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Gathering of Eagles

'Gathering of Eagles'
to protect Vietnam Veterans Wall

Leftist activists who march to the Pentagon tomorrow will discover that their path won't be as clear as it has been in the past.

The group, led by Cindy Sheehan, Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clark and their ilk, plan to gather March 17 at the Vietnam Memorial Wall to begin a march to protest America's involvement in the Iraq war. The date marks the fourth anniversary of the war's beginning.

This time, however, protestors will see objectors if they spit on Iraqi veterans again, or throw paint on a war memorial. This time, they will encounter a buzz saw of Vietnam veterans and supporters who will gather to protect the Wall, and show their support for U.S. troops. The counter-protestors are calling themselves the Gathering of Eagles.

"… An eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks. The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it."

An unknown author wrote that description, but it describes how the veterans see their mission. They are angry that the Wall is being used as a jumping off point for a political protest and they are gathering to protect it from another storm of anti-war activists.

"The anti-war/anti-America group cannot be allowed to use the Vietnam Memorial Wall as a back-drop to their anti-America venom and stain the hallowed ground that virtually cries out with blood at the thought of this proposed desecration ... it must not happen," said veteran Bud Gross. "… All Americans are invited to support our effort, which is intended as a defender of hallowed ground and intended as a non-violent competition between those that would sell out America and those of us who support freedom and keeping the fight with the enemy on distant shores."

The group defending the Wall will be wearing armbands to identify themselves. Those who are unable to stand with the defenders are being asked to wear armbands with small U.S. flags to show their own communities that they abhor the Fonda-Sheehan tactics.

"We'll be there to act as a countervailing force against the Cindy Sheehan-Jane Fonda march from the Vietnam Memorial to the Pentagon," retired Navy Capt. Larry Bailey said. "We will protect the Vietnam Memorial. If they try to deface it, there will be some violence, I guarantee you."

Bailey and thousands of his fellow Vietnam vets are worried that the anti-war protesters will damage the wall, just as they spray-painted the steps of the Capitol at their last march.

The wall is sacred to the men and women who fought in that war.

"It is our contact with our dead brothers -- those who lost their lives in the cause of their country," Bailey said.

And so it is that Washington will see a Gathering of Eagles - Americans determined to stand up against leftist propagandists who denigrate U.S. troops and the mission for which they sometimes sacrifice their lives.

Retired Col. Harry Riley organized the Gathering of Eagles. Organizers hope thousands will show up in Washington from as far away as Hawaii, and they won't only be Vietnam veterans. Families, friends and veterans of other wars, including Iraq, and soldiers still on active duty, will be there to defend the Wall.

"When we say a gathering of eagles, that signifies people who support the American way," Bailey said.

The leftist Web site MarchonPentagon.org describes the anti-war demonstrators this way: "The March on the Pentagon has already attracted more than 1,500 endorsers, including prominent individuals and national and grassroots organizations. Students on college campuses and in high schools will be attending in large numbers. There will be a large turnout from the Muslim and Arab American community, which is organizing throughout the country."

The movement is well-financed. Its sponsor list is lengthy and contains highly recognizable names, as well as those of Fonda and Sheehan:
· Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark (who offered his services to defend Saddam Hussein)
· Ultra-liberal Congresswoman Maxine Waters
· Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
· Ron Kovic, Vietnam veteran and author of "Born on the 4th of July"
· Mahdi Bray, executive director, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
· Waleed Bader, vice chair of the National Council of Arab Americans and former president of Arab Muslim American Federation
· Medea Benjamin, co-founder, CODEPINK and Global Exchange
· Free Palestine Alliance
· Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
· Islamic Political Party of America
· FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front)
· Islamic-National Congress
· Gay Liberation Network
· Muslim Student Association
· Jibril Hough, chairman, Islamic Political Party of America

Retired Air Force Col. Smitty Harris, a former Vietnam POW, doesn't believe Fonda's protests carry the weight they once did. Harris says Fonda's actions at the march last month were "anti-American," just as they were in the 1970s, and won't have much effect on public opinion.

"It was big news during the Vietnam era when they had these marches ... because people didn't have all the alternative ways of finding out what is true and what's not," he recently told Agape Press. "So I don't think it's going to have a big effect." In fact, he says, it could even be counterproductive.

Today, Harris points out, Americans have talk radio and media outlets like the Fox News Channel to hear the voices of those who do not agree with Jane Fonda's point of view.

Diverse, Dispersed Protests to Mark Iraq War’s Fourth Year

As the United States ushers in a fourth year in Iraq on Monday, growing shame, anger and grief over the war is prompting some active opponents to "step it up a notch."

Hoping to make this weekend the last wartime anniversary of the invasion, some demonstrators are planning local actions throughout the nation, while others are converging in Washington, DC on Saturday for a march to the Pentagon. Planned actions range from quiet gatherings to more confrontational activities, with several groups encouraging non-violent civil disobedience as a protest tactic.

The march on Saturday, organized by the coalition Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), also commemorates the 40th anniversary of the historic October 1967 March on the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. Large protests in the coming days are also planned for Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago.

While encouraging attendance at the march in Washington, United for Peace and Justice, another antiwar coalition, is also urging people to be "vocal and visible" in their own communities with the "loudest and widest demonstrations for peace that [they] can muster." More than 500 events have been posted on the organizations’ site.

On top of their basic anti-war message, protesters this weekend will also voice dismay that recently elected Democrats have ignored their constituents’ calls to oppose the war. The Democratic leadership has been criticized for failing to follow through on campaign promises to oppose the war.

Groups are planning non-violent civil-disobedience actions in cities across the country this weekend.

In Los Angeles, the Quaker activist group American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is planning a march to a US military recruiting center, where fourteen people plan to "sit-in" to disrupt recruitment activities. The group is collaborating with Declaration of Peace, a grassroots anti-war action campaign that is coordinating similar actions of civil disobedience nationwide.

Georgie Noguera of the AFSC in Los Angeles said activists are turning to civil disobedience after exhausting other tactics to stop the war.

"If [lawmakers are] not listening to us when we’re speaking, and they’re not listening to us when we’re voting," Noguera told The NewStandard, "the next logical step is to force them to hear what we’re saying by making it uncomfortable for them and making it so they can’t ignore us anymore."

"The momentum is right... for people to take it to the next step," she continued "which is, ‘I’m going to put myself on the line with peaceful disobedience to show my opposition to the war. And I’m willing to get arrested to do that.’"

Similarly, California organizer Antonia Juhasz said that after four years, they’re looking to civil disobedience because "we feel the need to step up our resistance to the war." She is planning with other activists to blockade the entrance to the Chevron World Headquarters in San Ramon, California to protest the perceived oil agenda driving the war.

On the opposite coast, Noguera and Juhasz’s sentiment is shared. In King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, demonstrators intend to block the entrance to the offices of weapons-producer Lockheed-Martin to protest the company’s alleged war-profiteering. Robert Smith, of the Brandywine Peace Community, the group behind the action, said civil disobedience expresses "a firm, clear, emphatic ‘no.’"

"All of the legal public demonstrations are important," he told TNS. "It is, however, vital that there be people who will resist, who will say the law will not prevent us from declaring peace."

The Christian Peace Witness for Iraq says over 700 people will risk arrest Friday night in a prayer gathering in front of the White House; the group did not obtain a protest permit.

"Millions of people around the world sadly believe that this is a Christian war because our leaders have confused the foreign policy of the United States with the purpose of God," said the Reverend Jim Wallis in a press conference yesterday. "We need to clear up the confusion. Tomorrow night, we begin that."

The Occupation Project is organizing a "sustained" presence at lawmakers’ offices in Illinois on Monday – part of a campaign that began in February in which protesters have occupied about 40 offices of congressional representatives from both parties who refuse to vote against additional war funding, Last week, police arrested twelve activists in Maine for refusing to leave a federal building and Senator Susan Collins’ (R–Maine) office inside. The Project says 181 activists have been arrested since the campaign began

Bruce Gagnon, who has been arrested several times since 2005 for staging occupations of lawmakers’ offices in Maine, is urging others to join the Occupation Project. "The time has come for those in the anti-war movement to step outside our normal activist boxes," Gagnon wrote on the Project’s website. "If we wish to end the war then we must create positive, non-violent conflict in our communities. We must force the politicians to step outside their comfort zones on the Iraq war issue."

Since Monday, the Encampment to Stop the War has been holding protests across from the Capitol building to oppose increased funding for the war. While the protests are legal, activists are staging civil disobedience as well; ten activists were arrested yesterday for confronting Democrats during a House Appropriations Committee meeting.

Beyond this weekend, the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance is organizing a week of non-violent direct action, called "No Business Before the People’s Business" from March 26 to 29. The actions are intended to coincide with the Senate’s consideration of the next supplemental budget for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, activists staged civil disobedience in an attempt to stop military shipments out of the Port of Tacoma this month.

Aside from civil disobedience, protesters are planning less-confrontational actions across the country.

Nancy Moran, of the Tulsa Peace Fellowship in Oklahoma, told TNS that marchers will be wearing burlap sacks and ashes as a "symbol of mourning, sorrow and regret." She said she hopes "a lot of Americans are feeling [that sentiment] – those that favored this war and are starting to have second thoughts."

In St. Louis, Missouri on Sunday, protesters will start a vigil before 3,000 tombstones bearing the names of killed US military and Iraqi civilians. The vigil will end on Monday with an Occupation Project action at Senator Claire McCaskill’s (D-Missouri) office.

A Maine-based campaign called From Every Village Green is bringing together demonstrators on over 100 village greens throughout the state. Ron Greenberg, who started the project, said the effort is a response to the challenges of organizing Mainers against the war when the population is so dispersed.

"I could get a call from somebody in a very small town who says, ‘I think that I’m alone here.’ And that same week, I might hear from four of five people from that town. So putting them together has energized everybody."

Greenberg said the protests are a reaction to the deaf ear lawmakers in the state have turned to their constituents. "People have been having a hard time making a connection with our senators," Greenberg said. "We seem to be ignored on this issue [of stopping the war]."

Other demonstrations are happening virtually. One Million Blogs for Peace is trying to sign up one million blogs to oppose the war in 30 days. Activists are also asking people to write peace messages in red print on packages and envelopes they mail.

The AFSC’s Noguera said she sees the actions taking place across the country as a sign of "a certain momentum now that we didn’t have before."

"We know what we’re doing is right," she said. "We know that the cost of human life is unacceptable, so we’re going to step it up."

A.N.S.W.E.R. claims to be non-violent yet past demonstrations have proven that many of them have resorted to violence. While against war they advocate civil disorder and civil violence. Just the opposite of the Bibles teachings. Many of these people claim to support the Troops yet they have many times disrespected the Troops especially the memorials that have been placed to honor those having given their lives for them and this nation. To attack those defending them and to dishonor the dead is nothing more than an atrocious act.

Those simpleton cowards have absolutely no clue. They think that they can pacify these terrorists into leaving us alone with just words.Even if the terrorists were on their doorstep with a bomb that is already in the process of going off they still wouldn't admit to it. The only time they would start yelling is after the fact, if they were to survive. Then they would blame us all for not doing more.