Millions of NAZIs, anti-Zionists and anti-Semites??
(Oh, btw, don't miss the tagline: Israel's Defense Minister Mofaz blurts out the [eventual] war's REAL and only motive...)
Millions join rallies against a war in Iraq
Barry James/IHT International Herald Tribune
Monday, February 17, 2003
In cities worldwide, huge crowds march for peaceful solution
PARIS Millions of people in hundreds of cities from Hollywood to Baghdad demonstrated over the weekend in an attempt to turn back the tide toward a war in Iraq.
The demonstrations, in about 600 cities around the world, were capped Sunday by a massive protest in Sydney.
But there was no sign that the protests were deflecting the Bush administration from its course.
Asked on the Fox News Channel if the administration was rattled, the U.S. national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, replied, "no, nothing could be further from the truth."
"People have the right to protest," she said. "People can say what they think. But the fact is, they're not saying what they're thinking in Baghdad, because that's a regime that cuts people's tongues off" when they speak out.
Both Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and John Howard of Australia - two leaders who have deployed combat forces to the Gulf in support of the U.S. military buildup there - also said they would not be deflected from their purpose by the outpouring of protest, the largest of its kind since the Vietnam War.
Howard said that he was not convinced that an estimated 400,000 marchers in Australia spoke for the country and that he had not been influenced by them. "What I am doing here is what I consider right for Australia," he said. "This is not something where you read each opinion poll or you measure the number of people at demonstrations."
But a demonstrator in Hobart replied, "I just don't think the government is listening to its people."
In New York, where protesters included relatives of victims of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, some people carried posters that read "Thank you France and Germany," referring to the two countries that have spearheaded diplomatic efforts to avoid a conflict and allow more time for UN weapons inspectors to ensure that Iraq conceals no weapons of mass destruction.
"In cities across Europe, people were clearly showing that they did not want war," said Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, who has supported the French and German position. He said he hoped this would help the European Union "to find a common position on Monday," when the Union's leaders hold a summit meeting in Brussels.
In Cairo, the Greek foreign minister, George Papandreou, said "the amazing demonstrations" along with the discussions Friday at the UN Security Council showed "a desire by the whole world to work together to find a peaceful solution."
But he warned Saddam Hussein not to take the debate and the demonstrations as a sign of weakness. "If he thinks that this division is something which means that he doesn't have to comply, then I fear that would be a signal that would carry us to a conflict," he said.
Organizers said 1.5 million people marched in London in what was said to be the biggest demonstration of its kind, although the police confirmed a figure only half as high. Blair begged the peace demonstrators to consider that they were outnumbered by the victims of Saddam's wars and repressions.
Some of the biggest demonstrations in Europe were held in those countries that like Britain have sided with the United States against France and Germany. In Spain, the authorities reported a total of more than a million people marched in Madrid and Barcelona, with hundreds of thousands more protesting in other cities. The police said 600,000 people marched in Rome, but organizers put the total at 3 million.
The demonstrations received prominent coverage in Iraq's tightly controlled news media, which suggested that President George W. Bush rather than Baghdad was under pressure now. "These demonstrations expressed in their spirit, meaning and slogans the decisive Iraqi victory and the defeat and isolation of America," said the government daily Al-Jumhuriya. A headline in the newspaper read, "The world rises against American aggression and the arrogance of naked force."
The Iraqi deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, returning home after a visit to Pope John Paul II, said, "My message to the United States is that it should hear the voice of the international public opinion." In Iraq itself, tens of thousands of people, many carrying assault rifles and portraits of Saddam, took to the streets of several cities to pledge their loyalty to the leader.
Demonstrations also took place in many American cities, including Hollywood, where thousands of people led by the actor Martin Sheen - he plays the U.S. president in the TV series "West Wing" - marched on Sunset Boulevard.
"The government is not representing our concerns," said the actress Susan Sarandon at a demonstration near the UN headquarters in New York. "There are alternatives to war. Nothing has been proved so far that warrants an invasion of Iraq."
Other demonstrations took place in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco. The police in Colorado Springs, near the headquarters of the U.S. Joint Military Homeland Defense Command, drove back about 3,000 demonstrators with tear gas.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said Sunday on Fox News, when asked about the protests, that he respects people's right to speak freely, adding, "I applaud the right of everyone to be unwise and foolish."
"I respect the right of these people to protest," he added, "but please, please, please don't protest in behalf of the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people have been slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands" by Saddam. "It's just foolish to think that the Iraqi people are living under anything but an oppressive, repressive government."
They "will be far, far better off" after Saddam is toppled, he said.
Even in Asian cities like Bangkok and Hong Kong, far removed from a potential conflict, many thousands of people demonstrated against war.
In Tunisia, even though the government is anti-war, any kind of demonstration it seems, can get a peace-loving marcher into trouble. The police in the city of Sfax stormed into a crowd of about 3,000 demonstrators beating people on the head with their nightsticks.
In one of the rare protests in the Gulf region, a couple of hundred women in Oman, wearing flowing black robes and head scarves, marched for peace in the capital, Muscat.
But one country where the anti-war movement attracted little support was Israel, where people broadly support a U.S. attack on Iraq.
The defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, said at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday that a coming U.S. offensive would be "massive, intensive and short," and would neutralize the Iraqi threat to Israel.
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