Protest blueprint calls for disruption and civil disobedience.
By Chaitra Keshav, MSNBC
NEW YORK -- As the U.S. military moved its forces into attack positions around Iraq, the American antiwar movement dusted off its own plans for D-Day - plans that ranged from mass demonstrations and the blocking of key Antiwar camp has plans of its own
MANY PROTEST organizers across the country had detailed plans in place.
“When the war breaks out there will be massive protests around the world ranging from quite candle-light vigils to loud demonstrations to direct disruptive actions,” said L.A. Kauffman of United for Peace and Justice, one of many groups coordinating the peace movement’s nationwide response.
Organizers, many of them veterans of past protest movements, described the scale of what was planned as far larger than anything seen in the United States since the Iraq war debate began last year.
“Most of us have pledged resistance and there will be massive civil disobedience all across the country,” says Jody Dogg of Women’s International league of Peace and Freedom.
The movement’s previous predictions of a massive public rejection of the war option have not materialized, with opinion polls showing that support in the United States for a war even without U.N. consent has only grown since the New Year. However, antiwar activists have mobilized very large protests on several occasions this year, particularly in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Seattle.
For the day of war, Gordon Clark, an official of Iraq Pledge of Resistance, said acts of civil disobedience had been organized in more than 50 cities, with protesters well aware of the risk of arrest.
Protest plans include larger demonstrations, classroom walkouts, blocking main roads and highways to peace encampments in front of local federal office buildings or in the middle of university campuses and of course, peace marches.
Some protesters reportedly are also planning to target military installations and recruiters - a particularly dangerous tactic in a country shaken by the attacks of Sept. 11. Just as the U.S. military is concerned about giving away too much about its war plan, the anti-war movement - especially those in its more confrontational end - are keeping many specifics to themselves.
At Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., about 1,000 students have pledged to boycott classes on the day the war begins.
In San Francisco, protesters plan to disrupt traffic in the financial district with cars and bicycles. Some other local groups pledge to hold “die-ins,” a form of civil disobedience where protesters lie on the ground to block passers-by.
ANSWER - Act Now to Stop War & Racism - one of the nation’s largest anti-war coalitions, says it plans mass demonstrations in major cities, including Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In New York, ANSWER will muster its forces at Times Square and stage an impromptu march through the Theater District.
FROM PREVENTION TO CESSATION
In one sense, movement organizers concede, the very need for plans for the outbreak of war is a sign that their message has not won the day.
“With these protests we have been able to delay the onset of war, if not prevent it,” says Tim Kingston of Global Exchange, a relief group active in the Middle East and in the peace movement.
Others adopt a less compromising stance: “We believe that the Bush Government is continuing to be pro-war in hope of demoralizing our strength but billions of people across the world are coming out protesting against the war and yet the President remains pro-war,” says Teresa Gutierrez of ANSWER.
The White House has shown little concern about the protests. Even as it has given up trying to win U.N. sanction for military force, the Bush administration appears to take solace from the high public approval ratings President Bush still garners in opinion polls, and steady - even growing support for the military option.
But the movement remains undaunted, even dismissive of opinion polling. And as the first American and British forces cross into Iraq, Americans passionately against war as a means of settling the Iraq debate will be moving, too.
Chaitra Keshav is an intern in international news at MSNBC.com