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It was four years ago this March 19 that the United States invaded Iraq, triggering massive street protests in San Francisco and a widely criticized military occupation that has become one of the longest in US history.
The war has proved to be as bloody and shortsighted as its opponents always claimed it would be. More than 3,100 American soldiers have been killed, as have as many as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, with little hope of the violence abating anytime soon, despite President George W. Bush’s recent deployment of 21,500 more troops. The war has cost the United States about $400 billion so far, a price tag increasing by about $250 million every day of the occupation. And it has spurred anti-Americanism around the world.
Opinion polls show a strong majority in the United States favors immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and a growing number of Democrats in Congress now appear to be moving in that direction. But antiwar activists are planning an escalation of their own, arguing that only through a ramped-up and more widely disseminated peace movement will this war come to an end.
To mark this inauspicious anniversary, United for Peace and Justice, the nation’s largest antiwar coalition, has issued a call for "a massive outpouring of opposition to the war in locally based, decentralized actions throughout the U.S." from March 17 to 19. It’s a clear departure from the peace movement’s norm of massive, centralized marches located in Washington, DC, New York, and San Francisco.
Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of San Francisco on March 20, 2003, with more than 1,500 people arrested in civil disobedience actions that effectively shut down the city. Antiwar groups are still hoping for a big turnout in the city next week, even as they shift their strategy to include more of Middle America.
Instead of relying on charismatic visionaries, influential organizations, and hierarchical organizing in the big cities, the new strategy calls on citizens to take the initiative and organize — from Mobile, Ala., to Jonesboro, Ark., to Fayetteville, N.C. — and demonstrate a broad base of active opposition to the war.
"The resistance isn’t only in San Francisco," Jim Haber, a member of the steering committee for United for Peace and Justice Bay Area, told the Guardian. "Large demonstrations here get attributed to San Francisco being out of step with the rest of the country — although less so these days."
While it is important to have big showings, Haber said it’s also important to demonstrate that the opposition is widespread. "Rather than making people who want to protest come to us, we’re going to them — and they’re all over."
Several of the affinity groups that were instrumental in the shutdown of San Francisco four years ago are regrouping for a rally and nonviolent direct action at Chevron’s headquarters in San Ramon.
"Four years ago we not only shut down San Francisco’s Financial District, we also shut down Chevron," Antonia Juhasz, one of the organizers and a Tarbell fellow with Oil Change International, told us. "Neither our message nor our tactics have changed."
The Iraqi parliament is set to pass a law that would transform Iraq’s nationalized oil system to a commercialized model, completely open to corporate pillaging, following the trail first blazed by the US-installed Coalition Provisional Authority, headed by L. Paul Bremer. "The law is the brainchild of the Bush administration," Juhasz said. "Now is a particularly critical time to expose the oil agenda behind the war."
David Solnit, a longtime organizer and member of the Bay Rising affinity group, told us, "This is a similarly strategic moment for the antiwar movement to escalate. Hopes of getting the Democrats to do anything are fading. It’s up to us, and folks are hungry for taking direct action."
Just about everyone organizing for March 17 to 19 agrees that relying on the congressional Democrats to bring the troops home is an abysmal plan.
"We’re telling people to stop looking up and start looking around," Ben Rosen, youth organizer and media coordinator with World Can’t Wait, told us. "There is no Democratic savior here."
World Can’t Wait has allied with the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition to organize a massive march up Market Street to the Civic Center on March 18. ANSWER still favors centralized protests, including a massive march on the Pentagon.
"The real direction for this war is coming from the Pentagon," Richard Becker, ANSWER’s West Coast regional coordinator, told us. "A powerful march on the Pentagon would be the most significant thing that could happen right now."
Rosen agrees that centralized coordination is required to build a cohesive and powerful movement.
"They argue that marching in San Francisco is preaching to the choir," Rosen said. "But actually we’re setting an example for people in the middle of the country who look to San Francisco, New York, and DC as models."
Massive centralized marches have been the linchpin of this country’s peace movement, but many observers are questioning whether they are the most effective strategy.
"People say ‘the movement’s failed,’ " Becker said. "That’s an incorrect conclusion. Building a movement powerful enough to stop war when all the resources of the state are mobilized for it is very difficult."
Max Diorio, co–national coordinator of Not in Our Name, which has joined the ANSWER coalition organizing for March 18, agrees. "If San Francisco has a paltry march, what does that say about the rest of the country? It took 10 years from the first big mobilization against Vietnam to end that war. People are used to instant gratification in this country, but it takes a while. That’s why they call it a struggle."
On March 19 there will be a die-in on Market Street, also initiated by former members of Direct Action to Stop the War.
"The die-in will help to make personal the real cost of war in human lives," Suzanne Sam Joi, a coordinator for Codepink Bay Area, told us. "Too often we can forget that someone who was loved and treasured — a mother, a sister — their life has been destroyed."
In another national antiwar effort, UFPJ member group the Voices for Creative Nonviolence initiated the Occupation Project. Demonstrators have sat in at their legislators’ offices across the country, and 159 people have been arrested so far.
The shift in the UFPJ’s strategy — calling for decentralized, localized actions all over the country — is significant. Until Middle Americans stop looking east and west for models and start organizing themselves, their representatives can safely ignore calls to bring the troops home. *
Marisa Handler’s first book, Loyal to the Sky: Notes from an Activist, chronicles her experiences in the global justice movement from Miami to Lima to Kathmandu.