Demonstrators march against U.S. occupation

By Tania Cervantes
The Guardsman

More than 1,500 demonstrators rallied at San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza to protest the U.S. war in Iraq and the military’s presence in the Middle East on March 20, the seventh anniversary of the invasion.

Demonstrators carried signs that read “Shut down the war machine,” “Stop using our taxes to fund brutality” and “We are not your soldiers.”

“We are against the war,” said Act Now to Stop War and End Racism coalition member Richard Becker. “We demand that instead of funding wars abroad, they fund education and health care here.”

Daniel Ellsberg, the former RAND Corporation employee and U.S. military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press during the Nixon administration, spoke at the event.

“Mr. Obama — people have a wrong impression that he will carry out his promise,” Ellsberg said to the crowd. “I am certain that there is no chance that he means to take out the troops in his lifetime.”

The event was comprised of a broad spectrum of community organizations and activist groups, including Code Pink, Women for Peace, Unite Here Local 2, the Bay Area Latin America Solidarity Coalition and MUNI Riders and Drivers United.

Buena Vista Elementary School fourth-grade teacher Antoinette Marquez said she always talks to her students about expressing and standing up for what they believe.

“We need to end war so kids have the resources they need in school,” fifth-grade student Kiera Collins said.

A second group also demonstrated, holding up signs that read “Support our troops.”
Kevin Lane, a counter-protester,  held up a sign that read, “It is getting old.”

“It’s the same thing over and over again,” Lane said. “We know that they are upset but what are they doing here? It’s just a release of energy, and the same old thing doesn’t really do much.”

As many as 104,427 civilian non-combatants have been killed according to Iraqbodycount.org, a project aimed at recording violent civilian deaths resulting from the U.S. intervention in Iraq.

“We have to stand up on the side of the oppressed,” Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party Omali Yeshitela said. “We must stand up to the force that requires the blood of the people of the world to remain successful. It is not enough to say ‘peace.’”

Robert Romano contributed to this article.