chatham and Pittsfield Saturday and pictures are available form most of these vigils as well. A

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A "throng of war protesters swelled Saturday as they marched across the Memorial Bridge." (AP) The protesters marched on the Pentagon and what followed was a dramatic direct action at Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and KBR, corporations that demonstrators labeled "merchants of death." The predominantly young crowd continued to grow as the day proceeded. They marched through the Pentagon north Parking Lot and then into downtown Crystal City, where the leading war corporations' headquarters are located.

The march was led by a contingent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. There was a significant delegation from members of the Arab and Muslim communities and many students participated.

The Arlington County Police mobilized in full riot gear in an attempt to block the demonstrators from delivering symbolic coffins at the doorsteps of the war corporations. They brought tear gas, snarling dogs and pointed guns loaded with rubber bullets directly at demonstrators. The Arlington County Police also put out an absurdly low count of the demonstration, which was more than 10,000 people.

In Los Angeles, a simultaneous demonstration drew 4,000 people, which culminated with a dramatic die-in at the Kodak Theater. Another 4,000 demonstrated in San Francisco, where police carried out violent attacks on demonstrators and arrested numerous people.

"This is the launch of the anti-war movement in the post-Bush era. Bush is gone, but the occupation of Iraq continues, the war in Afghanistan is escalating, and the people of Palestine are living under a state of siege," stated Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition.

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I think that the march in Washington was an important success, but smaller than I would have wanted. I think that it was very important that it happened because if not, there would have been no national action on the 6th anniversary of the war in Iraq in the country that is responsible for the war, the US. Actions also took place in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as several other places. Other important features of the march were the diversity and youthfulness of the demonstrators.

We had a bus from Albany. There were also a few from Albany who could not get on our bus and went with a bus from Kingston, some left from the Yankee Trails bus barn in East Greenbush. Other area buses that I am aware of are 2 from Rochester, 1 from Ithaca, 1 from Syracuse and 3 from Hartford. Our bus included a number of students from SUNY, Siena and Bethlehem High School. About half of our bus was students. A number of others from our area came down by their own means and I saw several at the rally.

The march was very long and took us past a number of corporate war profiteers where we left coffins to show the effects of their work. The only problem at the Washington march was with a group calling itself Anarchists of Color, or something to that effect, who carried banners that did not criticize the government or the war but attacked the demonstrators, saying the anti-war movement was a white racist movement. I found it interesting that I was only able to see 2 in the anarchist group who were non-white. The diversity of the anti-war demonstrators was far greater than of the anarchist of color. At one point the anarchist group tried to block the march and divert it towards a confrontation with the police. However the rally monitors were able to non-violently avoid the confrontation.

I also got a report on the San Francisco March. It too was smaller than past marches but had the same youthfulness and diversity. At one point, according to the report I got from one of the organizers from the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, there was a police provocation in SF. A young Muslim Child of about 5 wondered away from his parents and past the police barricade. The police handled the child roughly. The child’s parents crossed the police barricade to get the child and the police used this as an excuse to push into the demonstrators. The crowed started chanting at the police and several people were pushed to the ground. The child’s father was arrested.

Besides the importance of the national peace movement demonstrating on the 6th anniversary of the war, I believe that building the demonstration was essential for the peace movement. It was difficult to build the rally even though sentiment in this country against the wars has never been greater. People organizing the rally nationally like ANSWER and the National Assembly, which I was working with, understood that the rally would be smaller because of the political period that we are in. Obama is still in his honeymoon period with the American people who are convinced, in their majority, that he is ending the war in Iraq. There also appears to be less violence in Iraq. The government and media attribute this to the surge; however, most observers in the peace movement understand that it has to due with other factors including the success of US government’s tactic of divide and rule. This has manifested itself in Iraq through outright bribery of Sunni leaders outside of Baghdad and ethnic cleansing in Baghdad. The ethnic cleansing has reduced the population of Baghdad from roughly 50% Sunni to 10% Sunni. It has caused millions of refugees and thousands of deaths. Additionally, I think other factors contributed to the size of the rally including the economic meltdown which has dominated the media and the thinking of the American people. Also, as you know, the divisions in the anti-war movement have had an effect as UFPJ moves away from the issue of the wars and the bitter split between ANSWER and UFPJ continues. It will take some time for these factors to play out.

If there was no national demonstration on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the anti-war movement would become invisible. It would go into retreat and have to be rebuilt at a future date. As it stands now, the organizing for this demonstration has kept the issues in front of the American people and helped build a new young leadership for our movement that is beginning to step forward. In July, the National Assembly will hold its second nation conference. All national and local anti-war groups will be invited. As with the first conference anyone who comes will have voice and vote. Here we hope to assess where the anti-war movement is and how to move forward. If you are interested in coming to this conference in Pittsburg, please let me know.

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Moved on From the Struggle
March 20, 2009 By Anthony Arnove
Source: SW

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ON MARCH 2, the liberal organization MoveOn.org--known for mobilizing opposition to the Bush administration through the Internet--sent an e-mail to its membership that declared the U.S. war on Iraq effectively over:


Dear MoveOn member,



I'm sure you've heard about President Obama's plan to finally bring an end to the disastrous war in Iraq. It will bring most of our troops home by August of next year--and by the end of 2011 there won't be any more troops left in Iraq. This is a major turning point in the fight to end the war.



We wanted to take a moment to reflect on the work that you've done over the last six, dark years...to thank you, sincerely, for all you have done...



This war is coming to an end in part because of the work you did.





While the letter acknowledges that "our troops aren't home yet. Hundreds of thousands of them are still in harm's way, and will continue to be for longer than any of us would like," it says the bottom line is that "now there's a date certain for them to come home."



Reading this, I was reminded of the final line of Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises: "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

But MoveOn is not alone. Much of the antiwar movement has folded its tents. The Iraq war has more or less dropped out of popular consciousness altogether. And the media report less and less about the ongoing problems there.



So it's no surprise that the fine print of President Barack Obama's plan in Iraq has gone largely unexamined.

Rather than pulling all U.S. troops out of Iraq within 16 months, as most Obama voters understood his campaign pledge, the redeployment of forces from Iraq will proceed over a 19-month period and will be back-loaded to take place after December 2009. As the New York Times reported:

The plan would maintain relatively high troop levels through Iraq's parliamentary elections, to be held in December, before beginning in earnest to meet the August 2010 target for removing combat forces, the officials said. Even after August 2010, as many as 50,000 of the 142,000 troops now in Iraq would remain, including some combat units reassigned as "Advisory Training Brigades" or "Advisory Assistance Brigades," the administration and Pentagon officials said.

Obama's plan says nothing about the private contractors and mercenaries that are an essential part of the occupation of Iraq, and whose numbers may even be increased to cover functions previously provided by active-duty troops. And it will leave in place the world's largest foreign embassy, as well as the largest CIA foreign station, in Baghdad.

Obama calls the troops who will stay in Iraq through the end of 2011 "residual forces" and non-combat troops, but this is just doublespeak. Combat troops are simply being renamed non-combat troops through a verbal sleight of hand, but will certainly be able to use lethal force and will find themselves in combat situations.

And in accepting the logic of the Bush administration for not withdrawing the troops immediately--that they are needed to fight al-Qaeda, engage in "counter-insurgency operations," and continue the "war on terror"--Obama has opened the door to keeping them in Iraq beyond 2011.

Indeed, in his speech about the Iraq "withdrawal" plan at the end of February, Obama retroactively endorsed the Bush administration's stated reasons for invading Iraq in the first place, as the Wall Street Journal gleefully noted.

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WE KNOW that Iraq will remain under occupation until at least the end of 2011, but there is very good reason to believe that between now and then, the Iraqi government, which owes its survival to Washington, will cut a deal to allow U.S. forces to remain longer. Such an agreement would also likely give the U.S. long-term access to military bases and access to Iraqi air space.

The fact remains that Iraq is a fulcrum of geopolitics and a vital front for U.S. military strategy in the Middle East. Washington's goals for Iraq and the region may be less ambitious than when the Bush administration launched its 2003 invasion, but no one is reversing the fundamental policies driving U.S. policy: the goal of controlling the region's vast energy resources and being the hegemonic foreign power there.

MoveOn should be letting its members know this--and urging far more than to "keep watching Washington" to be sure they do bring the troops home. But to do this, the group would have to take on the Obama administration more forcefully on Iraq--and on the occupation of Afghanistan, which is intimately related.

Obama has said all along that he sees Afghanistan as the "central front" in the "war on terror," and that he would commit more troops to the war there. But Justin Ruben, MoveOn's new executive director, told Nation correspondent Ari Melber that the organization did not intend to oppose Obama's plan to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The message being sent to the antiwar movement is: It's over. We can "move on." Leave it to the generals to wind it down. But if we do that, we will find ourselves without the forces we need to challenge Obama and Congress.

The year 2011 is already too late to end the occupation of Iraq, which should never have started in the first place. And shifting troops from Iraq to Afghanistan is not ending the war.

Without an antiwar movement that is loud, active, in the streets and raising its own independent demands beyond the limits set by the Democratic Party, U.S. troops will not be coming home.

The empire has not folded up its tent, and neither should we.