Rallies mark anniversary of Iraq conflict

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Tan Vinh and Nancy Bartley
Seattle Times staff reporters


GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES
An anti-war crowd estimated at 4,000 to 5,000 marches down Madison Street toward the Seattle waterfront yesterday afternoon.

Vicky Monk and Joyce DeLurme stood on different streets yesterday, but they walk similar paths.
Monk and DeLurme are mothers of soldiers stationed in Iraq. While both pray for the safe return of their sons, they spent the day participating in different rallies marking the anniversary of the start of the war, one opposed to U.S. policy in Iraq and one in support of those carrying it out.

Monk, of Sammamish, was among an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 who marched in downtown Seattle in a protest organized by the Church Council of Greater Seattle and Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War. The group gathered at Harvard Avenue and Seneca Street and marched to Pier 62/63 to hear actor Ed Asner and other activists criticize President Bush and his foreign policy for nearly an hour.

"We patriots are here to do what is right instead of what is profitable," Asner told a cheering crowd. "Let us have peace. ... Peace is grander than war."

Also speaking was retired Navy Lt. John Oliveira of Darrington, who last May looked into the cameras of several television networks and defended the war, even though he now says he didn't believe in it.

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001884644_peacerally21m.html

[Jack Rabbit]

1. I was one of 50.000 in San Francisco

From the San Francisco Chronicle
Dated Sunday March 21



Protesters jam S.F. streets
Marchers in the city and around the world oppose U.S.-led war
Demonstrations mostly peaceful
By Joe Garofoli, Ryan Kim, Jim Herron Zamora and Cicero Estrella, Chronicle Staff Writers

Thousands of anti-war demonstrators marched across San Francisco on the first day of spring Saturday, joining millions around the world in the peace movement's biggest showing since the Iraq war began a year ago.

The San Francisco protest was upbeat and defiant, as many marchers who filled the streets from Dolores Park to the Civic Center said they felt reinvigorated by seeing so many kindred spirits opposed to the war. The crowd clogged thoroughfares and blocked traffic at dozens of intersections as many protesters banged drums, shouted slogans and danced in the streets.

The demonstrations were timed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion. Similar protests were held in more than 250 U.S. cities from Los Angeles to New York and in dozens of foreign countries.

Most of the participants in Saturday's event were peaceful, but several hundred clashed with police, and 81 were arrested on a variety of misdemeanor charges. By 9 p.m., 79 of them had been released from county jail.

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Photo from the Chronicle