Monday, March 31

200 Protest the War in Iowa City

From UI Anti-War

Approximately 200 University of Iowa students and Iowa City members rallied and marched for peace Saturday afternoon at an event organized by the University of Iowa Anti-war Committee. The theme of the rally and march was "No war, no warming, no poverty, no borders. Yes to peace."

Speakers included Dr. Ahmed Kanna, an Iraqi-American with a PhD insocial anthropology from Harvard University; Jamila Yakubu, thepresident of the Black Student Union; Karen Kubby, the director of the Emma Goldman Clinic; and Andy Duffy, founder of the Iowa City chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War who served one year in Iraq with the Iowa National Guard.

200 people rallied and marched in Iowa City Saturday, and about 500 more people attended at least one Peace Week event throughout last week. Peace Week, organized by the UI Anti-war Committee, came at a time of increasing violence in Iraq. 25 U.S. soldiers were recently Killed In Action during a two-week period, one of the highest since the war began.

Over 4,000 U.S. troops have been KIA. Spectacular car bombs by Sunni insurgents have led to ghastly death tolls, including one incident that killed at least 54 people and wounded dozens more, and the Mehdi Army - led by radical anti-American nationalist Moktada al-Sadr - has been fighting the Iraqi Army, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and the Badr Brigade to stalemates in Sadr City, Baghdad and Basra this week. This increased violence in Iraq calls into serious question the Bush Administration and mainstream media claims that the surge is working.

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