Sixth Anniversary Peace March This Saturday

Protesters to confront Obama on Afghanistan escalation

Humboldt Sentinel
3/17/09
By Charles Douglas

EUREKA -- The Bush presidency may be history, but his overseas wars of occupation continue to incite demonstrations the world over, with the sixth anniversary of the Iraq conflict also marked with the sixth annual peace marches in communities across the US.

On the North Coast, Eureka will again be the scene of a protest procession through the Downtown and Old Town districts, beginning at 1 p.m. at the Humboldt County Courthouse at Fifth and I Street. The protest continues to be organized by Communities for Justice and Peace, who claim that a culture of militarism transcendent of the two-party façade is responsible for the bipartisan aggression with both Democrats and Republicans continuing to vote in favor of continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“While it's true how millions have been lulled into passivity (and active patriotic complicity) with the Obama victory, it's also true these long months helped build people's hopes that the democratic process would ‘self-correct’ the horrors of the bush regime,” stated peace activist Jack Nounnan in a release. “The anti-war movement acknowledges all this, wanting positive signs, but seeing the necessity to hold firm against Obama and the regime, an extension of our long history of habitual wars for expansion under any number of labels…surely it must be dawning for more of us [as we] become aware of how such hostilities not only grind on and on, but even escalate.”

Nounnan and Communities for Justice and Peace draw a connection between the mounting expenses of these wars, already in excess of a trillion dollars, and the economic calamity engulfing the US under both Bush and Obama.

“For many generations this has been too harsh to bring up and consider, but more Americans are aware not only that America is overextended again, but breaking so many of us financially here at home, so much of our needs ignored with monies drying up...a kind of machine running on, almost oblivious of us running down at home,” Nounnan stated. “This translates quickly into a no-nonsense militarism and control of as many of the worlds resources as possible…then having to learn to live with those post-war years of grinding poverty.”

Along with similar demonstrations in city centers up and down the West Coast, the Eureka march will also coincide with the March on the Pentagon endorsed by Voters for Peace, which begins in downtown Washington, D.C. and also includes the offices of Boeing, Lokhed Martin, General Dynamics and KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton.

“The plan to withdraw troops from Iraq is a slow withdrawal that will take nearly as long as all of World War I,” stated Kevin Zeese, executive director of Voters for Peace. “At the same time the war in Afghanistan is escalating with 17,000 troops (so far) planned for deployment, attacks in Pakistan are increasing and saber rattling continues with Iran with threats of an attack on that country as well.”

“All of this is occurring at a time of economic collapse and with a military worn out by the Iraq war. More war will create greater instability and more threats to U.S. national security. The U.S. has more effective tools to resolve these conflicts.”

While not officially on the march’s procession map -- the full details of which have not been released as of press time -- some protestors want to include Congressman Mike Thompson’s (D - Napa Valley) Eureka office at Third and D Street on the hit list.

While Thompson voted against initiating the Iraq conflict in late 2002, he has voted for nearly every major appropriation to fund both wars, and has refused to join other House Democrats on legislation to mandate the full withdrawal of US forces or on bills seeking criminal investigations concerning the initiation of the war or the conduct of military personnel and their commanders for war crimes.

For more information on the Humboldt County peace march, call CPJ at (707) 442-8733; Voters for Peace can be reached at their website, www.votersforpeace.us.