The war we resist today began in 2001; declared as a reaction to 9/11, it was fully prepared for prior to 9/11. In less than a year, Bush was agitating for war in Iraq – searching there for weapons of mass destruction. Three nuns found them in Colorado. Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson enacted a Citizens’ Weapons Inspection – cutting the fence at the N-8 Missile Silo to expose the presence of a first strike nuclear weapon on high alert.

And I look at the struggle of the Palestinians whose ties to their land go back centuries and whose children can only see giving their lives in that struggle. And I look at the Colombians and the peasants of Central America who have to renew their strength every day and every generation. And I look at the history of our own country and the struggle of working people and people of color and women. None of these struggles is won – like a ball game; each must be borne daily. Clearly, we don’t get everything we struggle for but we have to fight for everything we get. One of the tragedies in this country is the sense that freedom is a possession. We can own it; it can’t be taken from us! It has made us the most pathetic and enslaved people of the world.

I have always written a narrative about my experiences in civil resistance, but I am finding myself wanting to avoid writing about this past action.  Friday morning I found out that Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize and it sickens me.  Not only does he continue the illegal and immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I personally felt the expression of violence from his administration as I and 23 others were forcefully removed from the White House sidewalk where we were exercising our First Amendment rights on Oct. 5.

In the spring of this year the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) called together a coalition of peace groups to plan a large demonstration at the White House to mark eight years of war and occupation in Afghanistan.  The coalition eventually included the War Resisters League, Witness Against Torture, Atlantic Life Community, Activist Response Team, World Can’t Wait, Vets For Peace, Haymarket, Code Pink, Peace Action, After Downing Street, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Voters for Peace, Black is Back, and Progressive Democrats of America.

All of the groups committed to following the practices of nonviolence as we organized for an action at the White House on the eve of 8 years of war and occupation in Afghanistan.  Our demands would be an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, an end to the drone bombing of Pakistan, closing of Bagram and Guantanamo, and paying reparations to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq who have suffered so much as a result of our government’s imperialistic policies.  We had a conference call almost every week for four months to plan this action initiated by NCNR.  It wasn’t always an easy process with so many people working together, but it was important to bring many groups together in coalition to create a large action that could not be ignored by the White House.

Jeff Leys with Voices for Creative Nonviolence did a lot of work in getting a registration form and database set up on the Voices website so we would have a sense of how many people wanted to participate in the action.  The weeks prior to the action, I was watching the number of names in the database grow.  By the time I left Madison, we were expecting that close to a hundred people would risk arrest at the White House on Oct. 5.

I flew to DC on Friday with my daughter Jennifer who would be working with seasoned activists on coordinating support work.  We always need good support people and so I was very happy that Jennifer would have this opportunity to learn more about what is involved in coordinating support for a large action.  I am hoping that this experience will give her the confidence she needs to step more deeply into the important role of coordinating support for future actions.

On Saturday I went to a meeting with the Witness Against Torture group to discuss plans for January.  I have been involved in Witness Against Torture actions, risking arrest as we call for the closure of Guantanamo for the past three years.  On his second day in office, Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo within a year, which would be January of 2010.  Now it looks like that deadline will not be met and so we needed to discuss how we will continue the campaign,  including adding the growing concerns of Bagram to what needs to be addressed.  About 60 men who have been cleared for release are still being illegally detained in Guantanamo.  Men are still being tortured there.  And now there are similar things going on in Bagram.  Plans are being made for actions in January to demand an end to torture and illegal detainment of innocent people by the U.S. government.

Sunday was a very intense day with a four-hour meeting to work out our final action planning for Monday.  Over 100 people came together at the Festival Center in Washington, DC for this meeting.  We briefly laid out the basic action scenario, determined the affinity groups who would be participating, and each affinity group shared what they would be doing.  This action would be somewhat different from previous actions that I had been involved in.  In other actions, we would all be together doing the same thing, but for this action we decided to break into smaller affinity groups, with each affinity group doing something a little bit different.  And though each group would be doing something a little bit different, we would all be working together demanding an end to U.S. imperialism.  Art Laffin and Susan Crane gave a moving presentation on legal issues.  Susan began by discussing the importance of civil resistance, reminding us that we are not going to the White House to break the law, but rather to uphold the law.  We finished the meeting by breaking into our affinity groups so we could finalize our action plans within each group for Monday.  At the same time the support group met and finalized their plans.  I was exhausted by the end of the meeting.

After dinner, we went back to our hotel for an early night.  I was feeling excited and anxious about the next day as I drifted off to sleep.

Witness Against Torture was asking people to gather at the Supreme Court building at 8:30 am as the high court began a new session, the first official day of court for Sonia Sotomayer.  I wanted to be there, but I had other responsibilities.  I had to get ready for the 10:30 am rally in McPherson Square that would be followed by a solemn procession to the White House.  So on Monday morning, I went directly to McPherson Square to prepare for the rally which I would be emceeing with Max.  I was feeling very nervous.  I really hate to speak in front of people, but sometimes this is part of what I must do in this work.  We had a gathering of a couple hundred people at the rally where John Carroll and Emma’s Revolution provided music, and Carol Graser and Dave Kunes read poetry.  Chi from Black is Back spoke.

We finished off the rally listening to the inspiring Liz McAlister who reminded us of the importance of clinging to hope.  She said, “It is happening here today/among us.  It is happening all over our world.  Things are way more dynamic and alive than those in power calculate….. Many of us understand that a deeper resistance is summoned of us.  We are trying, praying, working – to be strategic, to be faithful, to be human.  And we know that we must keep at it…… So, dear friends, let us not be awed by the mayhem with which the powers of this world bamboozle us.  Let us embrace intransigent resistance; let us imagine that a new world is possible.  And then let us live as if that new world were indeed among us and so live it into being.”  And with those words, we were ready to step off to the White House as we continued our struggle to bring about a new world.

By the time we got to the White House, two blocks from McPherson Square, there were about 400 people who were with us.  It was a bit chaotic.  There were a couple of large cleaning trucks making an incredible noise and so even with a bull horn, it was almost impossible to hear anyone speaking.  Luckily after 20 minutes, the crew stopped for lunch and the noise stopped.  After a few words by Medea Benjamin, and a reading of the International Declaration of Peace by Cindy Sheehan, the various affinity groups began their actions on the White House sidewalk.  Those with Witness Against Torture, dressed in orange jumpsuits with black hoods, chained themselves to the White House fence.  The War Resisters League, wearing pictures of Afghanis who had suffered because of the war, lay down on the sidewalk, World Can’t Wait did a waterboarding demonstration and exhibited their museum of torture.  Other groups participated in other ways, each group sharing the same sentiments as we called on Obama to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to stop the drone bombing of Pakistan, to close Bagram and Guantanamo, and to pay reparations to help the people that we have done so much harm to.

I was with 23 others in the NCNR/Peace Action affinity group.  We went to the guard house to deliver a letter to President Obama.  The letter was refused and so as we announced one-by-one that we could not leave as long as the war continued, we lay down on the sidewalk in front of the guard gate.  We laid there on the sidewalk, simulating death, for one hour.  Then June, a member of our group, touched each person and said it was time to get up because we had more work to do.  By that time the police had cordoned off the area we were in with yellow crime scene tape.  Other officers were in the process of arresting 61 people from the other affinity groups who had remained directly in front of the White House, about half a block down from where we were.  We talked about joining our brothers and sisters there, but the police told us we would not be allowed to do that and so we remained where we were.

There are quite a few different police jurisdictions that we work with when we do an action in DC.  Generally, as was the case that day, it is the U.S. Park Service Police who we deal with in front of the White House.  They told us many different stories throughout the next couple of hours.  At one point they said they could not arrest us because they did not have resources, Then they told us they would arrest us, and on and on.  We knew that we could not believe anything they were saying to us.  At one point they said they could only arrest 12 of us and that the other 12 would have to leave the restricted area.  We said that we were a community and that was impossible.

At various times they told us we could leave and not face arrest.  We refused to leave.  We are not there because we want to get arrested, but because we have a right to be there under the First Amendment and we also have the responsibility to be there.  As Susan Crane said during the training, we are not there to break the law, but to uphold it.  We could not in good conscience walk away as the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and other places around the world continue to suffer as a result of the imperialistic policies of the US government – and so we stayed to face whatever would follow.

By the time we were there in front of the guard house for about three hours, the 61 arrested in front of the White House had been taken away on a bus and there were only a handful of supporters, including my daughter Jennifer, remaining to witness our action.  The supporters were standing directly on the other side of the crime scene tape and we could walk up to them and talk to them.  They tried to give us water, but they were warned that they would be arrested if they passed anything into a restricted area.

Eventually the DC Metropolitan Police also showed up.  They also gave us varying stories of what was going to happen to us.  We noticed there were also a number of officers from the U.S. Secret Service Police force at the scene after we had been there for more than a couple of hours.  So, eventually there were almost 100 police officers there from three different police jurisdictions for 24 peaceful people, many of us over 50 years old.  It’s hard to believe we were that threatening.  Eventually, they moved our supporters back away from us, and put up more crime scene tape to create a zone between us and our supporters.  They parked two vans in this zone so that visibility was limited between us and our supporters.

As our supporters, now separated from us, began singing “Peace, Salaam, Shalom”, those of us in the restricted zone who were risking arrest joined hands in a circle and began singing along with them.  As I begin to write about what happened next, I can feel the tension and shakiness in my body grow.

After singing and a short discussion on what the police may do next, the circle broke.  As we continued our discussion, it looked like an arrest might be imminent.  The park police were standing nearby with the plastic cuffs.  Some of us thought we should resume our die-in in solidarity with our brothers and sisters suffering in Afghanistan and so we lay down on the sidewalk.

I noticed that there was a solid line of Metropolitan police standing along the edge of the sidewalk between us and our supporters and that the Secret Service police were standing off to the left of the guard house.  Our group was in front of the guard house.  I lay down on the sidewalk and was only there for a few minutes when we were rushed by strong and brutal Secret Service officers.  They came at us in a line.  They pushed the people who were standing over the people who were lying with no concern for anyone getting hurt or stepped on.  An officer rushed in and standing near the top of head while I was lying on the sidewalk, he reached down and grabbed me under the arms, roughly pulled me to my feet and gave me a sharp push in my back.  I was dumb-founded about what was happening.  Violence like this from the police had never occurred in any action I had been part of.  I remember feeling like this was wrong for them to be pushing us away.  I remember feeling like I wanted to hold my ground, that I had every right to be standing there.  But of course, physically that was impossible.  They pushed us brutally and kept pushing us until we were outside of the restricted area, which was about 100 feet.  As I got my third or fourth sharp push, I said, “Don’t touch me.”  Just before they got me to the edge of the taped in area, about 3 or 4 officers began batting me back and forth, and I was finally flung outside of the taped-in area.

My dear friend alachy, who was also part of the group and was brutally and violently shoved, was standing there and I fell into his arms crying.  I felt so powerless and so violated.  Then Jennifer came over.  She had seen the whole thing and was feeling upset, having watched her Mom being treated that way.  Our group, along with our supporters, walked across the street to Lafayette Park to process what had happened and determine what we wanted to do next.  We decided that we would send out press releases about what had happened and file a formal complaint against the Secret Service police.

I later found out that around the same time this brutality was happening outside, a reporter asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the protesters outside during the daily press briefing.  Mr. Gibbs said, “I think the President has long believed that whether your opinion is on one side of this issue or the other, that this is the — the greatness of our country is that you get to amplify that opinion.”

Who gave the orders to treat us in such a violent manner?  The Secret Service are in the service of the White House.    We were becoming a nuisance and they wanted us to leave.  If we were breaking the law, they should have arrested us.  If we were not breaking the law, we should have been allowed to continue our activities.  Never, during the Bush years, were we treated like this at the White House.   There were about 60 police officers from the U.S. Park Service Police and the D.C. Metropolitan Police who witnessed the brutality of the Secret Service police, yet did nothing to stop it.  Max reported that after the violence, the head of the Park Police told Max that it was not their decision to treat us this way, yet they did nothing to stop it.  Is there a change of tactics in the Obama White House to use force with protesters?

On Tuesday I went to see my congressional representatives to share what had happened with them.  The aides in Senator Feingold’s office and Congresswoman Baldwin’s office were very interested in my story and asked that they be kept in the loop.  They said they would see if they could help in anyway as we continue to examine what happened and why the Secret Service would use violence on peaceful citizens exercising their First Amendment rights in front of the White House.

Because of the violence used against us, this action was more traumatic than many previous actions.  However, they cannot and will not deter us.  I always carry a quote from Dan Berrigan into my actions.  He said, “We have assumed the name of peacemaker, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price.  And because we want peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war of course, continues, because the waging of war by its nature, is total, but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial….We cry peace and cry peace and there is not peace.

There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war, at as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace, prison, and death in its wake.”

We cannot give up and must continue our struggle for peace and justice, whatever comes.  This winter and spring Voices for Creative Nonviolence is initiating the Peaceable Assembly Campaign.  Witness Against Torture will continue their call to end torture, and close Bagram and Guantanamo.  I will be joining both of these groups in DC in January.  I will also be facing charges on January 25 in a trial with Malachy for our action in June at the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition vigil at the White House.  Beginning in February, the Peaceable Assembly Campaign will continue locally, and I hope that we can build a strong campaign around that initiative here in Wisconsin.  I look forward to continuing this work with all my dear friends and as Liz McAlister reminds us, “let us live as if that new world were indeed among us and so live it into being.”

Activists had sought a meeting with the Obama Administration to urge an end to the war in Afghanistan

Washington, D.C. – Twenty-three non-violent peace activists calling for an end to the US war in Afghanistan were violently pushed and dragged away from a White House gate by Secret Service officers this afternoon. The activists, participating in a larger demonstration of over 300 people organized by the National Campaign for Non-Violent Resistance, had sent a letter to President Obama last month requesting a meeting today to discuss their opposition to the war.

After a non-violent “die-in” at the White House gate, the peace activists waited for over three hours while various police departments, including the Washington, DC Metro Police, Park Police and Secret Service, gave conflicting stories about whether the activists would be arrested or not, the group’s request to meet with someone from the Administration having been summarily rebuffed by White House guards.

Suddenly, with no warning and with dozens of other police officers watching, a group of about a dozen Secret Service officers swooped in to push and drag the protesters, who included a number of retirees, away from the White House gate and outside a police perimeter that had been established in the normally public area in front of the White House.

“I wonder how the officers who brought a grandmother to tears with their completely unnecessary, harsh use of force will explain how their day went when they go home to their families at the end of their shift,” asked Kevin Martin, Executive Director of Peace Action. Martin was shoved hard in the back by two Secret Service officers, causing him to fall into National Campaign for Non-Violent Resistance Co-convener Joy First, a grandmother from Wisconsin. First was roughed up by several officers and was still in tears twenty minutes after the incident.

“Clearly, the Obama Administration, which has increased the violence in Afghanistan with its escalation of troops earlier this year, would rather have Secret Service thugs rough up peace activists than to engage in a dialogue with us about Afghanistan,” said Martin. Paul Kawika Martin (no relation), Peace Action’s Policy Director, had just returned from a citizens’ peacemaker delegation to Afghanistan organized by the peace group Code Pink. “But we will not be deterred, and the American people have turned decidedly against this war. We call on Obama to meet with us to discuss Afghanistan and apologize for the brutality of the White House police force, and to begin bringing US troops home so the people of Afghanistan can resolve their country’s problems.”

Peace Action is the country’s largest peace and disarmament group with over 100,000 members nationwide.

The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance has worked for peace in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002.

It was a scene repeated countless times during the Bush years:

A few hundred people massed on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House, wearing orange jumpsuits and hoods, holding photos of wounded children or carrying coffins. They chanted antiwar slogans, acted out waterboarding and pretended to die on the sidewalk. Those who refused orders to leave the area — including ubiquitous activist Cindy Sheehan — were arrested.

But the remarkable thing about this familiar antiwar demonstration is that it occurred Monday, and the target was not George W. Bush but the White House’s current occupant. Protesters’ signs carried Obama-specific barbs: “Change? What Change?” “The Audacity of War Crimes.” “Yes We Can: U.S. Out of Afghanistan.”

Read the rest of the article at the Washington Post here.

About 370 antiwar demonstrators were arrested yesterday after planting themselves on the sidewalk in front of the White House, a protest that stretched out for nearly five hours as police removed them in stages to avoid a backlog at a processing center.

The demonstrators, who had stayed in Washington after Saturday’s antiwar rally and march past the White House, were carted away in Metro buses and police vans. Fingerprinting and booking continued late into the evening at a U.S. Park Police operations facility in Anacostia.

Those arrested were charged with demonstrating without a permit, a misdemeanor that carries a $50 fine and — like a traffic ticket — can be paid by mail or challenged later in court, said Sgt. Scott Fear, a Park Police spokesman.

In an action that they had planned several weeks ago and discussed with police, the demonstrators went to the White House gate on Pennsylvania Avenue NW about 12:30 p.m. and tried to deliver to President Bush the names of all the soldiers and civilians killed in Iraq. When the president did not meet with them, they sat down for their protest.

With bullhorns and hoarse voices, they yelled at the executive mansion, asking whether the president was peeking from behind a curtain or hearing them at all.

“You are a coward! You didn’t meet us in Crawford; come meet us now,” said Beatriz Saldivar of Fort Worth, whose nephew, Army Sgt. Daniel Torres, was killed in action nearly eight months ago during his second tour in Iraq. In August, Saldivar had joined antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan during a protest outside the president’s Texas ranch, when Sheehan had asked to talk with Bush about the death of her son, Casey Sheehan, in Iraq.

Cindy Sheehan, who was among the demonstrators yesterday, was the first to be taken into police custody. She smiled at the crowd when police lifted her from the sidewalk and escorted her to a van.

At his daily news briefing yesterday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush is “very much aware” of the past few days of protests and “recognizes that there are differences of opinion” on the Iraq war.

“It’s the right of the American people to peacefully express their views. And that’s what you’re seeing here in Washington, D.C.,” McClellan said. “They’re well-intentioned, but the president strongly believes that withdrawing . . . would make us less safe and make the world more dangerous.”

The group arrested yesterday was led by a coalition of religious leaders. They were joined by anarchists, military families, Iraq war veterans and political activists of various stripes.

“Only people can stop the war,” said Laura Linder, 44, of Chicago. She was wearing a red, white and blue bandanna and a Plexiglas hockey mask, and her hands were trembling. She said that the weekend’s protests were the first she had attended and that she had never been arrested. “I’m afraid of getting my face bashed in.”

But the relationship between police and protesters was placid, even jovial at times.

The crowd had headed for the White House with signs, chants and guitars. Four monks kept time with drums and a gong. Half a dozen women pulled off their shirts, standing topless with signs that read, “Breasts, Not Bombs!”

In front of the White House, however, the chants and songs grew quieter as the remaining protesters wilted in the humid afternoon.

Earlier in the day, 41 protesters were arrested about 6:30 a.m. at two entrances to the Pentagon and charged with disorderly conduct, said Maj. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman. They were all released and given court dates, Vician said.

Frida Berrigan, 31, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who organized the protest, said the demonstrators unfurled signs that read “War is Terrorism” and blocked workers’ access to the building.

In late June Holder asked an aide for a copy of the CIA inspector general’s thick classified report on interrogation abuses. He cleared his schedule and, over two days, holed up alone in his Justice Depart ment office, immersed himself in what Dick Cheney once referred to as “the dark side.” He read the report twice, the first time as a lawyer, looking for evidence and instances of transgressions that might call for prosecution. The second time, he started to absorb what he was reading at a more emotional level. He was “shocked and saddened” he told a friend, by what government servants were alleged to have done in America’s name. When he was done he stood at his window for a long time, staring at Constitution Avenue.” Independent Day, Daniel Klaidman, NEWSWEEK dated Jul. 20, 2009

For several years, members of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR] have tried to speak truth to power. For example, after an exuberant rally in Washington, D.C.’s John Marshall Park on June 25, Torture Accountability Action Day, NCNR led a march to the Department of Justice to seek a meeting to discuss the indictment of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney.

A letter had been sent on May 11 to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting a meeting. He never responded, so we marched to the DOJ entrance on Pennsylvania Avenue with banners calling for the prosecution of members of the Bush Administration for war crimes.

Last year, we sent a similar letter to then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Since he did not respond, we rallied on November 10 outside the DOJ’s Constitution Avenue entrance. A public relations person came out and said he would only deliver our letter. Since we were denied a meeting, sixteen of us did a die-in on the sidewalk. The police declined to arrest us.

The same PR person came out on June 25 and took a copy of the Holder letter. This time he claimed we would receive a response, but said nothing about a meeting. So again we did a die-in, and twelve of us got on the sidewalk to express our disgust. First, representatives of the DOJ were refusing to meet with concerned citizens, and second, it seemed the illegal machinations of the Bush administration were not going to be investigated. The police had orders not to arrest, so we remained on the sidewalk for at least an hour. Afterwards, we resolved that we would continue our efforts to challenge the Department of Justice.

Media reports surfaced in July suggesting Attorney General Holder is seriously considering the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate torture and other abuses that occurred during the Bush-Cheney administrations. This was remarkable, more so considering the Obama White House is opposed to digging up the skeletons.

It is difficult to ascertain what exactly Holder intends to do. Will this be another whitewash, designed to placate the protesters who are demanding justice for all? Or will Holder actually try to restore the rule of law with a thorough investigation followed by a vigorous prosecution of the war crimes?

What interests me is what effect, if any, Torture Accountability Action Day and the other protests might have had on Eric Holder. Is he a government official with a conscience? Is he prepared to go against the president and his advisors?

Members of NCNR have frequent discussions about “effectiveness.” Presumably all groups have similar discussions. Of course, these discussions have to be grounded in the reality that we are challenging the actions of the U.S. government, the greatest imperial power in world history. And it is essential to recognize we have the best Congress corporate lobbyists can buy.

We have no idea if anyone in government, except for the police, notices NCNR’s acts of civil resistance. It was decades later before it was revealed the Vietnam War protests did affect the likes of Robert McNamara and Richard Nixon. We still have not yet received a response from the attorney general, but we are prepared to remind him it is his duty to investigate further the high crimes and misdemeanors of possibly the most notorious administration in the country’s history. Calling for a serious investigation would ensure Holder’s place in history.

Presumably, our actions directed at the Department of Justice have had no effect on its decision-making. Nevertheless, we will continue to act against injustice regardless of our effectiveness. Any nonviolent direct action can have an effect on those who are participating, those supporting, those observing and those being challenged. Quantifying the effect is very difficult.

The need to speak truth to power is an essential part of my life, and I try to be effective. But in these times when our government persists in its warmongering, refuses to stop shredding the Constitution, passes lame climate change legislation and ignores single payer heath care reform, we must act regardless of our effectiveness.

Max Obuszewski has been a member of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance since its inception.

At around 12:30 p.m. Monday, October 5, 2009, about 22 of us (members of the combined Peace Action and the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance affinity groups) left the main demonstration on the “postcard zone” sidewalk on Pennsylvania Ave in front of the White House and walked west to the nearby entrances of the White House grounds.¹

There one of us, Max Obuszewski, spoke over the gate speaker system with barely visible guardhouse personnel in an attempt to deliver a letter to President Obama (a blown-up copy of which we also carried with us and which we had all signed) requesting to meet regarding our opposition to the US invasion of Afghanistan. Several weeks before the NCNR had sent the original of that letter to the President, but had received no response.

After a few minutes of conversation between Max and the disembodied voice from the guard shack, we got nowhere. We then did a die-in there on the sidewalk in front of the pedestrian and vehicle entrances to the White House. One by one, after we each made a brief unscripted statement about why we were there, we lay down motionless and silent for the next fifty minutes. My own statement was along the lines of I was “dying” because of concern that the US was losing its soul due to its brutal invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and its complicity in last winter’s Israeli invasion of Gaza.

From about 12:40 to 1:30 pm, we lay “dead,” but undisturbed (except for the extremely loud nearby construction machinery on Pennsylvania Ave). Police stood guard and established a yellow “crime scene” tape cordon around us. No police addressed us or ordered us to move.

For about two hours thereafter our group remained on the sidewalk along the iron fence in front of the gates and the guard shack. Our demeanor was neither raucous nor threatening; it was rather like that of folks waiting for an appointment. There was no chanting. During those two hours Max and maybe two or three others had several brief and seemingly courteous conversations with various higher-ranking police officers. The officers sought to cajole us into leaving the area.

One whom I heard speak encouraged us to leave, seeking our cooperation since, he claimed, his arrest resources were stretched thin. Although we couldn’t see them, dozens of other demonstrators were being arrested back in the postcard zone. The officer said we wouldn’t be arrested even if we stayed there all night. (Given the intense noise from the machinery it was very difficult to hear the police or Max’ report backs, or even to discuss our options.)

Outside the “crime scene” tape perimeter and standing on Pennsylvania Ave, about eight or ten of our supporters were keeping an eye on the situation. Some took photos or provided us with plastic bottles of water. At one point an officer confiscated a bottle that had been tossed to us. At times we were prevented from speaking to supporters across the crime scene tape. But at other times the incommunicado wasn’t enforced.

We could see various organized movements of groups of police and police vehicles including a couple of vans – presumably to take us to jail. For a time about a dozen bicycle police lined up in front of us across the northern perimeter of the “crime scene” by the curb on Pennsylvania Ave. preventing further communication with our supporters.

A couple of times police officers passed through us and into the White House grounds. Although we often sat or stood around both the pedestrian and vehicle gates, we didn’t impede anyone’s coming and going.

A force of maybe 20 policemen assembled on the broad sidewalk to the west of us just outside the “crime scene” tape. Some held plastic handcuffs. When it appeared that arrest was imminent, we all stood in a circle, held hands and sung two or three songs. But no arrest occurred. We resumed our informal clustering around the gates. After awhile those police left the area and were replaced by another uniformed group. These had Secret Service badges.

One of our group reported that he overheard an officer say we were about to be “pushed” out of the area. Several of our group then reclined on the sidewalk. Soon the Secret Service approached, and with no explanation or warning, began grabbing and pushing us west along the sidewalk beyond the crime scene perimeter. I was both grabbed and pushed. If I hadn’t been nimble, I would have had to trample those reclining on the pavement.

Some of those on the ground were dragged away. I heard a small older woman who was being manhandled tell the officer that she had a bad leg. Nonetheless he continued pushing her. A few minutes later I saw that she was wearing an Ace bandage around her knee. While a few of our group didn’t get to their feet, none of us physically resisted or defended ourselves in the face of this unprovoked assault.

Reflections

I would urge that the October 5 Action legal team vigorously pursue a formal complaint. Over the years I have been arrested various times for nonviolent anti-war protests in the White House postcard zone. Yet I have never encountered police violence there. This Secret Service violence is a menacing precedent – one that best be nipped in the bud.

The Secret Service needs to learn it can’t impair or endanger U.S. citizens exercising our Constitutional right of assembly and our right to petition the government regarding grievances. At no time did I hear an order – whether from the city police, the park police or the Secret Service — to leave the vicinity. The Secret Service gave us no warning before they began their assault. I don’t recall hearing them say anything before they got physical.

The Secret Service might claim we were resisting arrest or that we were ignoring a lawful order to move. But that would be false. There needs to be clearly understood, court-enforced guidelines to prevent law enforcement agencies using violence against peaceful citizens. Rogue behavior must not be tolerated. Law enforcement agencies need to learn that they above all must respect the law.

The rough stuff risked injury and fomented disorder. Fortunately for everyone involved and despite rather severe provocation, everyone in our group maintained his or her commitment to nonviolence.

*****

The authorities seemed reluctant to arrest us: perhaps they had orders to minimize arrests so as to limit the national and international publicity regarding the extent to which U.S. citizens oppose the recurring U.S. invasions of Middle Eastern nations.

Dear Senator Kerry,

I am unsure whether you remember me when I visited you during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on May 21^st of this year. Admiral Mike Mullen was testifying about the current status of our government’s entanglement in Afghanistan.

Last Friday I was found guilty of Disruption of Congress. A nonviolent and victimless crime committed in order to prevent a much greater crime perpetrated every single day in Afghanistan.

I was pleading for you and your colleagues on the committee to realize the futility of this 8-year-old war, which was based on revenge and has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and a thousand honorable American men and women. I believe this war is immoral and unlawful and serves absolutely no interest of the American people. Polls now show a majority of Americans agree with me.

During a pause in the testimony, I rose and directed a question to you. This question ought to be familiar to you, as it was your own in 1971:

“How do you ask someone to be the last American soldier to die for a mistake?”

Indeed, continuing the war and military occupation of Afghanistan is a mistake. It was a mistake for the Persians, it was a mistake for the British, and it was a grave mistake for the Russians. A mistake not unlike our own nation’s mistake in Vietnam. A tragic and immoral war you are intimately familiar with and came to resist in your own way.

The only remaining question is when will the last American soldier die in Afghanistan?

Not unlike your younger self, on May 21^st I was resisting this war, and calling for a change in our nation’s priorities. A change away from funding massive violence and destruction, and instead investing in domestic needs at home and cooperative diplomacy abroad. I was arrested that day for the crime of petitioning our government for a redress of grievances. This is a right I thought was enshrined within the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In the past I have visited your office with a group of Massachusetts residents (at the time I was a DC resident and therefore lacked representation in Congress), more than once, to voice our dissent to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet you continually vote to fund them. People are feeling disconnected and desperate. What happens when a representative government fails to represent the wishes of its own people?

I continue to implore you to work for peace and justice, not destruction and some costly and misdirected attempt at empire. While the national debt grows, the cost of the war in Afghanistan now exceeds $229.8 billion. Death and hatred is what we are gaining from this expenditure. Please help prevent President Obama from following the same destructive course taken by President Johnson.

On December 15^th, Judge Lynn Leibovitz in DC Superior Court will sentence me. I will likely face jail time. I will spend a finite amount of time in the correctional system. However, my call for peace and justice will never end.

In peace and resistance,

Pete Perry

On May 11 the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) (www.iraqpledge.org) mailed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to meet with us to discuss appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration. Since we did not hear back from him, we decided we should go in person to the Department of Justice and ask for a meeting. The crimes of the Bush Administration were so heinous, causing suffering and death for hundreds of thousands of innocent people and they must be held accountable. We must restore the rule of law through prosecution of the war crimes.

Thursday was Torture Accountability Action Day, with people coming together all over the country, remembering that we must hold members of the Bush administration accountable for their crimes. In Washington, DC there was a vigil at a park a few blocks from the Department of Justice with many inspirational speakers. See videos below for excerpts.

After the rally we began our procession to the Department of Justice for an action organized by NCNR. Almost 200 people marched down Pennsylvania Ave. holding banners calling for the prosecution of members of the Bush Administration for war crimes. When we arrived at the Department of Justice we were stopped at the door by the guards and they told us someone would be out to talk to us. The same low-level public relations official that we talked to when we went to the DoJ last November came to speak to us. All he would say is that he would take our letter. We told him that we were there in November. In November he told us he would take the letter and someone would get back to us, but we never heard from anyone. When it became clear that we were not going to be heard, about 15 individuals were moved by conscience to engage in an act of nonviolent civil resistance and lay down on the sidewalk, covered with a poster depicting a victim of war or torture. The pictures were very graphic and moving. They clearly showed the crimes of the past administration. We lay there for an hour and were not arrested. After an hour we got up to continue our work for peace and justice.

Watch the Video: Activists Demand Special Prosecutor for Torture