Huge Worldwide Protests Demand Iraq Troop Pullout - P2P-Zone

JackSpratts · 21-03-04, 09:28 AM

Reuters Photo

Grant McCool
Reuters

More than a million antiwar protesters poured into the streets of cities around the globe on Saturday's anniversary of the invasion of Iraq to demand the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops.

From Sydney to Tokyo, from Santiago, Chile, to Madrid, London, New York and San Francisco, demonstrators condemned U.S. policy in Iraq and said they did not believe Iraqis are better off or the world safer because of the war.

Journalists estimated that at least a million people streamed through Rome, in probably the biggest single protest.

In London, two anti-war protesters evaded security to climb the landmark Big Ben clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, unfurling a banner reading "Time for Truth."

About 25,000 demonstrators gathered in central London, many carrying "Wanted" posters bearing images of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his main war ally.

In most places, the demonstrators numbered in the tens of thousands, compared with hundreds of thousands who marched in big cities on Feb. 15, 2003, to try and prevent the conflict.

The peaceful protests began in Asia and moved to Europe and the Americas in what organizers billed "a global day of action."

In New York, scene of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane strikes by Islamic militants, tens of thousands created a sea of signs in midtown Manhattan, many of them criticizing Bush, who is running for re-election in November.

Among the signs spotted in the crowd were, "Money For Jobs and Education not for War and Occupation" and "Bush Lies" and "End Occupation of Iraq."

TEXAS PROTEST

Anti-war activists gathered at a park in the small central Texas town of Crawford but out of sight of Bush's ranch there. Others gathered in Fayetteville, North Carolina, home of Fort Bragg, one of the biggest U.S. military basis.

Soldiers, veterans and local residents staged two counter-demonstrations, but there were military veterans and families among the anti-war groups.

"I hate George Bush and everything he stands for and this war of vanity," said Don Marshburn, 72, a disabled Navy veteran from Newton Grove North Carolina. "I'm sick of bombs. It didn't do anything over there and it didn't do anything over here."

About 2,000 protested at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and several hundred in Chicago.

New York's crowd was the largest in the United States on the day, with organizers estimating up to 100,000 protesters. Police did not give an official estimate.

"Hey Hey, Ho Ho, George Bush has got to go," marchers chanted at the rally organized by the United For Peace and Justice coalition of left-leaning groups.

"The thing they all object to is Bush," said demonstrator, Reeves Hamilton, 30. "It doesn't make sense to bomb countries that have nothing to do with Sept. 11."

He said he supported troops going into Afghanistan to fight al Qaeda militants responsible for the attacks, but not the invasion of Iraq, which Bush ordered to rid the country of its purported weapons of mass destruction.

At a campaign rally in Florida, Bush touted Iraq as an "essential victory" in Washington's war on terror and hit back at criticism of his decision to invade without more international support.

BUSH ON THE DEFENSIVE

"I'm all for united action, and so are our 34 coalition partners in Iraq right now," he said. "Yet America must never outsource America's national security decisions to the leaders of other countries."

A year after the start of the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and captured, but no weapons stockpiles have been found.

Concern over the war has been most evident in Spain, where thousands demonstrated a week after voting out the conservative government that sent troops to Iraq. Many Spaniards blamed Madrid's support for the war for the March 11 train bombs, blamed on Islamic militants, which killed 202 people.

Spanish Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq. He has called the war a "disaster" and a "fiasco."

Many in Iraq said their lives had improved since Saddam was toppled, but others said guerrilla attacks and lawlessness left them fearful.

Guerrillas killed a U.S. Marine near the town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, on Saturday, raising to 393 the number of U.S. troops killed in combat or in attacks in Iraq in the past year. The number of non-combat deaths is 183.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...4&pageNumber=1

From Midtown to Madrid, Tens of Thousands Peacefully Protest War
Alan Feuer, NYT

Marking the one-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, crowds of sign-waving, slogan-chanting demonstrators marched through Midtown Manhattan and scores of cities from Alaska to Australia yesterday in a largely peaceful global rebuke to the war.

Coming 13 months after millions took to the streets in the weeks before the war last year, yesterday's demonstrations were markedly tamer and smaller as they sought to send a message that the troops fighting in Iraq should be recalled.

On a springlike day in New York, throngs of marchers, restricted by metal barricades, stepped off from Madison Square Park on East 23rd Street under the watchful gaze of thousands of police officers, surveillance cameras and at least one police helicopter.

The protesters were middle-aged mothers, tongue-pierced students, veterans and bearded professional dissenters, who all came together in what organizers described as a broad-based protest of the Bush administration's foreign policy not just in Iraq, but in Haiti and Israel.

"The World Still Says No to War," announced a sprawling banner hung above the stage at Madison Avenue and 24th Street, where the speakers included Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio who is running for president, and Tony Benn, a former member of the British Parliament. The stage also served as an outdoor arena for a host of singers, poets and rappers, who gave the masses lines like: "Bush! Bin-Laden! They been plottin'!"

Across the country, there were similar marches in San Francisco, Fayetteville, N.C., and 250 other cities, organizers said. Groups also took to the streets in many capitals in South America and Europe and in places as far-flung as Quetta, Pakistan, and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In San Francisco, a group of several hundred protestors broke away from the main rally in the Civic Center Plaza and headed toward Fifth and Market Streets, a busy intersection. After they tried to block traffic, the police surrounded them and arrested some 60 people. Skirmishes broke out, and some officers were assaulted, the police said. Part of the group broke through the police lines and marched to the Tenderloin section. In all, 81 people were arrested.

At a park in Fayetteville, about five miles from Fort Bragg, where the Army's 82nd Airborne Division is based, some 700 demonstrators dotted a grassy slope under the pines.

"You can feel very isolated and alone," opposing the war in a military town, said Beth Pratt, whose husband drives a truck for the military in Iraq. "Ending this war and bringing them all home safely would be the best form of support that I can see."

In London, two protesters scaled Big Ben and unfurled a banner reading "Time for Truth," in a reference to the suspicions some Europeans have that the United States and Britain exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq. In Madrid, thousands marched in memory of the 202 killed on March 11 in a series of coordinated bombings along commuter train lines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/na...rotest.html?hp

span · 21-03-04, 02:07 PM

i've heard the protests were pretty lame compared to when the troglodytes reared their heads a year ago, plus there's this unphotoshopped image which shows the overall intelligence of these morons:

miss_silver · 21-03-04, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by span
i've heard the protests were pretty lame compared to when the troglodytes reared their heads a year ago, plus there's this unphotoshopped image which shows the overall intelligence of these morons:

So sad, I hope you're not the one with the photoshop expertise on this image

Just to show that most of the world population are against the war in Irak which had NOTHING to do with 9/11 or WMD since they didn't find anything except for 7 pounds of cyanide salts... and that too, they tried to link to Al-Q.

Yeah, while your at it, Ignore the worldwide population opinion on the war on Iraq, just stay cozy at home and just think of yourself, that will be a great help for the overall world population. That is if you care about the worldwide population at all

Sometimes I wonder if...

JackSpratts · 21-03-04, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by span
plus there's this unphotoshopped image...

"Couldn't Think of a Slogan" lol.

just once i'd like to see that at a rally.

- js.

span · 21-03-04, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by miss_silver
So sad, I hope you're not the one with the photoshop expertise on this image Just to show that most of the world population are against the war in Irak which had NOTHING to do with 9/11 or WMD since they didn't find anything except for 7 pounds of cyanide salts... and that too, they tried to link to Al-Q.

Yeah, while your at it, Ignore the worldwide population opinion on the war on Iraq, just stay cozy at home and just think of yourself, that will be a great help for the overall world population. That is if you care about the worldwide population at all

Sometimes I wonder if...

if it was photoshopped you better talk to the people at Yahoo, thats were i got it from

and fuck worldwide opinion, the world isn't in charge of US actions, sorry to inform you. and considering the total idiot protestors equaled what? 2 million? (and that's giving them alot of leeway) i'd hardly call it indicitive of worldwide opinion.

i was thinking today and realized these protestors must really hate Iraq, first they wanted the US to leave their murderous dictator in charge so he could pilfer their oil to line his pockets, now they want us to pull the troops that are providing security leaving the country to fend for itself against any crazy with a bomb in his backpack.....so why do you hate Iraq and the Iraqi's so much?

Mazer · 21-03-04, 06:24 PM

Quote:

The protesters were middle-aged mothers, tongue-pierced students, veterans and bearded professional dissenters...

Hehe, even hippies have a PC label.

I bet when the military does pull out on July 1st they'll try to take credit for it.

span · 21-03-04, 10:51 PM

woo hoo go onward noble San Fran protestor!

Pacewon · 28-03-04, 04:58 PM

Don't these people have something better to do?

What would be the point of pulling the troops out now? Now without Saddam, the "new Iraq" is a perfect campground for AL-Quida and other terrorist groups. Presence of US troops in Iraq is the only force, slowing down the process of formation of these terrorist groups

21-03-04, 09:28 AM	#1
JackSpratts Join Date: May 2001 Location: New England Posts: 10,017	Huge Worldwide Protests Demand Iraq Troop Pullout Reuters Photo Grant McCool Reuters More than a million antiwar protesters poured into the streets of cities around the globe on Saturday's anniversary of the invasion of Iraq to demand the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops. From Sydney to Tokyo, from Santiago, Chile, to Madrid, London, New York and San Francisco, demonstrators condemned U.S. policy in Iraq and said they did not believe Iraqis are better off or the world safer because of the war. Journalists estimated that at least a million people streamed through Rome, in probably the biggest single protest. In London, two anti-war protesters evaded security to climb the landmark Big Ben clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, unfurling a banner reading "Time for Truth." About 25,000 demonstrators gathered in central London, many carrying "Wanted" posters bearing images of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his main war ally. In most places, the demonstrators numbered in the tens of thousands, compared with hundreds of thousands who marched in big cities on Feb. 15, 2003, to try and prevent the conflict. The peaceful protests began in Asia and moved to Europe and the Americas in what organizers billed "a global day of action." In New York, scene of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane strikes by Islamic militants, tens of thousands created a sea of signs in midtown Manhattan, many of them criticizing Bush, who is running for re-election in November. Among the signs spotted in the crowd were, "Money For Jobs and Education not for War and Occupation" and "Bush Lies" and "End Occupation of Iraq." TEXAS PROTEST Anti-war activists gathered at a park in the small central Texas town of Crawford but out of sight of Bush's ranch there. Others gathered in Fayetteville, North Carolina, home of Fort Bragg, one of the biggest U.S. military basis. Soldiers, veterans and local residents staged two counter-demonstrations, but there were military veterans and families among the anti-war groups. "I hate George Bush and everything he stands for and this war of vanity," said Don Marshburn, 72, a disabled Navy veteran from Newton Grove North Carolina. "I'm sick of bombs. It didn't do anything over there and it didn't do anything over here." About 2,000 protested at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and several hundred in Chicago. New York's crowd was the largest in the United States on the day, with organizers estimating up to 100,000 protesters. Police did not give an official estimate. "Hey Hey, Ho Ho, George Bush has got to go," marchers chanted at the rally organized by the United For Peace and Justice coalition of left-leaning groups. "The thing they all object to is Bush," said demonstrator, Reeves Hamilton, 30. "It doesn't make sense to bomb countries that have nothing to do with Sept. 11." He said he supported troops going into Afghanistan to fight al Qaeda militants responsible for the attacks, but not the invasion of Iraq, which Bush ordered to rid the country of its purported weapons of mass destruction. At a campaign rally in Florida, Bush touted Iraq as an "essential victory" in Washington's war on terror and hit back at criticism of his decision to invade without more international support. BUSH ON THE DEFENSIVE "I'm all for united action, and so are our 34 coalition partners in Iraq right now," he said. "Yet America must never outsource America's national security decisions to the leaders of other countries." A year after the start of the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and captured, but no weapons stockpiles have been found. Concern over the war has been most evident in Spain, where thousands demonstrated a week after voting out the conservative government that sent troops to Iraq. Many Spaniards blamed Madrid's support for the war for the March 11 train bombs, blamed on Islamic militants, which killed 202 people. Spanish Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq. He has called the war a "disaster" and a "fiasco." Many in Iraq said their lives had improved since Saddam was toppled, but others said guerrilla attacks and lawlessness left them fearful. Guerrillas killed a U.S. Marine near the town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, on Saturday, raising to 393 the number of U.S. troops killed in combat or in attacks in Iraq in the past year. The number of non-combat deaths is 183. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...4&pageNumber=1 From Midtown to Madrid, Tens of Thousands Peacefully Protest War Alan Feuer, NYT Marking the one-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, crowds of sign-waving, slogan-chanting demonstrators marched through Midtown Manhattan and scores of cities from Alaska to Australia yesterday in a largely peaceful global rebuke to the war. Coming 13 months after millions took to the streets in the weeks before the war last year, yesterday's demonstrations were markedly tamer and smaller as they sought to send a message that the troops fighting in Iraq should be recalled. On a springlike day in New York, throngs of marchers, restricted by metal barricades, stepped off from Madison Square Park on East 23rd Street under the watchful gaze of thousands of police officers, surveillance cameras and at least one police helicopter. The protesters were middle-aged mothers, tongue-pierced students, veterans and bearded professional dissenters, who all came together in what organizers described as a broad-based protest of the Bush administration's foreign policy not just in Iraq, but in Haiti and Israel. "The World Still Says No to War," announced a sprawling banner hung above the stage at Madison Avenue and 24th Street, where the speakers included Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio who is running for president, and Tony Benn, a former member of the British Parliament. The stage also served as an outdoor arena for a host of singers, poets and rappers, who gave the masses lines like: "Bush! Bin-Laden! They been plottin'!" Across the country, there were similar marches in San Francisco, Fayetteville, N.C., and 250 other cities, organizers said. Groups also took to the streets in many capitals in South America and Europe and in places as far-flung as Quetta, Pakistan, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. In San Francisco, a group of several hundred protestors broke away from the main rally in the Civic Center Plaza and headed toward Fifth and Market Streets, a busy intersection. After they tried to block traffic, the police surrounded them and arrested some 60 people. Skirmishes broke out, and some officers were assaulted, the police said. Part of the group broke through the police lines and marched to the Tenderloin section. In all, 81 people were arrested. At a park in Fayetteville, about five miles from Fort Bragg, where the Army's 82nd Airborne Division is based, some 700 demonstrators dotted a grassy slope under the pines. "You can feel very isolated and alone," opposing the war in a military town, said Beth Pratt, whose husband drives a truck for the military in Iraq. "Ending this war and bringing them all home safely would be the best form of support that I can see." In London, two protesters scaled Big Ben and unfurled a banner reading "Time for Truth," in a reference to the suspicions some Europeans have that the United States and Britain exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq. In Madrid, thousands marched in memory of the 202 killed on March 11 in a series of coordinated bombings along commuter train lines. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/na...rotest.html?hp

21-03-04, 02:07 PM	#2
span Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 1,260	i've heard the protests were pretty lame compared to when the troglodytes reared their heads a year ago, plus there's this unphotoshopped image which shows the overall intelligence of these morons: Attached Images

21-03-04, 10:51 PM	#7
span Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 1,260	woo hoo go onward noble San Fran protestor! Attached Images

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28-03-04, 04:58 PM	#8
Pacewon Registered User Join Date: Aug 2000 Posts: 3,699	Don't these people have something better to do? What would be the point of pulling the troops out now? Now without Saddam, the "new Iraq" is a perfect campground for AL-Quida and other terrorist groups. Presence of US troops in Iraq is the only force, slowing down the process of formation of these terrorist groups