Post by POA on May 6, 2004 16:39:58 GMT -5
Poles apart
Matthew Wells joins anti-war protesters outside Hillary Clinton's office and finds US opinion on Iraq increasingly polarised
Thursday May 6, 2004
US anti-war protesters outside Hillary Clinton's offices in New York. Photograph: Matthew Wells
Mildred McHugh leaned against a steel crowd-control barrier on Manhattan's Third Avenue and wondered whether her son Steve was alive or dead.
Steve is serving in Iraq, and although they spoke recently, events move fast. "Four died in my son's division today and I don't know that he's not one of them. People are dying at an astounding rate, while the president paints a rosy picture of a country being reborn," she said.
Most days she rides around her New Jersey town on a bicycle, anti-war slogans emblazoned across her reflector vest, but yesterday she was in the heart of New York as part of a protest organised by the largest US anti-war coalition, United for Peace and Justice (UPJ). She campaigns mainly with a group called Military Families Speak Out
"There's more and more opposition to the war, and I have noticed a big difference in the last month," she said. "I ride around and I haven't had anyone come up to me to say what I'm doing is wrong. Before, that was pretty commonplace."
But Manhattan is not New Jersey, and several passers-by express their difference of opinion with alacrity.
"f**k you," said one bespectacled grey-haired gentleman in a suit.
"Do you want to talk about it?" asked one protester, hopeful for a good old-fashioned argument.
"Just f**k you," comes the reply. It is even easier to be abusive from the comfort and safety of a passing car. "f**king morons!" the driver of a silver Porsche shouted.
The organisers rallied outside the offices of the state's two Democratic party senators, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer. "She [Clinton] supported the war effort right from the get-go," said UPJ's national organiser, Leslie Kagan. "Most recently, she's supporting the idea of more troops going in, and her position goes against what most New Yorkers want."
In fact, almost the entire Democratic elite - including New York's pair of senators and the party's presidential candidate, John Kerry - have supported the Bush administration in Congress throughout the Iraq conflagration. Voting against - or even abstaining - is seen as political suicide in election year.
"It's outrageous that the so-called opposition party has provided so little opposition. We're concerned that despite slight emphases, the Kerry agenda is basically the same as Bush: a foreign policy based on what's best for big American corporations," Kagan said.
Disillusionment with both main parties was widespread throughout the crowd on the sidewalk, in which a priest rubbed shoulders with the local leader of Veterans for Peace. Together they form a largely middle-class and middle-aged group of survivors from the earlier and angrier movement that helped derail the war in Vietnam. They brought a cardboard coffin with them, strewn with rather sorry-looking flowers. They cast white cards bearing the names Iraqis and Americans who had died since the invasion began into the makeshift casket one by one, reading the names out loud as they did so.
Some of the people present did not need symbolism to represent loss. Sue Niederer's son Seth was an army lieutenant who died three months ago as he tried to defuse a bomb near Baghdad. It was not something he was trained to do, but someone had to do it.
"When he was last here for two weeks' R&R, I asked him if he wanted to go back," Niederer said. "He said 'No, we're not making any progress over there, but I have 18 men I'm in charge of, and I must bring them home safely.' Hopefully, I can help realise his final wish."
"Anyone who watched Bush's last press conference could see his arrogance, his indignity, his lack of credibility, and lack of feeling towards the people who have been lost," she added.
I asked her if she thought the president was being disingenuous about the war. Did she at least accept that he believes passionately in the moral case for being in Iraq? "I think he's greedy, and self-righteous. This war was a personal vendetta, and if the American people return him to office, we are going to suffer greatly," she replied. "We accomplished what the Iraqis wanted us to accomplish, which was toppling Saddam Hussein. Now it's time to let them govern themselves. We don't have to force our democracy and our ways on everyone else. They want us out - let's get out."
Flowers for the dead are placed outside the buildings where the Clinton and Schumer teams perform their constituency duties, but no one from the protest is allowed in to make their case in person. Nor is anyone prepared to meet them downstairs, leaving the demonstrators to fill Third Avenue with the chant of "Hillary, Hillary, shame on you - you voted for this war too."
An attempt to get inside the Clinton office building threatens to turn ugly until the burly security chief barring the way explains that he is a disabled war veteran. "I'm on the real side. I've seen these flowers and I won't let them sweep it. I give you my word," he said.
