[Peace-discuss] march

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Thousands March Against War in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Filed at 8:45 a.m. ET


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters circled the White 
House on Saturday after Jesse Jackson and other speakers denounced the Bush 
administration's Iraq policies and demanded a revolt at the ballot box to 
promote peace.

The protest coincided with anti-war demonstrations from Augusta, Maine, to 
San Francisco and abroad from Rome and Berlin to Tokyo to San Juan, Puerto 
Rico, and Mexico City. In Washington and many of the other demonstrations, 
protesters added complaints about U.S. policy toward the Palestinians.

``We must not be diverted. In two years we've lost 2 million jobs, 
unemployment is up, stock market down, poverty up,'' Jackson told a spirited 
crowd in Washington. ``It's time for a change. It's time to vote on Nov. 5 
for hope. We need a regime change in this country.''

Congress has authorized the use of military force to achieve the 
administration policy of ``regime change'' in Iraq.

``If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority,'' 
Jackson told the chanting, cheering throng spread out on green lawns near the 
Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

A sign showed Bush's face at the end of two bright red bombs with the 
caption: ``Drop Bush, not bombs.''

The protest brought out the elderly, young parents with babies in strollers, 
even a man dressed as Uncle Sam wearing dreadlocks and another Uncle Sam, on 
stilts, with an elongated Pinocchio nose.

Protest organizers claimed up to 200,000 people had answered the call to 
challenge President Bush's determination to force out Iraqi President Saddam 
Hussein. Because the U.S. Park Police no longer issues crowd estimates, the 
size of the crowd could not be verified. As the march began, participants 
stretched for at least five city blocks.

On a nearby street corner, a handful of Iraqi-Americans staged a 
counterdemonstration. Aziz al-Taee, spokesman for the Iraqi-American Council, 
said, ``I think America is doing just fine. ... We think every day Saddam 
stays in power, he kills more Iraqis.''

New Englanders ventured out in snow, sleet and rain to join demonstrations in 
Maine and Vermont. Across the nation a couple thousand showed up at the 
Colorado capitol in downtown Denver, and demonstrators marched at San 
Francisco.

The thousands who gathered in cities across Europe, Asia and beyond also 
displayed vocal opposition to the U.S. policy toward Iraq and demanded 
reversal of Bush's Iraq policies.

In San Francisco, demonstrators stretched about a mile as they marched from 
the financial district to City Hall, carrying placards that read, ``Money for 
jobs, not for war'' and ``No blood for oil.''

Young punk rockers with mohawks, aging hippies and middle-aged couples with 
children all took part, chanting, ``One, two, three, four, we don't want your 
racist war.''

More than 2,000 chanting, drum-beating protesters marched on a home owned by 
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld near Taos, N.M., waving placards that read, 
``Rumsfeld is a War Criminal'' and ``Teachers Against War.'' A few protesters 
held photographs of Iraqi children.

A Secret Service agent said Rumsfeld was not at home.

In Berlin, an estimated 8,000 people, brandishing placards that declared 
``War on the imperialist war,'' converged on the downtown Alexanderplatz and 
marched past the German Foreign Ministry. Another 1,500 showed up in 
Frankfurt, 500 in Hamburg.

Another 1,500 rain-soaked demonstrators gathered under umbrellas outside the 
U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark. More than 1,000 marched in Stockholm, 
Sweden.

In Washington, civil rights activist Al Sharpton addressed Bush, even though 
the president was at an economic summit in Mexico.

``It would have been good for you to be here, George, so you could see what 
America really looks like,'' Sharpton said. ``We are the real America.

``We are the patriots that believe that America should heal the world and not 
bring the world to nuclear war over the interests of those business tycoons 
who put you in the White House.''

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Associated Press writers Elizabeth Wolfe in Washington and Angela Watercutter 
in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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