| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"PagCal" |
| Date: |
27 Oct 2005 03:51:30 AM |
| Object: |
Bush Lied, 2,000 Died |
'Bush Lied, 2,000 Died'
New Yorkers take to the streets in protest of the war in Iraq
by Sarah Ferguson
October 27th, 2005 12:32 AM
With angry chants of “Bush lied, 2,000 died!” several hundred New
Yorkers jammed the traffic island that’s home to the Armed Forces
Recruiting Station in Times Square to protest on the day after the
Pentagon announced the death of the 2,000th American soldier in Iraq.
That grim milestone brought out an eclectic mix of demonstrators, here
and across the nation. In Manhattan, Grandmothers Against the War
jostled alongside young anarchists with bandanas masking their faces,
Green Party stalwarts, veterans, students, office workers bearing
flowers, and a group carrying a dozen large coffins draped in American
flags.
They were crammed up against about a half dozen counterprotesters, who
came brandishing a remarkable assortment of their own American, British,
Israeli, and Iraqi flags. One guy among them identified himself as Tom
D. and wore a Union Jack tied around his face. “I recognized a few of my
college professors in the crowd, and I don’t want this to bias them
against me,” said Tom, who said he’d turned out to “stand in solidarity”
with the troops.
“How many more?!" the antiwar demonstrators demanded. “Bush we adore!”
the counterprotesters shouted back.
And yet just about everyone piped down for a moment of silence led by
the members of Veterans for Peace, who came bearing a large banner
printed with the image of empty boots and rifles planted barrel down
into the ground, in honor of the fallen soldiers.
Behind them, the digital screen on top of the recruiting station flashed
jazzy images of young recruits training in fighter planes and on
submarines with the pitch line “Prepare for life.”
“It’s a bogus mission. There is no ability to win this war,” said
Vietnam vet David Cline. “It’s only a matter of time and bodies before
the U.S. does what is inevitable, pull out.
Cline also took issue with supporters of the war’s efforts to minimize
the casualties in Iraq relative to past wars. “I could look at the 2,000
and say it’s nothing compared to the 58,000 who died in Vietnam. But I
think the people are out here now because they learned something from
Vietnam and now they see that same slow slide into hell. The 2,000
matters today because we know if we don’t do something, it will be 58,000.”
Other demonstrators sought to highlight the tremendous civilian death
toll, estimated by the British group Iraq Body Count at between 26,690
and 30,051. In Union Square, a trio of women sporting black top hats
spent two hours reciting the names, ages, and manner of death for some
1,000 Iraqis, pausing for a moment of silence after each name, followed
by the chiming of a Tibetan bell. Among the names was that of a
three-month-year old killed by a U.S. rocket.
And outside the offices of Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer,
about 70 people gathered for an equally somber reading of the U.S. fallen.
“We want to put pressure on both senators to come up with some kind of
exit strategy and also demand that they hold the Bush administration
accountable for misleading the country to war,” said Gary Weingarten,
the owner of the Lower East Side bar Verlaine, who recently helped found
a group called truthempowered.org to raise awareness about the Bush
administration’s manipulation of intelligence to justify the war.
”It’s obvious Clinton is going to run for president in 2008,” Weingarten
added. “Does that mean she approves of these kind of tactics—of lying to
your country to go to war?”
Folks turned out for candlelight vigils and streetside demonstrations
across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, where activists
gathered outside the offices of Republican Congressman Vito
Fossella—part of a growing national effort to pressure Congress to cut
funding for the war.
The New York events were among some 1,500 demonstrations and memorials
that took place across the country, from Anchorage, Alaska, to
Washington, D.C., where Cindy Sheehan and about two dozen others were
arrested for sitting down in front of the White House.
The protests were broadly organized by Move On, United for Peace and
Justice, and the American Friends Service Committee, which used online
portals to enable people to post events in their own communities.
Debra Anderson of Staten Island, whose husband returned home a month ago
after spending 18 months in Iraq with the National Guard, said she felt
a bit uncomfortable protesting at the 2,000th death, as if the soldiers
who died before were somehow less important. Still, she turned out.
“People need to be reminded that the war is still going on, because
otherwise it’s like a movie to them,” said Anderson. “They have to
realize that our people are still going over there, and this war is not
going away.”
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