THE MARCH FOR PEACE IN MILWAUKEE

by 500 gather in freezing rain for global protest on theJohn-David Morgan
March 28, 2005
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. Six 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.

CORRECTION
6 of 8 Senators from the upper Midwest voted “Nay” on the Iraq War Resolution.

In the article, “The March for Peace in Milwaukee,” I wrote: “In the upper Midwest, opposition to the war has been a mainstream position from the start. Five of the eight U.S. Senators representing Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin (Sen. Russ Feingold) and Minnesota voted ‘No’ on the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002.”

This was not correct. In fact, six of the eight U.S. Senators from the four upper Midwest states voted against the resolution to authorize force against Iraq, all of them Democrats or progressive Democrats: Mark Dayton and Paul Wellstone (Minn.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Richard Durbin (Ill.), and Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow (Mich.).

Sen. Wellstone, the only member of the Senate voting “Nay” who was facing election that fall, died in a plane crash just prior to the 2002 election; his seat was taken by Republican Norm Coleman. But Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, joined the war resistance a year later by voting against the $87 billion supplemental appropriation for the Iraq War.

Iowa, according to the map, remains part of the upper Midwest, though the only state in the region to go Bush in the last election. Despite Wellstone’s passing, the five-state region remains staunchly opposed to the war, with now six of its 10 Senators casting votes against the Bush Administration on the war.

Indeed, from the war’s onset, opposition has remained a mainstream position. The votes of the upper Midwest senators merely reflected America’s views on war.

According to the ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted the week of the 2nd anniversary of the Iraq invasion, 70 percent of Americans polled said the price of the dead has been unacceptable; 53 percent said that the war was not worth fighting; and 57 percent said they disapprove of the president’s handling of Iraq. This jibes with pre-election surveys by Pew, the Institute for Foreign Policy and others that say nearly 6 out of 10 Americans oppose going to war against a country that doesn’t pose an “imminent threat” to the U.S.
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The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to authorize the use of force in Iraq, but six Republicans broke ranks and voted against the resolution: Ron Paul of Texas, James Leach of Iowa, John Hostettler of Indiana, Constance Morella of Maryland, Amo Houghton of New York and John Duncan of Tennessee.

As a group, their reasoning showed a strong philosophical disagreement with the Bush Administration’s foreign policy of global leadership through “military preeminence.” Shortly after the vote, in October 2002, the conservative online ‘zine http://newsmax.com published excerpts from each of their six speeches in the House.

Here’s what Maryland Rep. Constance Morella said:

“As a mother who has raised nine children, I cannot help but think about this issue on a personal basis. Can I or can any parent look into the eyes of an 18-year-old boy and with a clear mind and clear conscience say that we have exhausted every other option before sending him into the perils of conflict?

“The world is watching us today as we show how the world’s last remaining superpower sees fit to use its great influence. We are looked to as we set an example for the world.

“As the world’s last superpower, I believe that we must have a better plan for our Nation and for the world for a post-war Iraq. We must reassure those neighbors in the Middle East that we are committed first to peace and stability and second to regime change. And we must not give our friends and foes in the region more reason to distrust our sincerity and desire for peace by ignoring the world community’s role in addressing this problem.”
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For the record, the following is a list of the 23 U.S. Senators voting “Nay” on the Iraq War resolution in October 2002. The vote was 77-23 in favor of the resolution.

Daniel Akaka (D - Hawaii), Jeff Bingaman (D - N.M.), Barbara Boxer (D - Calif.), Robert Byrd (D - W. Va.), Lincoln Chafee (R - R.I.), Kent Conrad (D - N.D.), Jon Corzine (D - N.J.), Mark Dayton (D - Minn.), Richard Durbin (D - Ill.), Russ Feingold (D - Wis.), Bob Graham (D - Fla.) [Retired, 2004], Daniel Inouye (D - Hawaii), Jim Jeffords (I - Vt.), Ted Kennedy (D - Mass.), Patrick Leahy (D - Vt.), Carl Levin (D - Mich.), Barbara Mikulski (D - Md.), Patty Murray (D - Wash.), Jack Reed (D - R.I.), Paul Sarbanes (D - Md.), Debbie Stabenow (D - Mich.), Paul Wellstone (D - Minn.) [Dec. 2002] and Ron Wyden (D - Ore.).