Carl T. Hall and Vanessa Marlin, Staff Writers San Francisco Chronicle Saturday, January 27, 2007
(01-27) 15:13 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Thousands of protesters took to the streets of downtown San Francisco this afternoon in a show of escalating discontent over President Bush's planned troop buildup in Iraq.
Some 3,000 to 5,000 protesters marched through city streets in a passionate condemnation of the administration's handling of the war effort. Though the protest was smaller than what organizers had hoped, the march was one of several anti-war rallies held around the country to bolster a larger event in Washington, D.C. today with tens of thousands of marchers.
In San Francisco, protesters included a drum corps, a marching band, a crew of anarchists, Gray Panthers and plenty of families. They began around noon at Powell and Market streets, then walked down Market toward the Bay and north along the Embarcadero to Pier 31.
There they gathered in the late afternoon and listened to speeches against the war -- and had plenty to say themselves.
"This is the wrong war. It's a war for bogus reasons. It's an illegal war," said Korean War veteran John Shively, 79, of Oakland.
Several people wore buttons reading "Purge the Surge." One was Cathy Quistgard of Santa Rosa, the mother of two Iraq war veterans who had spent a year in the same Army Special Forces unit in Baghdad.
"I hope people are starting to be more aware of what the situation is, and that we need to be out here," Quistgard said. Referring to the president, she added: "He's had a few chances already. You can't just keep trying while people's lives are at stake."
Rachel O'Reilly, 21, a San Francisco office worker, held a sign demanding "No Iraq Escalation." She was one of many who said she was motivated to join the protest movement by Bush's latest promise of a troop build-up.
"I was against the war before, but I didn't have such passion to be out there as I do now," she said.
The troop build-up also drew in protesters who had previously stayed away because of the anti-Israel tone that permeates many of the peace marches -- including the one on Saturday.
Elly Simmons, 51, and her daughter Maralisa Simmons, 13, of Lagunitas, said she had avoided past marches for that reason but has become so fed up that she changed her mind.
"Definitely, the troop surge had something to do with it," Elly Simmons said. Maralisa held a sign that said "Fighters Need Family," which she explained meant that "people should not have to spend that long in Iraq. They have families here."
The anti-war rallies staged across the country included protests in Los Angeles; Chicago; and Austin, TX. Tens of thousands who converged on Washington, D.C. witnessed actress and fitness guru Jane Fonda's first public appearance against the Iraq war, 35 years after she was dubbed "Hanoi Jane" during the Vietnam conflict by conservatives angered by her anti-war trip to North Vietnam.
Saturday's actions have been planned since just after the 2006 elections as a way to "sort of show the new members of Congress that activists are going to hold them accountable," said Snehal Shingavi, an organizer of the San Francisco event.
Bush's announcement in his State of the Union message last week that he intended to send an additional 21,500 U.S. troops to the war zone gave the protests extra impetus and fueled claims of a nationwide "peace surge" to counter the White House war plan.
One of the speakers at the San Francisco protest was Carolyn Ho, mother of Army Lt. Ehren Watada, who faces court martial starting Feb. 5 at Fort Lewis, Wash., and a possible prison term for his refusal last June to deploy as ordered to Iraq.
Dressed in jeans and an orange overcoat, Ho told the crowd that her son had been motivated to join the military after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, though he did so against her wishes.
When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, she said, Watada felt mislead by the Bush administration. In an interview, Ho said that she was speaking at the rally "not just as a mother, but because I admire acts of conscience."
In San Francisco, she said, "I'm overwhelmed by people's support."
Watada has claimed he didn't have to go to Iraq because he considered the war to be illegal under international law. But a military judge has ruled Watada's attorney can't argue the legality of the war as part of his defense.
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