Reply #56: October 2, 2002 Anti-War Speech in Federal Plaza [View All]

[Adelante]

Chicago Tribune - Chicago, Ill.
Author: Bill Glauber, Tribune staff reporter
Date: Oct 3, 2002
Section: News
Text Word Count: 1196

Document Text
IN CHICAGO.

They sang “Give Peace a Chance,” waved tasteful “War Is Not An Option” placards and listened dutifully to speeches that echoed in the glass-and-steel canyon that is Federal Plaza Wednesday.

Some in the crowd of about 1,000 came straight off the college campus. Others were veterans of past protests to stop the Vietnam War. There were even a few second-generation activists following in the wake of parents radicalized by Vietnam.

Older and grayer, the 1960s anti-war vets were as passionate as ever to demonstrate against the Bush administration’s preparations for war in Iraq.

Organizers pronounced themselves delighted with the rally’s modest turnout, its content and its civility.

“Well, nobody misbehaves anymore. We’re all too old,” said Don Rose, a longtime social and political activist.

Despite the small turnout, the rally marked the first high- profile public disapproval in Chicago of the Bush administration’s war against terrorism.

The rally wasn’t a replay of the Days of Rage–it was more like a gentle call to arms for a nascent peace movement desperate to head off a new Gulf War. From savvy public relations experts, veteran political activists and religious leaders to a few scruffy anti- global campaigners, a loose coalition took shape in a Chicago square.

Organizers and speakers went to great lengths to emphasize that it’s not all wars they oppose–just the prospect of a rush to war against Iraq.”

Source: Chicago Tribune 10/3/02

3 October 2002
Chicago Daily Herald
(Copyright 2002)

300 attend rally against Iraq war:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson called on the Bush administration Wednesday to “lead the world, not rule it” at a downtown rally protesting plans for war against Iraq. State Sen. Barak Obama, a Chicago Democrat; the Rev. Paul Rutgers, chairman of the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago; and former state Sen. Jesus Garcia of Chicago, among others, joined Jackson in urging the federal government to avoid a military strike against Iraq. “While we’re looking at Saddam Hussein, we’re taking attention away from our economic problems,” Jackson said, pointing to the recent stock market plunge and the $2 billion national deficit. Obama, along with several of the speakers, acknowledged the necessity of war in some cases, but only as a last resort. “I don’t oppose all war; I oppose dumb war,” Obama said. He also said a war in Iraq based on passion and politics would provoke the worst impulses of the Arab world. Police estimated 300 people attended the event.

Source: Chicago Daily Herald 10/3/02

Publication: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
Publication Date: 03-OCT-02 Format: Online
Delivery: Immediate Online Access

Article Excerpt
300 attend rally against Iraq war:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson called on the Bush administration Wednesday to “lead the world, not rule it” at a downtown rally protesting plans for war against Iraq. State Sen. Barak Obama, a Chicago Democrat; the Rev. Paul Rutgers, chairman of the Council…

Source: Goliath

Judgment. Foresight. Leadership.

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not – we will not – travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.