Citizens vent on war

www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/5221876.htm

PROTEST DOMINATES SANTA CRUZ TOWN MEETING WITH LEGISLATOR, COUNCIL

Feb. 20, 2003
By Ken McLaughlin
Mercury News

The greatest cheers at a raucous town meeting Tuesday night in Santa Cruz came from these suggestions:
--Local elected officials should declare Santa Cruz County a sanctuary for draft resisters.
--President Bush is a “madman” who should be impeached for treason and tried at The Hague for war crimes.
--Activists should stage a national strike to stop the imminent war in Iraq.
Five hundred people filled the Del Mar Theatre for the meeting. About 50 people, all but a handful against war with Iraq, spoke, urging Rep. Sam Farr, D-Salinas, to help change U.S. foreign policy, which they said was being viewed with increasing disgust around the world.
The meeting was also attended by the entire Santa Cruz City Council, which in September became the first in the nation to oppose a war aimed at ending the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Among the groups taking an anti-war stand was Bill Motto Post 5888 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which got into hot water with the national organization in the early ‘80s when it opposed President Reagan’s policies in Central America.
A dozen members of the post, wearing their vet hats and “Wage Peace” shirts, got a standing ovation when they announced that all 33 members had decided to oppose the war despite the national VFW’s position supporting U.S. policy on Iraq.
“It’s the right thing to do at the right time,” said Richard Anderson, 55, a Vietnam veteran and an official at the post. “We believe a lot of our guys are being put in harm’s way for dubious reasons.”
The last time the post disagreed with the national organization almost two decades ago, it was suspended for two months, but a move to expel the post from the VFW failed. Officials at national VFW headquarters in Kansas City did not return calls on Wednesday.
Many speakers Tuesday night expressed anger and frustration at the response from President Bush to millions of anti-war protesters who took to the streets around the world this past weekend.
Bush on Tuesday said he wasn’t swayed. “You know, size of protest, it’s like deciding, well, I’m going to decide policy based upon a focus group,” Bush said. “The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security, in this case, the security of the people.”
Bush ‘a madman’
To compare huge protest rallies to “focus groups” was insulting, said Celia Scott, a former Santa Cruz mayor, who said Bush was turning the United States into an “uncivilized” nation.
Ernestina Saldana called Bush “a madman who is not the president and needs to be impeached.”
Jack Williams of the Youth Coalition of Santa Cruz said he’s been to several protests but had the feeling his voice wasn’t being heard. “What else can the youth do to stop war?” he asked Farr.
The best thing, the anti-war congressman said, is to start calling friends and relatives around the country to urge them to get their own city councils to pass anti-war resolutions. In addition, Farr said, people around the country need to telephone and fire off e-mails to congressional offices.
“Squeaky wheels do get the grease,” Farr said. “We’re not the first to react in Washington. We’re usually the last.”
The latest New York Times/CBS poll, released Friday, said the public overwhelmingly supports a war to remove Saddam, but 59 percent believe Bush should give U.N. weapons inspectors more time to gain the support of the 15-member United Nations Security Council.
Media takes heat
Several speakers at the town meeting bashed the mainstream media, including the Mercury News, for not covering the anti-war movement adequately. Farr, too, blamed the increasing corporate nature of the media as making it harder for grass-roots groups to be heard, noting that all of the small daily newspapers in the Monterey Bay had been gobbled up by newspaper chains.
The handful of speakers who did not deliver an anti-war message were met mostly with respect, and only a few boos and catcalls.
The theater fell silent when Khartoun Brown, a resident of the Mount Hermon area, spoke. She was born a Christian in Syria near the border with Iraq.
She asked the crowd to imagine what it is like to live in a country where people are arrested, tortured and killed for expressing views against the government. “Nobody loves war, but you’re dealing with an uncivilized dictatorship. The only thing the Arab world understands is power and strength.”
Brown received a gentle round of applause.
Fernando Velasco cautioned the crowd not to take any anger out on the men and women in the military. “I support the soldiers, just not their leaders,” he said.
Farr agreed, noting that he would like to upgrade the quality of life of the average soldier.
He also discouraged talk of impeachment, saying it would be impossible because the House Judiciary Committee is controlled by Republicans, as is the rest of the Congress.
The draft resister issue, Farr said, is a non-starter because the United States has an all-volunteer army.
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Contact Ken McLaughlin at kmclaughlin (at) sjmercury.com or (831) 423-3115