The Anti War Rally Failed at Sending a Message

By Mary MacElveen

As a person that is against the war in Iraq, I must say that I am disappointed with that anti war protest that took place this past weekend in Washington, D.C. In my opinion it failed in its objective for several reasons.

As I viewed the front page of Truthout.org, they have featured on it a video feed of a woman who is bare breasted who marched with several other women also not wearing tops stating how they appeared was more natural than the killings that are taking place over in Iraq. While that may be true, it does little to drive the point home and quite frankly is a black eye to the anti war movement.

Quite frankly, if you want to drive home a message to, you do so in a respectful way. Then you may actually gain the attention of those you are trying to send a message to. Many are angry that the Democratic leaders left Washington, D.C. during this protest. But, seeing just this one example, who can blame them? Should you wish to view this video feed or just see the picture itself, please go to this link, http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm This is exactly why we who oppose this war are seen as lunatics by many.

Just today, I was reading this article "Iraq War Veterans Presence in D.C. Unreported" on VeteransForCommonSense.org; I feel that sites such as Truthout.org should have concentrated more on what these veterans had to say. In this article, Elizabeth Spradlin who spent a year in Iraq had this to say, "Going into that country, immediately they were welcoming, wanting us there. And over the course of three months we basically caused so much trouble in the area we were in. We didn’t have interpreters. We were not helping them re-build their country. We were just driving around with our vehicles with guns, not communicating with them in any way, just basically occupying their space, their country." She then went on to say, "I was command-directed to go over to Iraq as an MP. So I was basically unqualified at what I was doing. I was a gunner, and I sat in a little turret and patrolled around Iraqi cities - causing problems, basically. Running children over." I feel that these Democrats that many are angry with would have responded better to her message and more importantly listened.

So whose message has more credibility? Is it a bare breasted woman or a veteran who has been in Iraq? Who will America listen to more? I am of the opinion that it is the veteran. The veteran speaks from experience and can relay that better to the American people and her leaders.

While I have heralded Cindy Sheehan in the past, something about her smile when arrested does bother me. I seem to remember Michael Schiavo not smiling when it came to his life and death issue. I realize that these are two different cases, but with a similar theme and that theme being life itself. I was left wondering if she had lost sight of what her message is. I know that will draw jeers from my fellow anti war activists, but it is my honest assessment of her reaction.

When Ms. Sheehan referred to the insurgents in Iraq as "freedom fighters" that did leave a bad taste in my mouth and I often wonder how other moms feel whose sons were lost over in Iraq are feeling after she said that. I think she should have stuck with this message where she stated, "But now that we have decimated the country, the borders are open, freedom fighters from other countries are going in..." But leaving out the word "freedom fighters" and sticking with terms such as insurgents and terrorists. After all, that is a more riveting statement where she could have proven that through this government’s actions we turned this country into a terrorist state. Would a widowed police officer’s spouse ever accept that their loved one was killed in the line of duty by the use of that term? Think about it.

In the Schiavo case we saw where the Schindlers were being handled and I often wonder the same thing about Ms. Sheehan by groups with their own agenda. Was she even aware of PNAC before her son died? Before her son died, did she think of those killing our soldiers as "freedom fighters"? I wish I could get the chance and sit down and speak to her on many of these issues.

I also feel that by going into discussions on PNAC, the Israeli connection where many feel we are fighting this war to protect Israel, we have lost ground in arguing those points. There are times when over educating the public does more to destroy your message than help it. Ask anyone on the street who PNAC is, and most likely, they will not know what you are talking about.

I think what the anti war movement needs to do at this point is to connect further with the American people by using bread and butter issues. Also, we can use Katrina and Rita as prime examples. While we are over fighting a war on lies, this government left us defenseless on the home front. Now that is an attention getter.

Had our military been home here instead of Iraq when these storms especially Katrina were approaching, they could have put into active duty building evacuation camps and commandeering transportation to get the poor out of harms way.

We can present to the American people that if they really support our troops, that means bringing them home by citing that many are being exposed to depleted uranium which I call the silent killer. Depleted uranium causes cancers as well as birth defects for not only the children of our soldiers, but for innocent Iraqis as well.

We can use the budget deficit as well to drive our point home where we can state that this war has drained us financially as a country where our message must be, "A sound country must be one that is economically sound" What disasters are down the road and how will we pay for them? Will we have to borrow those funds too as cited by former President William Clinton?

Right now people’s taxes are going up to pay for this war and is being felt by the middle class and that is something we could better connect our anti war message with. As it stands right now, our energy prices are going up and this administration instead of concentrating on that, concentrated on Iraq instead.

Through the creation of the Homeland Security agency, they failed America by concentrating too heavily on terrorism without thinking of natural disasters. We can use as prime examples that countries such as Venezuela, Germany and France did not help us out because they saw what this war was truly all about and that was lies. In Venezuela, we can site while Bush was ineffectual at dealing with Katrina and in some cases Rita, Pres. Chavez handled the Vargas tragedy. For any of you not familiar with that tragedy, I invite you to read this article, "Five whole days to kick in with a pathetic semblance of action in New Orleans" So, instead of sinking billions of dollars into a quagmire, they were and are better prepared to meet the needs of their people. These countries have health care for their citizens where we do not.

I think that we can do a better job at presenting our case as I have cited above. In order to save lives, we must connect in a more serious manner than by focusing on a bare breasted group of women as Truthout.org did.

Source Links:

Iraq War Veterans Presence in D.C. Unreported

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=4952

Five whole days to kick in with a pathetic semblance of action in New Orleans

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=45850