Tens of thousands in D.C. demand end to war in Iraq

From the Washington Post via the Houston Chronicle:

A raucous multitude of protesters, led by some of the aging activists of the past, staged a series of rallies and a march on the Capitol on Saturday to demand that the United States end its war in Iraq.

Under a blue sky, tens of thousands of people angry about the war and other policies of the Bush administration danced, sang, shouted and chanted their opposition.

They came from across the country, and across the activist spectrum, with a wide array of grievances. Many seemed to be under 30, but there were others who said they had been at the famed anti-war protests of the 1960s and 70s.

They came to Washington at what they said was a moment of opportunity to push the new Congress to take action against the war, even as the Bush administration is accelerating plans to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq. This week the Senate will begin debating a resolution of disapproval of the president's Iraq policy, setting up a dramatic confrontation with the White House.

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I've been noticing that this particular round of demonstrations is getting much more press coverage, and much more favorably so, than the demonstrations before the war back in early 2003. That's got to be evidence that mainstream America no longer supports this foolish imperial adventure. Actually, I'd go so far as to say that this is how it's always been: Americans don't like war. I mean, when we really need to fight, we will, and we'll throw ourselves into it wholeheartedly, as with World War II. But when there really is no threat, when we're fighting for the wealthy elite, Americans traditionally loath war. It's laudable, I suppose, that the nation was willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt, and trust his claims that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a great danger to the world. But now everybody knows that Bush lied to them, and that Iraq was never a threat.

It's so weird. A scant four years ago, opposing the Iraq war was considered to be utterly unpatriotic. Now the reverse is true.

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