The March for Peace in Milwaukee

John Morgan http://watchdogmilwaukee.com, 26.03.2005 16:14

500 gather in the freezing rain at O'Donnell Park Pavilion to join the Global Day of Protest on the 2nd Anniversary of the Iraq War.

Coffins in the rain. Photo by Tom Dunne

Milwaukee, WI -- As Peace Action Wisconsin Organizer Julie Enslow read through the tale of devastation in Iraq last Saturday, she paused to consider whether it was possible for optimism to exist on the second anniversary of the war. Over 100,000 perished, 1,521 of them U.S. soldiers as of March 18. 108 Iraqi prisoners dead in US custody -- only one at the now-infamous Abu Gharab prison and none investigated by the US Military, according to Human Rights Watch. 11,344 wounded soldiers. 5,500 American troops AWOL.

No, Enslow concluded. There seems little reason for optimism. “But I can be optimistic that the movement is growing and that we will end this war,” she told the crowd that had gathered in a snow-driven drizzle at the O’Donnell Park Pavilion on Wisconsin Ave.

The peace movement is indeed growing as we enter into a second year of a war that the Bush Administration was intent on waging from the outset of its first term in power. (Please see  http://newamericancentury.org, the 90-page PNAC policy paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.”) Most Americans do not believe the war was worth fighting and disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq, with 70 percent saying that the number of U.S. casualties is an unacceptable price to pay, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll this month.

In the upper Midwest, opposition to the war has been a mainstream position from the start. Five of the eight US Senators representing Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin (Sen. Russ Feingold) and Minnesota voted “No” on the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002.

The 23 communities demonstrating for peace March 19 in Wisconsin were among 765 protests held in all 50 states of the US. Seventy countries participated in the Global Day of Protest, according to Milwaukee organizers. At O’Donnell Park, by the time demonstrators gathered for the march of flag-covered coffins -- 36 coffins, one for each of the Wisconsin soldiers killed in Iraq -- their numbers had grown, from the 150 on hand for the start of the two-hour event, to 500.

WAR IS UNHEALTHY FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS
High school students were among the largest contingents of protesters at the rally, many of them involved in countering the military recruitment efforts in their schools.

“This war has cost $150 billion [with another $82 billion approved in Congress],” noted Ursula, a Milwaukee Public Schools student who began a Truth in Recruiting leafleting campaign after Army recruiters came to her high school. “Our schools need money. It’s ridiculous. We need to keep organizing against George Bush. … This is a global community. We need love in the world, not to kill our brothers and sisters around the world.”

Joining Ursula and other students in calling for an end to the occupation were Milwaukee Congresswoman Gwen Moore; Milwaukee County Labor Council/AFL-CIO President John Goldstein; County Supervisor Roger Quindel and other veterans; Wendell Harris of the NAACP; religious leaders; poet Harvey Taylor and many others. Musicians Eric Blowtorch, Laramie Crocker and a roving band of percussionists played on as the temperature dropped through the afternoon. Peace Action Program Director George Martin led the ceremony, warming the crowd with chants.

Photojournalist Jim Harney, one of “The Milwaukee 14” prosecuted for burning their draft cards in the 1960s, described the faces of war he has seen around the globe. The people of Iraq, he said in an emotional speech, were still suffering from the aftereffects of the first Gulf War when Iraq II began.

“I was in Iraq two months before Shock and Awe,” Harney said. “I was in a cancer ward, where I saw children dying, poisoned by depleted uranium. This is a weapon used to take out tanks. It’s in the sand. Children play in the sand. It is in the water. Children drink the water.”

WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?
Labor Council chief John Goldstein invoked the name of Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions leader Hadi Salih, who was tortured and killed by terrorists, his body mutilated, in early January. Salih was opposed to the war and to the occupation, but had returned to Iraq from exile after the U.S. invasion to build a free and democratic labor movement.

Since last fall, however, it has been open season on Iraqi union leaders, according to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. Several have been kidnapped, tortured and killed. The teachers union has lost several members. In December, the office building of the Transport and Communications Workers in Baghdad was bombed in a mortar attack.

“The torture and murder of labor leaders in Iraq is a disturbing trend that has gone on unabated,” Goldstein said. “How can we ask our children to fight for freedom when those conditions are allowed to continue?”

Wendell Harris, the chairman of the NAACP’s education committee, decried the appearance of Army recruiters attired in full battle fatigue at UW-Milwaukee. “That’s something we haven’t seen,” Harris said. “As chairman of the NAACP education committee, it pained me to see it.”

Northern California singer/songwriter Laramie Crocker, on a national tour for peace, donned an American flag before singing his song, Bombing for Peace. “Some people say it’s disrespectful to wear the flag,” he said as he tied it around his neck in a loose scarf and draped it down his back to flap cape-like in the wind. “I think it’s disrespectful to bomb and kill in the name of the flag.”

County Supervisor Roger Quindel, an active member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, closed the rally, recounting the horrors of his own military service: digging mass graves for the Vietnamese dead and loading the bodies of American soldiers onto transports. “It seemed to take forever,” he recalled.

“So when you think of 100,000 dying in Iraq … this is a horrible thing we are doing. We’re saying that Iraqi children don’t count, that American soldiers don’t count. If we counted, vets would not be treated the way they are in this country.”

Quindel went on to describe the Iraq War as a “No Sacrifice” war, unprecedented in U.S. history. There has been no war ration asked of the American people, to conserve resources to support the war. Instead, the automotive market introduced gas-guzzling Hummers. Instead of a war tax to pay for the Iraq occupation, the Bush Administration “gave us a tax break,” Quindel said. Future generations will bear the burden.

In fact, congressional Democrats say the unreported total costs of the war are skyrocketing toward $300 billion. The war has been bought on credit, they say, financed with interest-accruing loans from central banks in China and Japan, even as the national debt soars. We will be paying the debt for years to come. Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, has taken to referring to the war as “the long war” against Islamic extremism in the Middle East and Central Asia.

To get involved in the movement for peace, the Coalition for a Justice Peace, contact Peace Action Wisconsin at  http://peaceactionwi.org. Globally, the movement is being organized by United for Peace and Justice,  http://unitedforpeace.org. Or, to get involved through your union, contact the Milwaukee County Labor Council/AFL-CIO,  http://www.wisaflcio.org and  http://www.aflcio.org.


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Other M19 Articles 26.03.2005 - 16:29 March 19th Day of Protest by Susan Lina Ruggles  http://mke.indymedia.org/en/2005/03/203022.shtml Banner Drop Over Lincoln Memorial by MYLA  http://mke.indymedia.org/en/2005/03/203016.shtml Rally Pics From Local Wobblies by marco for skip, and for the one big union  http://mke.indymedia.org/en/2005/03/202997.shtml newswire clerk> ??? 29.03.2005 - 08:03 Long time Milwaukee resident - but for 6 years I was up in Minneapolis, and now back in Milwaukee again. I'll say this - all I had to do in Minneapolis was walk down the street and I knew when protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, critical mass, and so on was happening. I lived in River West for almost 2 years and have since moved a LITTLE farther west of the city, by maybe 3 miles, and I have ***NEVER*** heard or seen any information on anything. Not even from people who live in River West or on the East Side still. Are you actually getting out there and advertising, or are you doing that BS culture of fear nonsense where you don't tell anyone your real name because you're paranoid? I'm not living in the sticks. Why don't I hear anything about what you plan on doing? And, then, if it really did gather 500 people, why did no one hear about it? And again, when was there freezing rain that day? Come on. Organize. Don't embelish. X>