Coming together to protest war

CHICAGO--Marking the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war, more than 1,000 people came out in the predominately Latino Pilsen neighborhood to make their voices heard.

Though smaller than demonstrations in years past, the protest took up a broader antiwar stance, calling for an end to the occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, and taking up the issue of immigrant rights with demands for an immediate end to ICE raids and deportations and amnesty for all the undocumented.

Jorge Mujica a leader in the immigrant rights movement in Chicago, pointed out the government's double standards toward immigrants. "When an immigrant joins the Army, he is an American soldier," Mujica said. "When an immigrant joins the economy, they call him an illegal alien."

Organizers of the protest have already voted to endorse the May Day march for workers rights and to "demand justice and equality for all." The implications are important because the different movements can strengthen one another by working together.

As Shaun Harkin, an Irish immigrant and member of the International Socialist Organization, told the crowd, "Our struggle here is the same struggle around the world. When the undocumented can live legally without fear of deportation, without fear of discrimination, then we will all be free. It is one struggle."

Members of the American Muslims for Palestine made the same connection, holding up a sign quoting Martin Luther King Jr.: "An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Among the many chants that resonated with protesters was "From Mexico to Palestine, border walls are a crime!"

Protesters also focused on the issues of jobs, health care and economic disparities.

In Chicago, four mental health clinics are being closed on the city's South Side, 16 public schools are being shut down, and the Chicago Transit Authority continues to increase fares and cut routes. A representative of Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP), which is organizing against the city's plan to sponsor the 2012 Olympics, led the chants: "Stop the war, feed the poor" and "Money for clinics, not the Olympics."

A meeting has been tentatively scheduled for the last weekend of this month by the many organizations that came together to organize for the March 14 to discuss ongoing organizing against wars as they continue in the new Obama era.

As one protester, Ken Richardson, told ABC News about Obama's plans for Iraq, "Actually, he didn't promise to end anything. What he's promising is having a residual force of 50,000 troops in Iraq. And just imagine if you lived in a country [where] there are 50,000 troops...It's a military occupation."

Juan Torres, whose son, Army Spc. Juan Torres Jr. was killed in Afghanistan in 2004, called on the crowd to join antiwar protests in Washington D.C. on March 21.

"Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation" was another popular chant at the action. At a time when millions of Americans are concluding that the U.S. government should put a moratorium on housing evictions instead of lining the pockets of AIG executives, the time to rebuild the antiwar movement at the grassroots is now!