Thousands of protesters rallied and marched on the National Mall and at the Capitol Saturday against President Bush's recently-proposed surge of troops to Iraq. AU students joined protesters from many different faiths, locales and backgrounds to voice their views against the ongoing war.
About 30 AU students attended the march as Radical Cheerleaders, a national group that attends rallies and protests in cities across the country. On Saturday, the group led anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-capitalist and feminist-based cheers, according to Radical Cheerleader Sarah Baracks, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.
"Instead of just having a presence, we'd like to let people know our viewpoints of why we don't support [the war in] Iraq and our government," Baracks said.
In a morning rally, celebrity activists Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins spoke to large crowds gathered in front of the Capitol. Fonda equated the war in Iraq to that in Vietnam, which she became infamous for protesting during the 1970s.
Robbins led the crowd in the cheer, "Impeach Bush." He described what he called the irony of Bush's connection with God when he said Bush has broken the commandment: "Thou shalt not kill" with over 3,000 American soldier deaths and almost 50,000 wounded.
The rally led into a march past the Capitol and passed nearly 50 counterprotesters, who held signs saying, "Hippies Smell" and "Al Qaeda Appeasers On Parade," and used megaphones to tell passing marchers they "should be ashamed" of themselves. Others said they opposed the protest because they support Bush and American troops overseas.
Among the more colorful protesters were four people in prison uniforms wearing large papier-m?ch? heads of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, as well as a 30-foot-long spine carried by a group called "The Backbone Campaign," "a grassroots effort to embolden citizens and elected officials to stand up for progressive values," according to its Web site.
Meghan Hynes, a member of the Radical Cheerleaders and a sophomore in CAS, said she thought the rally "came at a really opportune time."
"It shows the distaste most citizens have about the war in Iraq," she said.
Jessica Jones, a student from Northeastern University who was protesting with her student chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild, said she thinks the war is destructive. She said it was "sad and pathetic" that Bush is still using war to fight terrorism, "which is something you can't shoot at."
Other protesters were personally connected to the war in Iraq, with family members serving overseas.
Jenn Coolidge, a veteran from Tampa Bay, Fla., whose son is fighting in Afghanistan, traveled to the rally with the groups Veterans for Peace, World Can't Wait and United For Peace and Justice.
Coolidge said she thinks Iraq "is a precipitation to go into Iran." She also said she thinks the U.S. government is eventually "going to have to reinstate the draft" since "most of the people are un-invested in this war."
Protesters said the alternative solution to dealing with Iraq is for the U.S. to pull its troops out.
"It's all holistic," Jones said. "We need to lead by example and pull out. We need to let [the Iraqis] figure out democracy for themselves."
Hynes also said the U.S. should not send any more troops to Iraq and start pulling troops out.
"We definitely need to have a more multilateral force, because there is an issue of the whole war being about neocolonialism," she said.
Baracks said the U.S. should pull out the troops. She also said the U.S. needs to "focus on reconstruction and helping the people with food and shelter instead of continuing to drop bombs on [Iraqis]."
Staff Writer Marissa Newhall contributed to this report.
