Keep On Protesting
By Kavin Paulraj
Staff Writer

I was picketing against the illegal U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq today, when someone quizzically asked: "Isn't the war over?"

The war is only beginning. The United States military, carefully protecting Iraqi oilfields, while allowing the ransack and plunder of Baghdad's National Museum of Antiquities and National Library, is in the Middle East for the long haul. And the anti-war movement must adapt accordingly. Unfortunately, hopes of peace and military restraint were dashed by the Bush administration. "Peace" alone is not a sufficient slogan anymore; Rumsfeld and Co. will easily co-opt it to back their new Pax Americana (read: stability on U.S. terms) in a neo-colonial empire in West Asia.

The anti-war movement could not prevent U.S. aggression, so we must now support resistance against the United States. The mainstream media has aready begun to label Iraqi resistance fighters as "terrorists." But resistance in theis case is a justified resistance against an occupying force. As citizens of the world, we owe it to our brothers and sisters in other countries to agitate, boycott, and overthrow the imperialist regime that rules us.

For the new anti-war movement to succeed, we would have to support the 20,000 Iraqis who converged on Nasiriya on April 15 to protest U.S. efforts to create a puppet government.

Just as we would have supported Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian independence movement, just as we would have marched alongside Martin King Jr. in the Civil Rights movements, it is now our turn to refuse and resist the Bush-Cheney doctrine of U.S. domination. Non-violent civil disobedience now seems to be the only way to stay true to the ideals of peace and non-violence and stop the Bush administration at the same time.