War is over! If you want it
(But it's not, six years later)
By Joe Piasecki 03/19/2009
In January 2003, thousands of people from diverse backgrounds set aside their differences and swarmed the streets of downtown Los Angeles to take a stand against the White House’s plans for pre-emptive war in the Middle East.
The following month, even more people — this time tens of thousands filling four city blocks — massed in Hollywood as millions around the world also raised their voices in alarm and protest, including groups at Pasadena City Hall.
These were the largest peaceful demonstrations since the Vietnam War, the work of men and women of all ages, races, occupations and beliefs. And, much as was the case in those times, even left-leaning members of the mainstream media who had swallowed the government’s poison Kool-Aid either wrongly ignored these marchers or vilified them as fringe radicals, agitators, even Stalinists.
Determined to remove Saddam Hussein from power long before the Twin Towers fell — and abetted by a timorous or hoodwinked media — the president simply shrugged off calls for restraint and on March 19, 2003, bombs began falling in Baghdad.
Six years and $600 billion later, more than 4,250 Americans and at least 91,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, many more are maimed or crippled and the nation’s economy spirals toward ruin. For those concerned with peace, now is the time to march again.
On Saturday, the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, one of several groups that have continued to organize throughout the carnage and even the election of a new president promising a return to peace, is asking people to take to the streets of Hollywood in renewed opposition to the ongoing wars in both Iraq — where President Obama says as many as 50,000 troops will remain until 2011 — and Afghanistan, where many of those who leave Iraq may be sent.
Jodie Evans, a co-founder of the activist group Code Pink who appears three times in the accompanying Pasadena-centric timeline of Iraq War and resistance milestones, will be there, this time with some new twists on old messages. On Iraq: “Obama, keep your promises for peace.” On Afghanistan: “There’s no such thing as a good war.”
“The anti-war movement,” says Evans, “is moving from ‘end the war’ to ‘change US foreign policy, cut the defense budget, demand accountability from the Bush administration … quit wasting money in foreign wars that aren’t making us safer and bring the funds back home.”
Activist Paul Krehbiel, who founded Pasadena’s Iraq Moratorium (a call for anyone opposed to the war to do something about it one Friday a month) is organizing a protest from noon to 1 p.m. today along Colorado Boulevard, across from Pasadena City College, to target military recruitment there. Eroding the government’s ability to recruit soldiers, in addition to cutting off war funding, inspiring public engagement and keeping heat on military contractors, should be the major focus of today’s peace movement, he says.
All Saints Church Rector Emeritus George Regas, who was organizing for peace in Pasadena and Los Angeles as early as 2002, says that although demonstration attendance plummeted quickly after the war began and few gatherings were even called last year to mark the anniversary of the invasion, there is perhaps more life than ever in the movement.
“When the war started, the peace movement’s voice was small, and I think as the war went on, more people began to vocalize a strong moral opposition to what they were seeing being done in the name of the United States. I believe that in many ways it was the peace voice that elected President Obama, at least contributed to the election. He was the only one of the candidates who disassociated himself from the Iraq War.”
But now that Obama is in power, demonstrators will be putting pressure on him, said ANSWER organizer Ian Thompson. “It’s a different political period, and people still have hope for Obama to live up to his promises, but the only way this can happen is if we continue to apply grassroots pressure.”
Iraq, says Blase Bonpane, a former Catholic priest who led the local movement against American military adventures in Latin American and has attended nearly every peace rally in the LA area since before the war began, “was an absolutely unnecessary and illegal war and we should get out of there immediately. We must put the government on notice that people are still very much upset.”
The ANSWER Coalition march begins at noon Saturday at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, ending with a rally at Hollywood and Highland Avenue. Call (213) 251-1025 or visit answerla.org.
2001
Sept. 11 – The nation goes into shock after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Sept. 13 – Muslim Americans discuss racist backlash during an interfaith vigil at Pasadena City Hall.
Sept. 27 – Mourners gather in San Gabriel to remember Adel Karas, an Arab-American grocer murdered four days after the terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, more than 800 students attend anti-war teach-ins hosted by Students for Social Justice at Pasadena City College.
Oct. 9 – The occupation of Afghanistan begins.
Oct. 26 – President Bush signs the USA PATRIOT Act.
2002
Jan. 10 – In an essay published by Rolling Stone magazine and then the Weekly after his death, Ken Kesey warns of the folly of pre-emptive war.
March 29 – Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (ICUJP), founded by All Saints Church Rector Emeritus George Regas, jumpstarts the Pasadena peace movement during a reading of the Stations of the Cross.
April 20 – Tens of thousands gather around the country for anti-war demonstrations.
Oct. 4 – As many as 100 demonstrators gather in Old Pasadena to criticize Democratic Pasadena Congressman Adam Schiff, a co-sponsor of the PATRIOT Act, for his support for the invasion of Iraq.
Oct. 6 – “War is prostitution of the noblest things in the human soul,” Regas tells demonstrators in Westwood at the LA area’s first mass Iraq war protest.
Nov. 24 – Organizers of Pasadena’s Doo Dah Parade declare the occasion “a Doo Dah for Peace.”
2003
Jan. 2 – Families of Muslim immigrants complain to the Weekly that their brothers, husbands and fathers have been locked up for weeks by federal immigration officials.
Jan. 11 – More than 10,000 gather for a peace protest in downtown LA featuring actors Ed Asner and Martin Sheen, Vietnam veteran and “Born on the Fourth of July” author Ron Kovic, musician Jackson Browne and others. “We will change this country,” said Kovic. That same week, 35,000 more American troops are ordered into the Middle East.
Jan. 16 – Pasadena’s John Harris and 16 others are arrested during a symbolic “die-in” at the downtown LA Federal Building.
Jan. 30 – PCC shuttle driver Al Moldanado is suspended (and eventually fired) after students complain about him listening to activist programming on KPFK 90.7 FM and expressing anti-war views.
Feb. 6 – “There’s no way there ever could be bombs that didn’t hit civilians,” says Code Pink Co-founder Jodie Evans during a telephone call from Baghdad.
Feb. 15 – Actors Rob Reiner, Mike Farrell, Wendie Malick, Martin Sheen and James Cromwell lead an anti-war demonstration down Hollywood Boulevard. Earlier that day, activists also gather at Pasadena City Hall, where the Rev. Paul Sawyer tells the Weekly: “Every issue we’ve ever been struggling with is involved right now.”
Feb. 20 – Attorneys warn of civil rights infringements in the Bush administration’s Domestic Security Enhancement Act, also dubbed PATRIOT Act 2, which if passed would have authorized spying on domestic peace groups and allowed indefinite jailing of US citizens with suspected terrorist ties.
March 5 – Regas and All Saints Rector Ed Bacon are arrested for defying orders to leave a demonstration at the downtown LA Federal Building.
March 7 – High school students leave classes to protest the war in Pasadena’s Central Park.
March 10 – Pasadena City Council members split 3-3 — Councilmen Steve Madison, Victor Gordo and Paul Little voting in favor; Mayor Bill Bogaard, Sid Tyler and Steve Haderlein voting against; Joyce Streator absent and Chris Holden abstaining — on taking an official position against the war in Iraq.
March 19 – The US begins dropping bombs on Baghdad.
March 20 – Things at home also get ugly when several students are roughed up and pepper-sprayed by campus security officers at a PCC war protest.
March 22 – LAPD officers in riot gear drag off protesters during a sit-in at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.
May 1 – Bush lands on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln to declare victory in Iraq.
June 27 – Evans and other members of the activist group Code Pink are subdued by Secret Service agents after hanging a peace banner from inside the Century Plaza Hotel, where Bush was speaking at a fundraiser.
July 16 – South Pasadena adopts a resolution against the PATRIOT Act.
Aug. 7 – In the pages of the Weekly, constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky urges Pasadena City Council members to also go on record against the PATRIOT Act.
Oct. 02 – Pomona eco-activist Josh Connole, who had been arrested on suspicion of firebombing dozens of SUVs in the San Gabriel Valley — an act described as domestic terrorism — speaks at a Hollywood peace rally. His attorney, former Pasadena Mayor Bill Paparian, would eventually win a settlement and letter of apology from the FBI, and a Caltech student was later convicted of the crime. “I’m a living example of the PATRIOT Act,” said Connole.
Dec. 14 – The White House announces the capture of Saddam Hussein.
2004
Jan 29 – A US district court judge finds certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act unconstitutionally restrictive of free speech. The challenge was brought by groups fighting political oppression of Kurds, including one headed by former administrative law judge Ralph Fertig, father of Pasadena activist and attorney Dave Fertig.
March 30 – Columnist Molly Ivins, the first to call President Bush “Shrub,” speaks at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
April 22 – A memo by the Coalition Provisional Authority blames strategy errors for harming democracy in Iraq and predicts outbreak of civil war, according to a special report for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.
May 27 – American military deaths in Iraq exceed 800.
June 5 – Some 1,000 anti-war demonstrators, including actor Danny Glover, gather in Los Angeles but get less attention from local mainstream media outlets than Italian protesters who greeted Bush in Rome that weekend.
June 17 – In an essay appearing in the Weekly and other publications, Kurt Vonnegut writes, “There is not a chance in hell of America becoming sane and reasonable.”
June 23 – “Fahrenheit 9/11” is released.
July 19 – Pasadena City Council members join 270 other American cities, including Los Angeles, in adopting an official position against the USA PATRIOT Act.
Aug. 19 – As some 300 Pasadena-area reservists get ready to ship out to Iraq, studies find many of them will likely come back with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental damage.
Sept. 11 – Judea Pearl, father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, speaks during the annual Peace Through Music concert, a fundraiser for the Daniel Pearl Foundation.
Sept. 9 – “There is no question that the burden of this war falls disproportionately on a small number of troops,” Congressman Adam Schiff writes in the Weekly of recent official visits to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sept. 30 – Another AAN special report finds the Bush administration diverting disaster resources into the War on Terror.
Nov. 11 – Arlington West, the makeshift memorial for Iraq War dead near the Santa Monica Pier, puts crosses and photos out for 1,140 fallen Americans.
2005
Jan. 20 – More than 10,000 demonstrators line the route of Bush’s second inauguration parade.
Feb. 20 – Code Pink’s Evans, now a five-time Iraq peace traveler, speaks on the war’s human collateral damage at Throop Unitarian Universalist Church.
March 19 – On the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the American Friends Service Committee arranges 1,500 pairs of boots in Pasadena’s Central Park to represent the American dead.
March 31 – “It was a matter of routine for soldiers in my unit to drive by and shatter bottles over Iraqis’ heads as they passed by,” says former Army Pvt. Aidan Delgado, an Abu Ghraib whistleblower, during an event at PCC.
May 3 – Family, friends and Chandler School acquaintances join Pasadena’s Jill Leighton in Memorial Park to celebrate the life of her sister, Marla “Bubbles” Ruzicka, founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, who in April died at age 28 during a suicide bombing in Baghdad. “This war was such a mistake. It’s just tragic,” said Chandler parent Paulette Geragos, wife of attorney Mark Geragos.
June 15 - Marines Lance Cpl. Dion Mario Whitley, 21, of Altadena is killed in Iraq.
June 21 – City code enforcement officials site Linda Vista Street residents Patrick Briggs and Mary Gavel-Briggs for posting a six- by three-foot sign that read, “War starts with W. Bush lied. People died,” and later a smaller one reading “Support Cindy Sheehan,” on the front of their home. The city later dropped its fines after the ACLU filed a lawsuit in September alleging the city’s zoning code violated free speech.
Aug. 18 – Pasadena’s Rebecca Houston stands with Cindy Sheehan in the second week of her encampment outside President Bush’s Texas home.
Aug. 29 – Hurricane Katrina slams New Orleans.
Sept. 15 – The Weekly calls for the impeachment of President Bush.
Sept. 24 – Ten-thousand people protest the war in downtown Los Angeles.
Oct. 9 – Marines Lance Cpl. Sergio Hernandez Escobar, 18, of Pasadena is killed in Iraq.
Oct. 17 – A small group of demonstrators gather outside the Pasadena Civic Auditorium to picket Colin Powell’s
participation in the Distinguished Speakers Series.
Nov. 7 – Bacon reads a letter during Sunday services in which the IRS threatens to remove All Saints Church’s tax-exempt status over a political sermon delivered by Regas prior to the 2004 presidential election.
Nov. 24 – The Weekly begins printing “The Count.” As of day 978 of the war, at least 2,095 Americans and 26,994 Iraqi civilians had been killed. On Dec. 29, those figures jumped to 2,170 and 27,592.
2006
Jan. 30, 2006 – Hundreds in Hollywood make noise to drown out Bush’s State of the Union speech.
Feb. 25 – Sheehan, Sheen and Browne speak at a counter-recruitment fundraiser at All Saints Church in which Sheehan called for using civil disobedience to end the war. Browne described the event as “a sign of hope.”
March 2 – Preparing for a visit to the area, 27-year-old Afghani Parliament member Malalai Joya tells the Weekly that the US occupation of her country fuels systematic oppression of women and has cemented the power of criminal warlords.
March 19 – Activists mark the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by holding a protest outside the Pasadena headquarters of Parsons Corp., which held war contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars and would later be faulted by government investigators for wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.
April 27 – “Do you know about Neil’s new record yet?” musician David Crosby asks the Weekly, referring to Young’s “Living with War” album, which included “Let’s Impeach the President.” He adds, “Yes, I want to impeach the sonofabitch.”
May 12- The Pasadena Senior Center hosts a forum of candidates running for Congress, including Schiff and several challengers running anti-war campaigns: the Green Party’s Bill Paparian, Democrat Bob McCloskey, Lynda Llamas of the Peace and Freedom Party and Libertarian Jim Keller.
Oct. 2 – Following a visit by peace activists to his Pasadena headquarters, Schiff states that he supports an immediate reduction of the number of troops in Iraq.
Oct. 28, 2006 – Paparian and Sheehan speak at a demonstration in Hollywood.
Oct. 30 – Sen. John Kerry makes national news at a PCC political forum after telling students, “If you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
Dec. 30 – Saddam Hussein is hanged.
2007
Jan. 2, 2007 – More than two dozen gather outside Schiff’s office to mark the 3,000th American military death in Iraq. “The polls show there is a mandate for ending the war,” said Foothills Peace Coalition organizer Dick Smoak.
Jan. 24 – Sheehan’s second visit to Pasadena is a news conference calling on Democrats to cut off funding for the war.
Jan. 25 – Howard Zinn calls for a grassroots movement to force Democrats to end the war before making a Feb. 1 visit to Pasadena.
Jan. 31 – Molly Ivins dies of breast cancer. Meanwhile, authorities in Boston mistake “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” cartoon ads as terrorist threats.
Feb. 22 – Schiff pens a column opposing escalation of the Iraq War. “Our reconstruction efforts in Iraq are a disaster and a national disgrace. Too many of our troops still ride into battle in vehicles that are not properly protected against improvised explosive devices,” he writes.
March 14 – Army Spc. Adam Jason Rosema, 27, of Pasadena is killed in Iraq when a roadside bomb explodes near his vehicle.
March 17 – Musicians Ozomatli and Ben Harper lead a 10,000-strong protest in Hollywood that included Sheen, Browne, Regas and actress Laura Dern.
June 24 – Pro-peace Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich makes his first of several San Gabriel Valley presidential primary campaign appearances.
Aug. 3 – Altadena’s Ben McGinty, who runs the Gallery at the End of the World, calls on visitors to mail toy soldiers to President Bush, saying “The only soldiers that should be in a bag are toy ones.”
Aug. 26 – Lance Cpl. Rogelio Antonio Ramirez, 21, of Pasadena is killed in Iraq.
Sept. 10 – IRS closes its All Saints investigation, taking no action.
Sept. 21 – Pasadena peace activist Paul Krehbiel organizes the city’s first Iraq Moratorium event.
2008
Jan. 1 – Cindy Sheehan is one of many anti-war demonstrators lining the Rose Parade route on New Year’s Day.
Feb. 22 – Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas Gandhi, advocates reconciliation with the Muslim world during an event at Pasadena City College.
March 23 – American casualties in the Iraq War reach 4,000 on Easter Sunday.
July 31 –Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor who put Charles Manson on Death Row, tells the Weekly he would do the same to the president for leading us into Iraq — a case the Pasadena resident argues in his book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.”
Aug. 21 – On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, activist and former state Sen. Tom Hayden writes that only grassroots pressure can make Obama into “a transitional president.”
Sept. 11 – “Nobody forgot about world peace,” artist Yoko Ono tells the Weekly during an interview about her wildly popular “Wish Tree for Pasadena” installation. “We’re going to get it. Of course we’re going to get it.”
Oct. 9 – “I’m enough of a patriot that I don’t want this place to end up as a joke,” says author and historian Gore Vidal, who later joined Pasadena activist Marvin Schachter for an ACLU event. “What we should be training the new generation to do is to restore the Constitution.”
2009
Feb. 27 – President Barack Obama announces he will draw down troop levels in Iraq to no more than 50,000 before September 2010, redeploying many to the war in Afghanistan and withdrawing the rest by the end of 2011.
March 19 – Violence continues in Iraq, where 4,260 American military service members and more than 91,000 Iraqi civilians have died.
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