Although we of The Scallion are still officially on hiatus, we apparently still feel compelled to continue throwing in our two cents!

Before we get down to business, here’s our notable quotable for the day:

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” – John F. Kennedy

And now … on with the news.

From the “too busy to write the articles, so we quit after writing the headlines” department, The Scallion brings you the following shorts:

* Bush junta whitewash of Katrina fiasco continues as “Brownie” is thrown like sacrificial lamb to hungry Congressional Republicans pretending to distance themselves from Bush; Brown's tongue-tied self-defense reminds onlookers of deer in middle of freeway lane valiantly defending itself from oncoming semi by freezing in place

* Bush junta, Congressional Republicans change rules to allow now-indicted DeLay to continue to serve as House Majority Leader while incarcerated

* George W. Bush awards Presidential Medals of Freedom to Brown and Chertoff for their “stellar handling of hurricanes Katrina and Rita,” DeLay for his “unimpeachable ethics,” and Rove for “patriotically committing treason by outing CIA operative Valerie Plame”; while at it, Bush opens the box containing a fifth Presidential Medal of Freedom and hangs it around his own neck after whinging to Condescending Rice, “They all got one. I want one, too!”

* After a few too many Stingers at Round Robin, Ann Coulter seen shaking her fist in the air and overheard shrieking: “Death to Zeos! Death to Zeon pigs!!”

From the “What, me wordy?” department: a letter from the Editor in Chief of The Scallion to several of our more “serious” news media counterparts:

"Happy" Anniversary
to the Contract with America?
Not for ordinary Americans!

Eleven years ago this week, Congressional Republicans signed the so-called “Contract with America.” This document was a pledge to “restore accountability to Congress” and “to end its cycle of scandal and disgrace.” After all the public photo ops and signings were over, Republicans got down to the serious business of drastically reforming the government -- into a racket. With no opposition party to stop them, they transformed government of, by, and for the people into a lobbyist-run corporate feeding frenzy that has betrayed every best interest of the American public whom Congressional Republicans vowed to serve. Over one hundred Contract-signing Republicans “serve” in Congress today as willing accomplices to the scandals and misguided priorities of men like Tom DeLay. They’ve crafted law after law -- from the pharmaceutical companies' prescription drug bill, to the creditors’ bankruptcy bill, to the big oil energy bill -- designed to benefit the bottom lines of their big campaign contributors while pushing many hard-working Americans over the edge into poverty ... and worse.

While many Americans watched with horror and dismay as one after another environmental protection, civil liberty, or public trust was dismantled, the Bush junta and its loyal Congress could still cloak their crimes behind ideology and “pretend” they had the nation's best interests at heart as they laughed all the way to the bank. But the betrayal of the American people has become only too clear in the wake of disastrous fallout from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Americans are beginning to grasp the grim implications of a Republican agenda that systemically benefits the privileged at the expense of ordinary, working Americans. Even in the wake of these horrific storms -- where thousands of our fellow citizens were left behind -- Republicans continue to push an agenda that doles out billions in handouts to companies like Halliburton, Bechtel, Exxon, and others that today are enjoying record-breaking profits while hurricane victims and the “everyday poor” starve, suffer, and die.

Not even Rove and the Republican spin machine can deny the destruction and suffering along the Gulf Coast: the under-funded levee system, the utter lack of disaster preparedness, the crushing poverty, and now reconstruction efforts that strip wage protections for reconstruction workers and provide no-bid contracts to Halliburton. Americans have seen for themselves the stark, unadorned face of the Republican revolution. It’s not pretty, and it’s not what we Americans want our great country to look like.

While the Contract with America may have been a great success for elite wealthy and powerful corporate interests, it has been an unmitigated fiasco for the American people. We need and deserve a more long-sighted solution that will serve us all.

From the “not exactly what he had in mind” department: Governor Mike Huckabee, who compared supporting conservatives to fighting Nazism, seems to have gotten it exactly backwards. Thus, we of The Scallion suspect that he will be none too thrilled to receive the following thank-you in his e-mail today ...

I just had to e-mail in and congratulate Gov. Huckabee for comparing the support of conservatives to supporting the Nazi regime. It is about time someone in government publicly denounced all the corporate fascism, imperialism, and theocracy in the Republican party as evidenced by the Bush junta.

Many thanks!

Your sincere admirer.
:)

This article from truthout was just too good not to share. It's the first place we've ever seen anybody successfully put all the pieces together of the Iraq invasion back-story. As always, we ask our readers to bump up the site's hit counter by visiting http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092605A.shtml

Bush's Twin Masters
by Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 26 September 2005

George W. Bush's two masters - the neoconservatives and the right-wing Christians - were the guiding force behind his decision to invade Iraq, change its regime, and control it permanently.

The neocons' blueprint for Bush's war can be found in a 1992 draft of the Pentagon Defense Planning Guidance on Post-Cold War Strategy, prepared by Paul Wolfowitz. It said, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in [the Middle East and Southwest Asia to] preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil."

The US had played a pivotal role in the Middle East for 50 years. One year before the Shah was toppled, I visited Iran as an international observer on behalf of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Tehran sported a US corporation on nearly every corner, but the people were mired in poverty. In 1953, the CIA had overthrown the democratically-elected secular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, whose government had nationalized the British oil company. The US installed the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, ushering in a 25-year reign of terror.

Iran became the largest customer for United States arms. US-based oil companies replaced the British. When Iranians began to rise up against the Shah, the US told the Shah it supported him "without reservation" and encouraged him to use force to maintain his power, even trying to engineer a military coup to save him. In 1979, a broad-based united front consisting of nationalists as well as militant Muslims coalesced around the Ayatollah Khomeini, overthrew the Shah, and inaugurated a theocracy of religious fascism.

Because of Washington's longstanding support for the Shah, Khomeini's government became a model for fundamentalist anti-US Islamic regimes. The United States was eager to counter the now anti-American Iranian government and prevent it from controlling the Persian Gulf, the largest oil source in the world.

To keep both Iran and Iraq from controlling the Gulf, the US quietly encouraged Iraq to invade Iran in 1980, with the promise of financing from Saudi Arabia. The US removed Iraq from its list of terrorist nations, and allowed the transfer of arms to Iraq, while simultaneously permitting Israel to arm Iran.

The United States supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical and biological weapons. Even after Iraq used its chemical weapons in the early 1980s, the US restored diplomatic relations with Iraq. Still playing both ends against the middle, the US itself supplied arms covertly to Iran in 1985.

Thinking the United States was still his ally, Saddam let April Glaspie, the career Foreign Service officer who headed the US mission in Iraq, know that he was about to invade Kuwait in 1991. Glaspie responded with a green light, and Saddam invaded. But the US, not wanting Iraq to dominate the western shore of the Persian Gulf, reacted by re-invading Kuwait. The United States didn't really wish to destroy Iraq; it still wanted Iraq as a counterweight to Iran. But the US underestimated Saddam's ability to maintain his position of control over the Kurds and the Shiites - both politically and through the use of terror. The survival of Saddam represented a severe limitation on American political power.

Employing the same strategy it later used in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United States attacked the infrastructure of Iraq in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm, which led to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths from disease caused by unclean water. During Operation Desert Fox in 1998, the US bombed Iraq after Saddam refused to let UN inspectors into Iraq, on the grounds they were spying for the CIA. It turns out they were indeed CIA spies, according to the Washington Post.

By mid-2000, the United States had dropped 88,000 tons of bombs over Iraq, killing many civilians. Between 4,000 and 5,000 children per month died in Iraq as a result of prior US bombing and sanctions.

After the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration mounted a concerted campaign to prepare the American people for war on Iraq. Although unable to find any weapons of mass destruction or evidence linking Iraq to 9/11, Bush never wavered in his march toward war.

Bush's Iraq war is consistent with his new military strategy of "pre-emptive" war set forth in The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, and the Project for the New American Century's September 2000 document.

But there was no danger to pre-empt in Iraq, which had not invaded any country for 12 years. Iraq's military, severely weakened by the Gulf War, years of sanctions and intrusive inspections, never posed a threat to the US or other countries in the region.

A quarter of a million US and UK troops launched numerous 2,000-pound bombs on Baghdad in rapid succession. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed and tens of thousands have been wounded. Nearly 2,000 American soldiers have died and thousands more have been wounded.

No weapons of mass destruction have been found and the Iraq/al-Qaeda link has been discredited. Indeed, Wolfowitz admitted in Vanity Fair that the weapons of mass destruction rationale was a "bureaucratic" excuse for war, upon which "everyone" could agree. In light of the failure to find any WMDs, Wolfowitz revealed a new rationale for Operation Iraqi Freedom: using Iraq to redraw the Middle East in order to reduce the terrorist threat to the United States.

Two years before Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Bush administration's plan to take military control of the Gulf region regardless of whether Saddam was in power was detailed in the Report of The Project for the New American Century. It says: "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

Indeed, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has confirmed that toppling Saddam was on George W. Bush's agenda long before 9/11.

According to O'Neill, in January 2001, Rumsfeld articulated the desire to "dissuade" other countries from "asymmetrical challenges" to United States power, a characterization strikingly similar to that in Wolfowitz's 1992 Pentagon paper. Rumsfeld's advocacy of a pre-emptive attack "matched with plans for how the world's second largest oil reserve might be divided among the world's contractors made for an irresistible combination," O'Neill later said.

Five months later, Vice President Dick Cheney's secret energy task force, in a May 2001 report, called on the White House to make "energy security a priority of US trade and foreign policy" and to encourage Persian Gulf countries to welcome foreign investment in their energy sectors.

When US-UK forces took control of Iraq, their first order of business was to secure the oil fields instead of the hospitals. Meanwhile, Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root was awarded a controversial $7 billion no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq's oil fields.

In July 2003, the public interest group Judicial Watch finally secured some of the documents from Cheney's energy task force meetings. They contain the smoking gun: "a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects" and "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts." The documents are dated March 2001, two years before Bush invaded Iraq.

Bush's twin masters are the neocons and the right-wing Christians.

The United States' uncritical support for Israel, and the installation of a US- and Israel-friendly regime in Iraq, is not motivated by love for the Jewish people. Rather, this support is critical to the right-wing Christian agenda. In order to fulfill the Scripture's promise, the right-wing Christians want to transfer the temple mount in Jerusalem from Muslim to Jewish hands, to facilitate the rebuilding of the temple so Jesus can return.

US assistance to Israel maintains that country as an America-friendly presence in the midst of countries that are exploited by and resent the policies of both the United States and Israel. Instead of fighting terror - as Bush likes to proclaim - his war on Iraq has drawn foreign terrorists into Iraq to fight against the Western infidels.

Its success in removing Saddam's regime made way for the United States to construct 14 US military bases in Iraq. All of these bases are instrumental to Washington's strategy to maintain hegemony in the Middle East. Kellogg Brown & Root, which built the infamous tiger cages in Vietnam and Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, got the no-bid contract for reconstruction in Iraq, and in New Orleans as well.

Our government's atrocious neglect of the poor and marginalized people of the Gulf Coast before and after Hurricane Katrina has come into full focus. And Bush's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol - which would require US corporations to sacrifice some of their profits to combat global warming - has come home to roost in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Nearly half the National Guard and many high-water vehicles were in Iraq when they should've been in New Orleans.

The Bush administration has spent more than $200 billion on an illegal and unjustified war of conquest in Iraq and continues to send $3 billion of aid per year to Israel to fund its brutal military occupation of the Palestinian people. It is time for the US to get out of the business of funding killing and occupation, and into the business of funding healthcare, jobs, education and housing.

Another winner from truthout (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092205E.shtml), this article takes on the knotty issue of whether it really is feasible to “bring the troops home now”:

Why Immediate Withdrawal Makes Sense
By Michael Schwartz
TomDispatch.com

Thursday 22 September 2005

That we are in a military quagmire in Iraq has become a fact of life among Americans of all political persuasions. Though Administration officials still sometimes speak of troop reductions in early 2006, and some top military men clearly no longer endorse "staying the course," the muted voices of reason within the military and the State Department still talk in terms of a three-to-five year drawdown of forces followed by the "sustained presence of a large American contingent, perhaps 50,000 soldiers," to be housed in the huge permanent bases the US is continuing to construct and upgrade in Iraq. In addition, Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force Chief of Staff, recently told New York Times reporter Eric Schmitt that US air power would be flying combat missions inside Iraq "more of less indefinitely."

Many in the anti-war movement, despite the high-intensity moments generated by Camp Casey and Cindy Sheehan's demand that President Bush at least meet with her "before another mother's son dies in Iraq," also seem increasingly resigned to a long-term military engagement with Iraq. While most continue to advocate the "immediate withdrawal" of American troops, such calls are uttered with little sense of hope. In fact, there appears to be a growing feeling that any form of "immediate" withdrawal will prove a thoroughly unsatisfactory option, destined only to intensify the present chaos in Iraq, trigger a civil war, and/or unleash a round of ethnic violence that could escalate to levels of near-genocidal mass murder. Instead, ever more critics of Bush's Iraqi adventure are proposing "phased" withdrawal scenarios that could keep American troops at the ready for years to prevent the Iraqi pressure cooker from blowing its top.

Many of these cautious withdrawal scenarios are advocated by staunch opponents of the war. I am thinking, in particular, of Juan Cole, the most widely respected anti-war voice, and Robert Dreyfuss, a thoughtful critic of the war who publishes regularly at the independent website Tompaine.com as well as in the Nation and Mother Jones. Both have offered forceful warnings against a hasty American withdrawal, advocating instead that US forces be pulled out in stages and only as the threat of civil war recedes. Dreyfuss expresses the thinking of many anti-war activists thusly:

"They worry that if the United States withdraws from Iraq, the result will be an all-out civil war among three major ethnic and religious blocs. (It's facile to argue that Iraq is already wracked by civil war; yes, there is widespread terrorism, a guerrilla war against the US occupation forces, and periodic clashes between Sunnis and Shiites. But it hasn't reached anything like civil war proportions yet, and it might: Things could get far, far worse.) Maybe it's too late for the United States to be able to do anything to prevent the outbreak of such a catastrophic civil conflict. But because there is so much at stake, it's worth a try."

Cole captures the same logic in a phrase: "All it would take would be for Sunni Arab guerrillas to assassinate Grand Ayatollah Sistani. And, boom"

And they are right. Black Wednesday, September 14, with its 12 Baghdad car bombs, killing at least 160 Iraqis, and wounding upward of 600, offered a flash of civil-war-level violence. Ordinarily, Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence accounts, on average, for fewer than 100 civilian deaths a week. This was true even during the car-bomb offensive just after the January elections. If a Black Wednesday occurred every week, the death toll from such violence might reach 15,000 per year, and we could start talking about a real civil war. So things could indeed get much worse.

But where Dreyfuss and Cole are mistaken is in concluding that US forces can be part of an effort "to prevent the outbreak of such a catastrophic civil conflict." Despite the plausible logic of this argument, the US presence doesn't deter, but contributes to, a thickening civil-war-like atmosphere in Iraq. It is always a dicey matter to project the present into the future, though that never stopped anybody from doing so. The future, by definition, is unknown and so open to the unexpected. Nonetheless, it is far more reasonable, based on what we now know, to assume that if the US were to leave Iraq quickly, the level of violence would be reduced, possibly drastically, not heightened. Here are the four key reasons:

1. The US military is already killing more civilian Iraqis than would likely die in any threatened civil war;

2. The US presence is actually aggravating terrorist (Iraqi-on-Iraqi) violence, not suppressing it;

3. Much of the current terrorist violence would be likely to subside if the US left;

4. The longer the US stays, the more likely that scenarios involving an authentic civil war will prove accurate.

American Violence in Iraq

In listing the problems faced by Iraqis ("widespread terrorism, a guerrilla war against the US occupation forces, and periodic clashes between Sunnis and Shiites."), Dreyfuss is succumbing to the reportage of the mainstream press, which rarely mentions the immense toll that American forces are taking every day inside Iraq.

In fact, the best estimate is that the occupation has been killing about 40,000 Iraqi civilians each year. These figures were first published a year ago in a path-breaking, yet largely neglected, study published in the British medical journal the Lancet by a mixed team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Iraqi universities; but careful vetting of war reports indicates that something close to these rates seems to have been maintained ever since. That helps explain why even the distinctly limited numbers collected by US and Iraqi official sources (when released at all) almost always report that American (or other) occupation forces account for at least two-thirds of all civilian deaths in military actions, with an unknown proportion of the remainder due to the actions of the Iraqi government, not the resistance.

There are four main ways American forces in Iraq accomplish such mayhem.

First, there are the hundreds of checkpoints around Baghdad and in other contested cities, sites of numerous violent incidents. Because of the danger created by the threat of suicide bombers, those guarding the checkpoints are ordered to fire at suspicious activity. The following account of the death of Reuters reporter Waleed Khaled, offered by Major-General Rick Lynch based on an official US Army investigation, makes clear why even the most savvy Iraqi is risking his or her life approaching a checkpoint:

"Lynch said soldiers reacted when they saw the car traveling 'forward at a high rate of speed. That particular car looked like cars that we have seen in the past used as suicide bombs. It wasn't a new car, it was an older model car... And there were two local nationals inside the car. Our soldiers took appropriate measures. We mourn the loss of life of all humans... But our soldiers are trained to respond in those situations. Put yourself in the place of the soldiers, knowing that the insurgents, who have been known to use suicide bombs, suicide car bombs, suicide vests, to attack innocent civilians, will always have an attack and then respond to that attack when the first responders come forward. So our soldiers took appropriate action on that particular case.'"

With some 600 checkpoints in Baghdad alone, and as many as 100 cars approaching each checkpoint during a non-curfew daylight hour, there are upwards of 250,000 chances each day for an Iraqi driver to fail to slow down soon enough, or, distracted, fail to see the checkpoint in time, or do something to make jumpy soldiers jump. If only one out of 40,000 drivers makes this mistake that still would produce perhaps 6 lethal incidents a day - in which case about 2,000 Iraqis would meet Waleed Khaled's fate each year, although without the benefit of news coverage and a US Army investigation, however perfunctory. (Note that, at this point, we have just about no way of knowing in any of the death situations discussed here and below how many Iraqis are dying, so these are the crudest of figures.)

Second, American troops are constantly patrolling contested areas in Iraqi cities under instructions to use "overwhelming force" in firefights with actual or suspected resistance fighters. If they encounter sustained resistance, the rules of engagement call for demolishing buildings occupied by snipers, and treating all inhabitants of such buildings as the enemy. Among the several hundred patrols or more each day around Iraq, it appears that about one in ten result in lethal firefights. Even if fewer than half of these firefights produce a single collateral civilian death, this tiny percentage would yield perhaps 15 deaths on an average day or close to 5,000 civilian deaths a year.

A third staple of the occupation is entering houses in search of suspected insurgents, either because they have been identified by informants, or as part of house-to-house searches after IED or other guerrilla attacks. US statistics indicate that no fewer than 75% of all entered houses do not contain an insurgent, but the army rules of engagement require that soldiers enter without knocking and by crashing through doors in order to retain the element of surprise, and thus prevent either an ambush or an escape by suspects. Lethal force is used at the first sign of resistance or attempted escape - to preempt attacks with weapons that suspected insurgents might have hidden nearby. (The army argues that, while more humane treatment might create less anger among the tens of thousands of non-resistant families whose homes are invaded, such restraint would also expose the soldiers to many more casualties from the occasional resistance fighter. Military philosophy in this and other settings is to protect the lives of American soldiers "even if those methods do not always win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi populace.")

With several hundred such missions undertaken each day, and such patrols entering as many as a dozen houses on a patrol, American troops enter something like 2,000 Iraqi homes on an ordinary day. If only one of every one hundred entries results in violence, and far less than half end in a dead civilian, these home invasions can still account for 10 or so deaths per day, or another 3,500 per year.

Fourth and finally, we come to American air power. When American patrols, large or small, encounter violent resistance, their rules of engagement call for the use of overwhelming fire power to eliminate the enemy. Where their immediate response fails to destroy the enemy, an air assault is often ordered, with either gun ships or bombers. Air assaults are also ordered against suspected insurgent "safe houses."

Although they are rarely reported, such air assaults are the most terrifying and ferocious forms of American violence. Virtually all of these strikes occur in highly populated areas, sometimes destroying whole houses, or even whole groups of houses, and (where the inhabitants haven't fled) they sometimes kill whole families in the process. The New York Times recently reported such an attack in the border city of Husaybah, which "destroyed three houses in an area that has experienced intense fighting." Unlike most such news items, this one also contained an Iraqi Interior Ministry report of casualties. Based on local hospital reports, the Ministry claimed that the air strikes "had killed more than 40 civilians, mostly members of an extended family who had sought shelter from the bombings." (American officials, as is their general practice, said they "knew of no civilian casualties.")

American officials do concede that they average about "50 close air support and armed reconnaissance missions every day." These occur at all of the familiar urban hotspots: Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul, Tal Afar, Ramadi, Samarra, as well as numerous smaller towns. If only one in five of these missions produces civilian casualties, and if the average death toll is only four instead of 40, then 15,000 Iraqi civilians die every year from US air attacks.

The depressing total of these very rough calculations is over 25,000 civilian deaths each year, more than five times the number caused by car bombs and other Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence. (And remember, we're not even figuring in major American military campaigns against the insurgency.) To add to the levels of mayhem, keep in mind that, at any given moment, the US military keeps perhaps another 12,000-15,000 Iraqis locked in its prisons, holding areas and interrogation centers. Numbers like this, or even lower versions of the same, explain why in a country with a population of only 25 million, so many Iraqis see the Americans as the main source of the daily violence they endure, and why 60% regularly tell even American-sponsored pollsters that they want an American withdrawal immediately, if not sooner. This also explains why the primary condition for a cease fire set by the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS, the political arm of the Sunni resistance) was an American "troop pullout from most urban areas and an end to military checkpoints and raids." AMS leader Isam al-Rawi explained:

The Americans and British must leave all residential areas...This is very sensitive for our feelings. When they retreat to military bases outside the major cities, the Iraqis will no longer be meeting military tanks and trucks in the streets and highways, and they will no longer be afraid their homes will be invaded at night.

Iraqi-on-Iraqi Violence

The prospect of a civil war is, of course, horrendous, but the ongoing American violence is massive enough that it would take several Bloody Wednesdays every week to match it. This, of course, is a possibility, but a more reasonable guess would be that, in a trade-off between the end of US violence and an escalation in the civil war, the result would actually be a decline in civilian casualties in Iraq.

But a quick US withdrawal would be less likely to produce a civil war than leaving American troops in place as a barrier against such a development. The killing and imprisonment policies of the occupation itself are the main generating and sustaining force for the rising levels of Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence. The sooner the occupation ends, the sooner Iraqi civil violence is likely to begin to subside.

To grasp this point, it is necessary to understand that there are - broadly speaking - two tendencies within the Sunni resistance against the US occupation. While they share the goal of expelling the Americans, their strategies and tactics are fundamentally different. One tendency, which many Iraqis designate the "nationalist resistance," seeks in the short run to expel the Americans from their local communities by attacking American patrols and checkpoints with roadside explosives and hit-and-run attacks. An operation is a success when it ties down American troops and therefore prevents them from manning checkpoints, marching through neighborhoods, or conducting house-to-house searches. While their attacks often kill innocent bystanders, they do not usually purposely target civilians, and often condemn those who do, calling them terrorists and outlaws.

The other tendency, designated the "jihadists" by many Iraqis, fights to weaken the resolve of the Americans and of Iraqis who, by their definition, help the occupation. For the jihadists, an operation is a success when it inflicts either a huge toll in casualties or scores a propaganda victory against the occupation or its supporters. Their tactics are designed to intimidate and demoralize their opposition. They therefore try to mount spectacular attacks on US forces, the Iraqi military and police, Iraqi government officials, and also Iraqi civilians they feel are aiding the Americans, attempting to intimidate them away from voting in elections, participating in local government, or joining the police force or the new Iraqi military.

Beyond this immediate terrorist purpose, the leadership of the jihadists, most notably Abu Musab al Zarqawi, seeks sooner or later to create a mega-state among all Sunni Arabs in the Middle East. Zarqawi and others of his persuasion believe that Shiite Muslims are the main barrier to such a state and that, in the long run, they must be defeated. They therefore focus their terrorist attacks on the Shia, who, they believe, support the American-installed Iraqi government (rather than on the Kurds, who support that government far more avidly than any Shia group). In this way, the jihadist leadership hopes simultaneously to undermine Shia support for the American-sponsored government and to weaken the Shia in what they consider to be a larger, longer term confrontation.

Numerically, the jihadists represent a tiny minority of resistance fighters in Iraq (certainly no more than 10%). The vast majority (probably well over 90%) of the 70 or so attacks each day are conducted by the nationalist resistance. But the jihadists are responsible for the high-profile car bombings and the spectacular attacks against Shia mosques and other "soft targets." These account for the vast majority of all the civilian casualties inflicted by the resistance.

Given this situation, how might a speedy American withdrawal affect the levels of Iraqi-generated violence? Most obviously, it would eliminate the presently predominant form of Iraqi violence - the 65 or so guerrilla attacks against American forces every day, (though many guerrilla units might redirect their attention to the Iraqi army, insofar as it chose to conduct American-type patrols in disputed neighborhoods). And it would also obviously eliminate the jihadist attacks against American troops and bases.

But those fearful of civil war worry that the American absence would remove the main deterrent to terrorist attacks and simply free-up jihadist resources from anti-American operations to unleash further mayhem. The full jihadist effort could then be concentrated on attacking the Shia.

Violence after an American Departure

What this assumption ignores, however, is a simple (though not obvious) fact: The terrorist offensive against the Shia is largely a consequence of American brutality in Iraq. Despite Abu Musab al Zarqawi's oft repeated desire to launch a holy war against the Shia, his success in doing so is directly linked to a continuing US presence. His primary appeal in Iraq, after all, rests on the claim that the occupation is "being aided by their allies from Shia." Moreover, because, he claims, "the Shia sect has always spearheaded any war against Islam and Muslims throughout history," he insists that they can never be brought into a movement to oppose the occupation and therefore have to be treated like the enemy. It is this appeal that, in Sunni areas, has allowed him to recruit supporters for his anti-Shia campaign.

University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape, author of Dying to Win, the definitive book on suicide terrorism, spoke for virtually all terrorism experts, when he made this very point to the American Conservative magazine, asserting that every suicide bombing campaign "is driven by the presence of foreign forces on the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. The [American ] operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorism and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life."

Thus, while Zarqawi is seeking a holy war against the Shia, the real question - as Pape puts it - is whether "anybody listens to him." In other words, his success depends on his ability to recruit new martyrs (inside and outside Iraq) to undertake suicide missions. This recruitment, in turn, depends upon two factors: the level of mayhem the occupation creates, which generates the anger that creates his volunteers; and the credibility of his claims that the Shia are allies of the Americans.

On both accounts, the military occupation of the country, by its very presence and its actions, continually pours more gasoline on an already burning fire, and cannot help but continue to do so as long as it attempts to pacify the resistance. After all, the daily mayhem in Baghdad and other cities, and the spectacular American assaults on cities like Falluja and Tal Afar, are broadcast across Iraq and the entire Muslim world (even if they are often largely ignored in the American media). These increase support for both the nationalist guerrillas and the jihadist terrorists.

In addition, under the strain of an exhausted army and a fractured budget, the Bush administration is seeking to "Iraqify" the occupation by replacing American troops with Iraqis. In 2004, after Sunni police and military units melted under fire or defected to the guerrillas, the US began relying more heavily on Shia recruits (as well as Kurdish militiamen, or Pesh Merga) in their battles with the Sunni resistance. The brutality of the American military plan for pacifying the country, now being enacted by ever more Shia and Kurdish soldiers, has convinced increasing numbers of Sunnis that Zarqawi's claims about the Shia are all too correct, and so has allowed him to recruit increasing numbers of willing martyrs, both in Iraq and in neighboring countries.

Just before Bloody Wednesday, at Tal Afar, Shia (as well as Pesh Merga) soldiers were given frontline responsibility for lethal house-to-house searches, spearheading the wholesale destruction of individual homes, many with residents still inside, and whole neighborhoods. It was no surprise, therefore, when, a few days later, Zarqawi declared that Bloody Wednesday was the beginning of the "battle to avenge the Sunni people of Tal Afar," and also the beginning of a "full scale war on Shiites around Iraq, without mercy." Here again, American action exacerbated rather than suppressed internal Iraqi friction.

This constant and escalating provocation only swells the reservoir of willing martyrs and increases the plausibility of Zarqawi's claim that the sole route to "liberation" involves direct attacks on Shia citizens.

On the other hand, history indicates that once the provocation of foreign troops is removed, the reservoir tends to quickly drain. Terrorism expert Robert Pape reports that, in recent history, it is almost unknown for suicide bombings to continue after the withdrawal of the occupying power:

"Many people worry that once a large number of suicide terrorists have acted that it is impossible to wind it down. The history of the last 20 years, however, shows the opposite. Once the occupying forces withdraw from the homeland territory of the terrorists, they often stop - and often on a dime."

American withdrawal is therefore the cornerstone of any strategy that wants to maximize the hope of avoiding civil war. It would, at one and the same moment, remove the major source of Iraqi civilian deaths - and remove the primary flash point that leads to the car bombings. It would certainly mean as well the withdrawal of Shia and Kurdish troops from Sunni cities - the key to Zarqawi's ability to convince (some) Sunnis that the Shia are willing pawns of the occupation and so their eternal enemies.

The clock is ticking however. With each new American attack, more Sunnis are convinced that their hope for liberation lies with Zarqawi's strategy. And with each new terrorist attack, Shia anger - already at a high level, given the degrading nature of the American occupation and two years of American-style "reconstruction" - is likely to become ever more focused on the Sunni community that appears to be harboring the terrorists. Recently there have been growing signs of violent Shia retaliation. If the terrorist attacks continue unabated, then increasing numbers of Shia may adopt an attitude complementary to Zarqawi's - blaming the entire Sunni community for the terrorist attacks. If this occurs, Zarqawi will have succeeded in his personal goal of "dragging them into the arena of sectarian war," and a raging civil war may truly develop.

Zarqawi's plan will be in danger of collapsing, however, if the US withdraws.

American withdrawal would undoubtedly leave a riven, impoverished Iraq, awash in a sea of weaponry, with problems galore, and numerous possibilities for future violence. The either/or of this situation may not be pretty, but on a grim landscape, a single reality stands out clearly: Not only is the American presence the main source of civilian casualties, it is also the primary contributor to the threat of civil war in Iraq. The longer we wait to withdraw, the worse the situation is likely to get - for the US and for the Iraqis.

Michael Schwartz, Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook has written extensively on popular protest and insurgency, and on American business and government dynamics. His work on Iraq has appeared on the internet at numerous sites, including Tomdispatch, Asia Times, MotherJones.com, and ZNet; and in print at Contexts, Against the Current, and Z Magazine. His books include Radical Politics and Social Structure, The Power Structure of American Business (with Beth Mintz), and Social Policy and the Conservative Agenda (edited, with Clarence Lo).

!!! NEWS FLASH FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF OF THE SCALLION !!!
Flash -- this just in from the People's E-mail Network (www.usalone.com):

THOM HARTMANN DEVOTES MOST OF SHOW TO STOP ROBERTS MOVEMENT

If you were listening to Thom Hartmann on his widely syndicated radio program today, you know he was breathing fire in opposition to John Roberts. You also know from your own experience that the primary toll-free telephone number for Congress (877-762-8762) is mysteriously and suddenly out of commission with just a fast circuit busy signal (try it yourself), even in the middle of the night. Yes, Thom thought that was extremely odd also, especially with so many of us calling to declare our strong opposition to John Roberts.

WHAT WE MUST NOW DO is create a permanent record of this situation and use that to generate even more messages and phone calls to the Senate in the next 24 hours. If you are a member of any BLOGS go to ALL of them overnight and start a new thread or article, and/or leave a comment on an existing one. In your own words there are three simple key points we need to make in any order you like:

1) Whether we have in fact overloaded the primary toll-free number with our calls or whether someone deliberately cut the line to slow down the calls, it is in FACT down now.

2) There is a growing ground swell of opposition to the stealth reactionary Roberts that can no longer be ignored.

3) To take action there are two alternative toll-free numbers still working, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588, plus an action page that will give you all the direct phone and fax numbers of your own senators, http://www.millionphonemarch.com.

What we want to accomplish is to create as many entries on as many blog threads as possible, to reach as many people as we can who wish they knew what to do to stop this administration from scuttling our Supreme Court, but who just don't where to start. Feel free to make your own arguments as to why Roberts must be stopped, just as you do when you send your personal messages to your senators. If you would like some additional ideas, this piece from OpEd News might be useful:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_thepen_
050914_we_can_stop_roberts_.htm

Leahy, Feingold and Kohl have been excoriated on the blogs for their judiciary committee votes, which even they admit were "close calls." All we have to do is get one or two of them to heed the voice of the people and the MOMENTUM is on our side. All they simply need to say is that they have been hearing from their constituents, and while they may have been initially inclined to support Roberts, they can no longer do so.

And you can also send your friends who want to know more about why Roberts must be stopped to the one click congressional email and letter to the editor action page, where there are many informative links, at

http://www.millionphonemarch.com

Take heart that we have achieved alot of radio visibility in the last couple days. More and more people are starting the question why Roberts is being hustled through the process without even a proper examination of what he really stands for. Will it be enough? That is entirely up to us alone. First we must BELIEVE we can win. After that the rest is easy.

We must reach out to our fellow citizens every way we can. Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

Although we of The Scallion are still officially on hiatus, we apparently still feel compelled to continue throwing in our two cents! Besides, it's that time of year when True Americans march on Washington to protest George W. Bush, his illegal invasion of Iraq, and his deadly, fascist policies.

Before we get down to business, here’s our notable quotable for the day:

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson

And now … on with the news.

Here's yet another irate e-mail to the White House from a Scallion staffer who attended Saturday's march:

To: comments@whitehouse.gov
Subject: How does this feel?

How does it feel to be the World's Biggest Coward?

How does it feel to be too scared of your own heartlessness to comfort a woman in her grief over your murder of her son Casey Sheehan in Iraq?

How does it feel to be so frightened of appropriate criticism that you must run off to a different state when that criticism comes to your own front yard and stays there for an entire weekend?

How does it feel to know that you're the only occupant of the Oval Office since LBJ to deserve marches of protest year after year you're in office? At least LBJ handled criticism like a man. It would be nice if you could.

How does it feel to know that you can't make an end-run around the Truth?

How does it feel to be known as America's Weakest President Ever?

Can you feel it? Please try: you will be a better man for it.

You might even become Human.

Think of how much more everyone would like you if that happened.

September 25, 2005. For the third year in a row, the Scallion sent a delegation to the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, internationalanswer.org) march to stop Bush's war on Iraq. Our roving reporter and sometimes webmeister, A.J., offers the following report on the event. (Please see TomDispatch for another account of the march complete with interviews and pictures: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=24319)

At 6:00 p.m. on September 23, 2005, a core group of our delegation, including first-time marchers, convened at a Metro-accessible hotel to prepare for the busy day tomorrow. We were up until 4:00 in the morning drawing up posters and discussing how the next day might unfold. Would it be peaceful, as usual? Or, since our protest promised to be larger than ever and was the first in years to be granted access to march directly in front of the White House, would we be beset with dirty-tricks instigators who would support Bush by pretending they were fellow protesters and inciting violence within the crowd so that we would be harassed, pepper-sprayed, tasered, arrested, and ultimately blamed by Bush's sycophantic media? Sadly, this was not out of the question: “Democracy Now!” and countless other sources have reported a surprising number of such instances all over the country from New York to San Francisco since the anti-war movement began in the run-up to the invasion.

At 10:15 on September 24, 2005, we left our temporary headquarters and headed for the Metro. Despite the fact that our Metro station was only the second stop on the inbound line, we boarded a standing-room-only train already packed with fellow marchers. What freedom: among like-minded people, we were free to voice our complaints and concerns with the Bush administration without having to worry who might be listening, who might be offended. For the first-time marchers in the group, it was a taste of that wonderful feeling I have enjoyed since my first march: although the corporate media have done their best to make us feel fragmented and solitary, we were not alone. Many, many other Americans feel exactly as we do and speak the same language we do, condemning Bush's imperialism, fascism, cronyism, weakness, and incompetence as a leader. We met people fresh from the ravages of hurricane Katrina in Louisiana to southern red-staters who dare not speak their minds freely in their home towns. We met protesters of all ages from small children to teens to seniors in wheelchairs, and this was merely a sample from our car on the train.

Speaking of the train, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (wmata.com) chose today of all days to “single-track” the trains on two of the lines. The resulting delays literally tripled the amount of time it took to complete the trip: a trip that normally takes thirty minutes (according to wmata.com) took one hour and a half. Needless to say, the standing-room-only train car only became more packed as the trip progressed; occasional stragglers leaving the train were replaced by hordes of marchers making their way into town. Gee, was WMATA purposely trying to discourage the marchers by making sure that they had already been on their feet for over an hour before even getting to the site of the protest? Maybe they got the idea from Amtrak, thanks to which thousands of marchers were prevented from attending the event due to “power outages” on trains coming to DC from Boston and New York. Coincidences? I think not.

We arrived in DC at noon and walked a few blocks toward the protest site. We would have liked to have made our way to the Ellipse to hear the speakers, but we were caught up in an overflow crowd two blocks away, where we met other members of our delegation. One of our delegation who had arrived early enough to hear the speakers did not hear a single Democrat currently in office. According to “Democracy Now!” the only Democrat apparently brave enough to speak truth to power on Saturday was Georgia's Representative Cynthia McKinney (a transcript of her remarks appears at http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/26/1434206). Other than that, nothing but deafening silence from the Democrats. Where were the rest of them? Where were the Clintons (both loyal moderate Republicans)? Clearly, then, the Democrats wanted no part of America's protest against George W. Bush's wars (on Iraq and the poor) and fascism. Clearly, we did not represent our elected officials, and they clearly do not represent us. Clearly, the Democrats are perfectly content with how quickly and irreparably America is going to hell. Friends, it's looking like time to vote Green if we're serious about changing the course of this nation.

But I digress: let me continue with the sights and sounds of the march.

The sounds of a march such as this are always intriguing. People bring drums, prayer chimes, tambourines, and a whole assortment of other instruments including banjos and guitars. The music energizes the marchers into chants, songs, cheers, and applause. Despite the grim reasons we are there, we are nonetheless uplifted by each other's goodwill. Marching is a positive experience.

Like the sounds of the march, the sights are as varied as the protesters themselves. Many people wear costumes, outlandish clothing, patriotic red-white-and-blue, and CODE PINK pink (some from head to toe). After our delegation had been marching a short while, a man wearing a grinning George W. Bush mask and rhinestone “W” cowboy boots strode past us, the back of his business suit adorned with a sign reading “The Lying King.” As he went past, we saw that he was being manipulated by puppet strings held by a man sporting a grinning Dick Cheney mask. As he walked past us, we saw that he too had puppet strings, this time being held by a very tall and eerily lean grinning Satan, puffing on a fat, celebratory cigar. We cheered and applauded. This creative trio was stopped regularly throughout the day to be photographed by and with fellow marchers.

As usual, there was an Uncle Sam on stilts and a Lady Liberty on stilts, towering over the crowd. As usual, there was at least one enormous American flag.

There was no end to the clever, funny, and elaborate posters we saw; as our fellow Americans vented their pent-up frustration, the slogans flowed as a natural outpouring of anger, sadness, and desperation.

One little girl we met on the Metro made her own poster: “Bush, stop killing children.”

There was a series of posters representing Bush's report card and other criticisms, including

So much more to destroy ... so little time
Destroyed: 2 gulfs, one administration
Bush's report card: F
Plays well with others: F
Starts pre-emptive war: A
Completes work: F
Empties U.S. Treasury in record time: A
Response time: F
Use of U.S. Armed Services: F
Helping rich cronies: A
Martha goes to jail. Ken Lay goes to Washington?
Hands off Social Security!
Bring the troops home!
No war for oil! Conserve!
Foreign policy: F
Assists Americans, rich: A; poor: F
Grasps concepts: F
Shows compassion: F
Helping others: F
Communicates well with others: F
Acquires shelter for hurricane victims: F
Strong exit strategy: F
Rescind tax breaks for the wealthy!
Contract to kill Hugo Chavez? Not very Christian! That is precisely what smiling Pat Robertson called for.
Gets Trent Lott's house rebuilt bigger and better: A

These were being handed out to empty-handed marchers who were glad to get them.

Other posters we saw included

Bush has Iraqtile Dysfunction
Douche Bush
No More BUllSHit
Republicans for Impeachment
Clinton lied, no one died; Bush lied, thousands died
Osama bin Forgotten
Make Levees, Not War
Read between the pipelines
Bush is a Pussy
Bush is a Category 5 Disaster
(with a picture of a chimp face morphing into Bush's face) Proof of UNintelligent Design
Billionaires for Bush (accompanied by a contingent of peace marchers dressed up in black evening wear and rhinestones, carrying posters thanking Bush for all the tax breaks for the rich while poor people starve, etc.)
I love my country, but I fear my government

I can't remember it exactly, but one poster reminded us that a local NPR station, WAMU, is sponsored by Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors and fascist corporations (I believe Wal-Mart is among that number). I personally remember the hostile take-over of NPR's Morning Edition preceding the run-up to the invasion: the influx of dollars from the weapons makers squelched any legitimate debate on whether or why we should or shouldn't invade Iraq; the only debate regarded when and how many troops would or should be deployed. Appalled, I immediately stopped listening to NPR (which Greg Palast had long ago dubbed National Petroleum Radio) and started listening to “Democracy Now!”

There was a tiny group of Catholics sporting anti-abortion posters who marched with us. Although The Scallion officially supports the right of a woman to choose whether or not to complete a pregnancy, I was delighted. My personal view is that it is up to each of us to lead by example if we disapprove of abortion, but none of us has the right to dictate that life-altering decision yea or nay to the next person. Not even I have that right -- at least, not until someone dies and I am elected to be God. Even so, what a refreshing change to see people who claim to be pro-life come out against the war: at least they were trying to be consistent in their message, unlike Bush and the so-called Christian right, who only care about preserving the lives of embryos, fetuses, and stem cells -- may the rest of us be damned.

There was even a group of Republicans against Bush and the war who stood on the sidelines and cheered us on with peace signs and friendly waves.

One of our delegation remarked that the number of different messages, concerns, and agendas was staggering. Even groups who disagree on countless other issues agreed in coming out to protest this war. I observed that Bush really is a uniter after all: he united us all in opposition of him! We were amazed at the number of elderly marchers, who arrived with canes, walkers, and wheelchairs: coming from a generation brainwashed to think that authority knows best and that authority always has the public's (rather than its own?) best interests at heart, these older marchers found the wisdom to see through all the lies and deception and say, “Enough! Not in my name!”

At one point, the crowd stopped right in front of the White House. In a moment of comparative quiet, I couldn't resist letting out one loud “Boo!” Chants arose to chastise Bush, who was too much of a filthy coward to stay in town and listen to the American public he vowed to serve. Hmm, he must've crossed his fingers behind his back on that one.

As we completed the march route around the block from the White House, we were overwhelmed by the numbers of people still pouring in to march in front of the White House, meaning that the crowd was solidly packed full of people over the distance of several city blocks. We couldn't see either the beginning or the end of the line. While march organizers were hoping for 100,000 people, there seemed to be so many more based on what we witnessed. We were pleasantly surprised that, along the entire route, we never saw so much as one pro-war counter-protester.

Around 4:00 p.m., we made our way back to the Metro; to our amazement, late-starters were still arriving for the march and protests. As we arrived back at our starting point around 5:30 in the evening, one die-hard member of our delegation who remained in town phoned us so that we could hear Cindy Sheehan speak live. Apparently, the crowds were still massive and still gathering for the day-long marathon of protests and marching.

On September 25, I checked the web for news coverage of the march. I found one Associated Press article that appeared in several online news outlets. It drily minimized the numbers of peace marchers by quoting DC police chief Ramsey as saying he thought we “may have” achieved the 100,000 forecasted. Pretending to be fair to the peace movement in most of its timbre, the article ended with a bitter pro-war slap in the face by quoting a pro-war counter-protester who threatened to blame Cindy Sheehan for the additional deaths if we were to pull our troops out now. One of our delegation conferred with me later in the day, saying that she checked the TV news this morning for coverage of the march. While the news simply couldn't deny that yesterday's protests had occurred, they nonetheless figured out how to distort the story and skew it in favor of the pro-war counter-protesters: narration of yesterday's protest was accompanied by a split-screen display that made the handful of pro-war counter-protesters look as numerous as the multitudes of anti-war protesters. This reminded me of a march I attended a year or two ago that boasted a crowd that Washington DC police estimated as consisting of at least 50,000 -- I saw these crowds with my own eyes. Organizers were elated with the turnout. An NBC news team with a reporter and a cameraman spent the whole day interviewing and filming speakers, organization founders, march organizers, and protesters. I personally saw them interview CODE PINK founder Medea Benjamin around 5:00 in the evening. When I got home and checked NBCs website for an account of the protest, they had already posted as much as they were ever planning to: a tiny article buried in an obscure place on the page describing the march as poorly attended, with hardly a few thousand people and bitterly disappointed organizers. Taken aback by the obvious disparity between what NBC reported and the reality of the protest, I checked the timestamp of the article: it had been posted at 9:00 a.m. the day of the march -- hours before even the pre-march rallies had begun. NBC's article was a deliberate deception -- an out-and-out lie.

Unbelievable.

The Washington Post apparently took the march more seriously, posting the only decent article any in our delegation has seen so far. They quote attendance as including 100,000 – 300,000 anti-Bush, anti-war protesters. From what The Scallion's delegation witnessed, these numbers seem reasonable. Let me leave you with this article, but don't forget to check out democracynow.org for their excellent coverage of many aspects of our successful protest this Saturday.

Antiwar Fervor Fills the Streets
Demonstration Is Largest in Capital Since U.S. Military Invaded Iraq

By Petula Dvorak

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 25, 2005

Tens of thousands of people packed downtown Washington yesterday and marched past the White House in the largest show of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the conflict in Iraq began.

The demonstration drew grandmothers in wheelchairs and babies in strollers, military veterans in fatigues and protest veterans in tie-dye. It was the first time in a decade that protest groups had a permit to march in front of the executive mansion, and, even though President Bush was not there, the setting seemed to electrify the crowd.

Signs, T-shirts, slogans and speeches outlined the cost of the Iraq conflict in human as well as economic terms. They memorialized dead U.S. troops and Iraqis, and contrasted the price of war with the price of recovery for areas battered by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Riffs on Vietnam-era protests were plentiful, with messages declaring, "Make Levees, Not War," "I never thought I'd miss Nixon" and "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam." Many in the crowd had protested in the 1960s; others weren't even born during those tumultuous years.

Protest organizers estimated that 300,000 people participated, triple their original target. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, who walked the march route, said the protesters achieved the goal of 100,000 and probably exceeded it. Asked whether at least 150,000 showed up, the chief said, "That's as good a guess as any.

"It's their protest, not mine. It was peaceful -- that's all I care about," Ramsey said.

The protesters rallied at the Ellipse, then marched through a misty drizzle around the White House and along Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The crowd thinned as events continued into the evening with a concert on the grounds of the Washington Monument that featured Joan Baez and other performers, along with antiwar speeches.

The police presence along the demonstration's route seemed more relaxed than at recent protests, although D.C. police and U.S. Park Police had hundreds of officers in place to deal with potential trouble. Police said a construction fence was torn down and a newspaper box damaged, but they reported no injuries or major problems. They said three people were arrested -- one on a charge of destruction of property, one on a charge of attempted theft and one on a charge of disorderly conduct.

More than 200 counter-demonstrators set up outside the FBI building on Pennsylvania Avenue, and some back-and-forth yelling occurred as the antiwar marchers moved past. "Shame on you! Shame on you!" one counter-protester shouted at the antiwar group. Several dozen officers stood between the two groups, and no trouble erupted, police said.

Some organizations supporting the war in Iraq plan to demonstrate today on the Mall.

Antiwar groups staged smaller rallies yesterday in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, London, Rome and other cities. In Washington, the events were sponsored by groups including the ANSWER Coalition and United for Peace and Justice and focused on a succinct theme: "End the War in Iraq and Bring the Troops Home Now."

Roughly 147,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq. Since the war began in March 2003, 1,911 U.S. members of the military have been killed and 14,641 have been wounded.

The protest groups helped organize caravans and carpools, and many participants began arriving early in the morning after bumpy, all-night bus rides.

Leslie Darling, 60, came from Cleveland with four friends and said it was her first antiwar protest. She said she was moved by what happened after Hurricane Katrina.

"It made clear that while we spend all this money trying to impose our will on other countries, here at home in our own country, we can't take care of each other," she said.

When the bus coming from Kalamazoo, Mich., pulled up to Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, Sister Maureen Metty, 56, stretched her legs and prepared for a brand-new experience.

"There were 250 sisters who wanted to be here today, but I'm the one they chose to send," she said. She carried a sign that read "Sisters of St. Joseph's for Peace," a folding stool and a backpack with snacks, her toothbrush and toothpaste. She snapped a flurry of pictures for the sisters back home, took a deep breath and headed into the crowd.

People came to the Mall and Ellipse in waves. Organizers said that several thousand never got there because of an Amtrak breakdown on the New York-to-Washington line in the morning. Others who took Metro faced delays because of repairs on the Yellow and Blue lines.

Once protesters arrived, they joined throngs headed toward the rally on the Ellipse, which featured numerous speakers, including the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, actress Jessica Lange and Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who drew thousands of demonstrators to her 26-day vigil outside Bush's Crawford, Tex., ranch last month and was the inspiration for many protesters yesterday. Her son, Casey, 24, was killed in Iraq last year.

"This is amazing!" Sheehan said. "You're part of history."

Some of the biggest applause went to someone not even on the program. Adam Hathaway, an 8-year-old who became lost while mingling in the crowds. Before he was separated from his mother, Adam was showing people his jar of pennies and proclaiming that "President Bush is taking lots of this and using it in the war."

Several announcements were made seeking help in finding the blond boy from Maine. He was reunited with his mother, Julia Hathaway, as the crowd cheered.

Bush was not around to hear the protesters filing past the White House. He spent the day at command centers in Texas and Colorado, where he assessed Hurricane Rita recovery efforts. Vice President Cheney was undergoing surgery at George Washington University Hospital to treat aneurysms on the back of his knees.

Bush and Cheney were depicted on posters, T-shirts and in makeshift costumes. Several demonstrators wore masks of Bush's likeness and prison jumpsuits. They were often asked to pose for photographs.

Many protesters said they had opposed the action in Iraq all along but were emboldened to demonstrate after polls showed that a majority of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of the war.

The masses on the street served up a broad cross section of the United States by age, geography religion and ethnic group. The Raging Grannies, Presbyterians for Peace, Portuguese Against Bush and a group of Quakers were there. The Buddhist Peace Delegation took up most of 14th Street NW with its golden banner that read: "May all beings be safe and free from anger, fear, greed, delusion, and all ill being."

Protest organizers made special note of military participants in the antiwar effort.

Army 1st Sgt. Frank Cookinham, with a Special Forces patch on one shoulder, scorpion tattoos crawling across the back of his neck and "LOCO" permanently inked on his Adam's apple stands out in most crowds. He was pretty uncomfortable yesterday.

"I've never done this before, but here I am, in uniform, figuring this is the only way I can shove it to Bush," said Cookinham, of Newport, R.I., a Persian Gulf War veteran who recently returned from a second tour in Iraq. "This war makes no sense."

Marching past the Treasury Building, Steven Olsen, 57, and his wife, Brenda, 49, of Yonkers, N.Y., held signs bearing a photo of their son, an Army Reserve sergeant sent to Iraq after enrolling in medical school.

"I hear from him about once a month," said Brenda as her husband gently waved a placard that said, "Proud of my soldier: Ashamed of this war."