03/17/06 Anti-war Voices Will Ring Out Saturday

Featuring the anti-war movement - Madison, WI.

As the war in Iraq grinds into its third year, anti-war activists plan to be out in force this weekend to call for its end.

The highlight in Madison promises to be a march on Saturday, culminating in a rally that organizers hope will draw up to 1,000.

"I think it's going to be a big turnout," organizer Rachel Friedman said. "I think people are wanting to get their voices heard."

The event will coincide with other anti-war protests planned nationally and worldwide, with at least 20 slated to dot Wisconsin, from tiny Hayward in the north to Beloit in the south.

The Madison event is sponsored by a coalition of more than 20 anti-war, Democratic, socialist, religious and other groups. It will begin at UW's Library Mall, where protesters will gather at 12:30 p.m., march past the Kohl Center, which will be hosting the Wisconsin high school basketball tournament, and end with an indoor rally at the Orpheum Theatre downtown.

Just before the march the Madison Area Peace Coalition will organize a demonstration at the military recruiting station at the southeast corner of East Washington Avenue and Thierer Road, near East Towne Mall, from 11 a.m. until noon. (More information is available at www.madpeace.com.)

Then on Monday, the third anniversary of the war, four people led by veteran peace activist Joy First will be in Washington, D.C., to march on the Pentagon, where they and 100 others from the National Campaign for Non-Violent Resistance plan to risk arrest by entering restricted ground.

Friedman said the group printed 500 posters for the Saturday event, which have been snapped up by local co-ops and other businesses to advertise it. She's also buoyed by support received during last weekend's St. Patrick's Day parade, during which they handed out at least 200 fliers.

"We ran out before we turned the second corner of the Capitol," she said. "We got a great response. We were carrying our Bring the Troops Home' signs and people were cheering and yelling."

She added, however, that support was not universal.

"A couple of people gave us thumbs down," she said.

A local group giving the coalition a big thumbs down is the Vote No to Cut and Run political action committee, led by Dane County Republican members, started in response to referendums in Madison and Monona that will ask voters next month to weigh in on whether to bring the troops home.

The referendum is advisory and would have no legal standing. But supporters say it would send a strong message to Congress.

"I think it would be a total disaster," said Bill Richardson, one of three Dane County Republicans who started the group, of pulling troops from Iraq. "I think we'd see the Middle East going into implosion and millions of deaths would be the result."

But he said his group is not large enough to go head-to-head with the anti-war crowd, and he doesn't anticipate a counter-demonstration on Saturday.

"We're pretty much a small, grass-roots outfit," he said. "We don't have coalitions of people. We're concentrating on getting people to vote, and getting people to vote no."

He attributed the group's size to the fact that their opponents have been organizing for several months, while he and his colleagues are in the initial process of reaching out to conservative and veterans groups.

"They seem to be very well funded and, to their credit, very well organized," he said of the anti-war activists.

Richardson said instead of protesting, his group plans to spend the weekend delivering yard signs and handing out bumper stickers, and getting its message out through its Web site at www.votenotocutandrun.com.

\ E-mail: selbow@madison.com