War Protesters Carry Out Multiple 'Strikes' All Over Washington

WASHINGTON — Gleefully adapting the "direct action" anti-war tactics their parents used to help stop the Vietnam War, thousands of activists disrupted traffic and business in the nation's capital Wednesday to protest the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

At the headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service, 32 protesters were arrested trying to block access to the building they said symbolizes the taxes that are being used to fund the war. In addition to a traditional march to the Capitol and demonstration across from the White House, bands of protesters roamed the "K Street Corridor," targeting military contractors, oil companies, political organizations and news media outlets as "pillars of the war."

Protesters also descended on the Democratic National Committee headquarters — charging that the Democratic congressional majority has not stopped the war begun by the Republican administration of President Bush. Wearing white masks and black hoodies, silent walkers began in Arlington National Cemetery and proceeded throughout the District on a "March of the Dead." Each marcher carried the name of an American or Iraqi killed in the war. Drummers pounded plastic buckets on a dozen corners. Anti-torture demonstrators staged a waterboarding in Lafayette Park, across from the White House. College students shouted "Hell no, we won't go" outside an army recruiting office.

"It is decentralized," explained Lisa Fithian, an organizer from Austin, Texas. "It's all over the place and it lasts all day long. Mass marches are important as they show the numbers of opponents to the war. But today we're doing more than 600 direct actions in cities all over the country. It's a different way to get more people out."

As the protesters snarled traffic and horns honked incessantly in downtown Washington, Fithian rode a bicycle between "actions" to coordinate the chaos.

"It's like pop-out guerrillas all over," she said. "But police aren't arresting. They're deciding to let (the protesters) go."

Students for a Democratic Society — the successor generation to the SDS that sparked protests in the Vietnam era — sponsored a street dance for students who spent their spring break at the protests.

"SDS is here to Funk the War," said organizer Jenna Peters-Golden from Philadelphia.

With split-second timing, organizers ran yellow crime scene tape around signal light poles on four corners and stopped traffic at the intersection of 14th and K Streets — forcing cars to stop all around as scores of students filled the square inside the tape boundaries and danced to music from a portable amplifier. The lunch-time disruption was in the neighborhood of offices of Bechtel, Lockheed Martin and Halliburton, all large military contractors.

"I've been marching on every anniversary of the start of the war," said Tom Keenan, a 23-year-old senior at the University of Alabama. "This year we decided to make life a little harder for the corporations that profit from the war." Keenan said there is a "surprisingly strong chapter of SDS" on the Tuscaloosa campus considering that it is located "in such a conservative area."

He came with one other University of Alabama student but dozens of protesters came from other colleges.

It took police nearly an hour to end the dancing and get traffic moving again.

Earlier, at the intersection of L and 17th Streets, eight protesters wearing burkas and masks fastened themselves together with their arms inside plastic pipe covered with black tape. They sat in a circle — forcing police to block off traffic for four blocks around it during rush hour. It took more than a hour for police to bring in portable generators, power saws and bolt cutters to separate the passive demonstrators and drag them off the street. Police videotaped the entire operation as a precaution against charges of using excessive force.

Meanwhile, dozens of other activists watched from behind yellow police tape on the sidewalks and chanted "This is what democracy look like" and "Arrest Bush, not peacemakers."

The Granny Peace Brigade held a knit-in. Veterans for Peace demonstrated at the National Archives — where the U.S. Constitution is kept.

And protesters gathered and shouted outside the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil companies.

"Oil is about politics. Oil is about power. And oil is about profits," said Antonia Johansz, a protester from San Francisco. Part of the Bush administration's strategy is to change Iraq's oil economy from nationalized to privatized, she charged, which opens it up to exploitation by U.S. oil companies rather than leaving it under Iraqi government control.

Adam Eidinger explained that he was dressed as a polar bear to demonstrate "the connection between the war and global warming."

The war emits more carbon than many nations, he pointed out. "And it's being fought for oil."

Matt Arnold came as a member of a marching band from New York City called the "Rude Mechanical Orchestra."

"We've been doing this for four years" — debuting at protests outside the 2004 Republican National Convention, he explained. Outfitted in green uniforms, he said the amateur musicians play "for social justice and to bring a little levity" to demonstrations.

In some office windows, workers taped signs of support: "Bring them home." "End the war."

"This is the fifth anniversary of shock and awe," said organizer Leslie Cagin. "Since then, it's been five years of shocking and awful."