Jackson Free Press

Crowds opposed to the war in Iraq surged past the White House on Saturday, shouting "Peace now" in the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the U.S. invasion.
The rally stretched through the day and into the night, a marathon of music, speechmaking and dissent on the National Mall. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, noting that organizers had hoped to draw 100,000 people, said, "I think they probably hit that."

Speakers from the stage attacked President Bush's policies head on, but he was not at the White House to hear it. He spent the day in Colorado and Texas, monitoring hurricane recovery.
In the crowd: young activists, nuns whose anti-war activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children in uniform lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest.

Previous Comments

ID

87447

Comment

OK we'll pack up and leave. Then Iraq will go back to the wonderful peaceful country it was with chocolate streams and flowery meadows. I've been here for 6 months. These people have nothing and never have. The Majority of the insurgents are foriegn or Sunni. Most here welcome US Forces. We've made incredible leaps with the Iraqi Security forces. We have stood up the Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army in 3 cities in my AO and they have run with it. We are doing a good job here. My company has personally given out over 10 tons of humanitarian aid. 90% of our mission is to find out what they need and try to make it happen. We are adding water purification and stabalizing the power grid. And this is all happening in the Sunni Triangle or "triangle of death". If you guys want us out and you have a better idea other than just pack up and leave let me know. I'll pass it up to higher. Otherwise the constant badgering and telling us we are losing the war is a slap in the face to every Solidier, Marine, Airman or Sailor here. Fact is we are only losing support from home and that could make us lose the war.

Author

nothing

Date

2005-09-25T11:56:34-06:00

ID

87448

Comment

I don't believe the U.S. can just "pack up and leave," either, unfortunately. The mess has been made, the lies told and the quandary put into place. It's not conscionable to set a fire and then leave it burning. At the same time, you don't keep setting more fires all over the place because the first one is already burning. And you don't refuse the help you need from other people to help you put the fire out. You damn well don't leave the arsonist there to "fix" what they started, as The Clarion-Ledger so stupidly argued in their endorsement of Bush last fall. But, we did. And now we face a raging fire with no idea of how to put it out. With due respect, nothing, I do not believe you that Americans are not losing support in Iraq. This is simply too much evidence to the contrary. And not having support for the war is not the same thing as not supporting the troops. One way to support them is to want them to get out of harm's way. However, as I said, I understand the quandary we're in. I think the best immediate approach is for our administration to put outside its stubborn partisan ineptness and ask for hellp from the world community, including the United Nations, in a meaningful way. And, yes, they need to admit that we made a mistake in order to get that help. That is honest, and it would show class -- unlike this idiotic approach of arguing that we everything right from the beginning, which the majority of the world community, as well as Americans, know is an outright lie. My hope is that the growing anti-war movement will encourage the administration to show some humility and ask for help and a united front in solving this mess. Otherwise, we will lose this war, and civil war will happen anyway.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-25T12:14:47-06:00

ID

87449

Comment

About 100 people showed up at a pro-war rally today in Washington, AP reports. Military families and others defending the war in Iraq took their turn Sunday to demonstrate on the National Mall, if in much smaller numbers, and counter the massive protest against the war a day earlier. About 100 people had gathered before a stage set up on the eastern portion of the mall as the noon rally began. A large photo of an American flag served as a backdrop for the stage, and country music blared from speakers while other banners and signs proclaiming support for U.S. troops waved in the breeze. John O'Neal, 64, from the Philadelphia area, carried an American flag over one shoulder as he moved around those near the stage. Asking "Do you want to vote?" he offered a chance to dip a finger in a cup of blue paint, symbolic of the elections earlier this year in which Iraqis showed off ink-stained fingers proving they had voted. "This is an indication that efforts the United States has made in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to free and democratic elections," O'Neal said. [...] o the west, near the Washington Monument, workers were taking down the stage used for Saturday's marathon anti-war protest that attracted 100,000 people according to police estimates. Organizers of Sunday event to show support for troops and President Bush's policies acknowledged that their rally would be much smaller. Still, they said their message would not be overshadowed. "We're hoping for more folks," said Kristinn Taylor, a leader of FreeRepublic.com, one of the sponsors. "People have been fired up over the past month, especially military family members, and they want to be heard." Earlier, Taylor said organizers were prepared for 20,000 people to attend the pro-military rally, billed as a time to honor the troops fighting "the war on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world." On Saturday, demonstrators opposed to the war in Iraq surged past the White House in the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the U.S. invasion. The rally stretched through the night, a marathon of music, speechmaking and dissent on the mall.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-25T14:15:35-06:00

ID

87450

Comment

BTW, isn't John O'Neal of Philadelphia the man who led the Swiftboat smear campaign? If so, they might have identified him as such in the piece.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-25T14:16:16-06:00

ID

87451

Comment

True, but then they mostly failed to identify John-O as the same guy Nixon had hired as a hatchet man to question Kerry's patriotism nearly 35 years ago. (The O'Neill vs. O'Neal issue isn't clear to me; sites seem to alternate vis-a-vis how the name is spelled.) Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-09-25T17:30:04-06:00

ID

87452

Comment

I know. Yuck, eh, Tom? The lamestream has really given the radical-right garbagemen a pass in recent years. Maybe that will change now, along with public opinion and patience. We can hope.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-25T20:24:24-06:00