NEWS ARTICLES

Anti-War Demonstrations Continue Despite Public Support; Congress Fails to Respond to Popular Opinion to Leave Iraq

Antiwar Movement is Dying---May Need to Show Sympathy for Iraqi Freedom Fighters, Along With American Military

Spring Hill, Florida: Thursday, July 26, 2007: Antiwar activists from the NatureCoast Coalition for Peace and Justice will demonstrate against the Iraq War this coming Saturday morning, July 28th, from 9 to 10 AM, at the corner of Forrest Oaks Blvd. and U.S. Highway 19 (Commercial Way) in Spring Hill, Hernando County.

While two-thirds of Americans oppose the war in Iraq and want the troops home, "the antiwar movement seems to be dying in America," says Brian Moore, Chair of the NCPJ Coalition.

The local peace activist says an opinion is growing amongst antiwar people, and national publications like the Nation magazine, who are quoted "if you are going to sympathize with the US soldiers, who are fighting a war of aggression, then surely you should also sympathize with the soldiers who are fighting for their own homeland." In addition to expressing concern for US soldiers and Iraqi civilians, Moore concludes then "surely we should also see as victims those soldiers who are fighting for their homeland and their freedom, and for their resistance to those who are invading their own country."

Alexander Cockburn, a columnist for The Nation, reminds his readers that there are many evident reasons why direct solidarity with resistance fighters is not evident in today's Iraq war. Conversely, there was a connection with resistance fighters in the Vietnam antiwar effort and also in the Central American anti-intervention movement, but not Iraq, writes Cockburn. The Nation writer blames the Patriot Act, a handful of new presidential orders, the Military tribunal act and the recent national security agency declaration----all authorizing "savage legal reprisals" toward any group or individual in the United States with any detectable ties or relations with Iraqi resistance movements.

Moore quotes Cockburn as saying that the absence of a military draft weakens the antiwar movement, along with being distracted from the antiwar effort by conspiracies about 9/11, global warming or the upcoming presidential race of 2008. Cockburn says "the bulk of the antiwar movement has become "subservient to the Democratic Party and the agenda of its prime candidates like Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama and John Edwards, all of whom are now soft on the war and its funding, with two of the three having voted for the war as early as 2002.

Local Peace Coalition Chair Moore declares that "Despite the Democrats' victories in 2006, and now holding a majority in congress, 3,000 Iraqi's continue to die each month, along with American soldiers." Moore says his antiwar colleagues have to "raise the bar despite the legal risks now involved in our own country." He adds, "We have to show new courage in light of the personal and legal threats by our government to our freedoms and to our constitutional right to dissent in America."