new feature: Saying No to War

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updated: Essays

3.  All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

4.  All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
-- Charter of the United Nations, Chapter 1, Article 2: Principles, June 26th, 1945

Protests against this war have taken many forms. A few dozen activists, including Inlet.org's co-founder Wade Hudson, have gone to Iraq to be with the Iraqi people to let them know in person that American civilians are not their enemy. Other forms of protest have included marches, rallies, vigils, sit-ins, walkouts, using naked bodies to spell "Peace" and "No War" and form nude peace symbols, hunger strikes, boycotts, acceptance speeches, writing, leafleting, poetry, song, theatre, painting, advertising, lobbying, editorializing, cartooning, culture jamming and, the much more extreme forms of vandalism, rioting and even suicide. Voices saying no to this war include churches and ashrams, mosques and temples, liberals and conservatives, peace activists and retired four star generals, cab drivers and former presidents, students and celebrities, engineers and artists, soccer moms and anarchists, hippies and yuppies, U.S. veterans of four previous wars and pardoned draft dodgers, poor folks and rich people, city councils and labor unions, lawyers and grandparents, students and retired intelligence officers, and the majority of governments of the countries of this world.

Once the bombing began the demonstrations began to swell into planned and spontaneous civil disobedience. Corporate broadcast media outlets in the US mention these protests only in passing. When they do mention demonstrations the reports focus on violence and arrests, downplaying and misrepresenting the size of the protests and rarely if ever mentioning how many US cities are besieged with civil disobedience. Their reports give equal time to pro-war demonstrators and represent these tiny, sproradic groups as if they matched the magnitude and frequency of national and global anti-war demonstrations.

Rarely will US corporate media give even a nod to the massive protests in europe, asia and the mideast, and the only overseas demonstrations they do mention are those which involve violence. Worse, the reporters faces and voices are, more often than not, tinged with disdain when reporting protests, and sometimes stoop to outright ridicule. It's as if the corporate media is unaware that the democratic right to express dissent is the primary freedom which Bush claims to be defending with his unjust war.

U.S. corporate media has thus far utterly ignored the reality that this war is both unconstitutional and illegal under international law.

During the Vietnam War there were a few better-known organizations who were percieved as the leaders of mobilization against war, and here in the onset of the twenty-first century that aspect of the movement remains the same. In the U.S. the most visible organizations mobilizing people against the war on Iraq and related injustices have been United for Peace, Not in Our Name, Move On/Win without War, International A.N.S.W.E.R., Peace Action, Student Peace Action Network, Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Code Pink and September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Just as during the Vietnam War, there are hundreds of local area groups and dozens more national groups who combine their efforts with actions organized by the larger groups. There are also, of course, organizations opposing this war all over the world.

Here are links to pages on a few sites which list national and international organizations opposing the War on Iraq and war in general:

• United for Peace see right-hand column
• The Guardian
• ZNet