Thousands of Christians prayed for peace at an anti-war service Friday night at the Washington National Cathedral, kicking off a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. Afterward, participants marched with battery-operated faux candles through snow and wind toward the White House, where police began arresting protesters shortly before midnight. Protest guidelines require demonstrators to continue moving while on the White House sidewalk, according to the Associated Press.

Christians Gather in D.C. to Protest War

Meanwhile back in Alabama, the Alabama Peace and Justice Coalition, made up of eight peace organizations from around the state, plans a number of local protests over the next few days to “demand that the U.S. act now to end the war.”

They are being held in solidarity with the huge peace actions being held in Washington, D.C. and more than 1,000 other cities across the U.S. For more information about those events, go to UnitedForPeace.Org.
 
Auburn 

Monday, March 19 at 5:30 p.m., the Alliance for Peace and Justice will hold a vigil commemorating 4th anniversary of the Iraq invasion at Toomer’s Corner (Magnolia and N. College). Contact Michael Mulvaney, mulvamj@auburn.edu or 203-948-8803. More info at PeaceEagle.org.
 
Birmingham
 
Monday, March 19  from 5:30 to 7 p.m., Birmingham Speaks Out says Stop The Escalation, Support Our Troops, at the Five Points Fountain, 20th St and Magnolia Ave. There will be vigil speakers, singing and citizens time to call for peace. Sponsors include: MoveOn.org, Birmingham One Corps, Pax Christi and Birmingham Peace Project, Endorsed by Progressive Democrats of America/Democracy for America. Contact Sharron Williams at sawart@bellsouth.net.
 
Huntsville  
 
Saturday, March 17  from 11 a.m. to noon, the North Alabama Peace Network will hold a peace rally in solidarity with the March On The Pentagon taking place in Washington, D.C.., at the corner of Whitesburg Ave. and Airport Rd.
 
Monday, March 19  from 4 to 5 p.m., the North Alabama Committee for Nonviolent Action Occupation Project will hold a peace rally in front of Rep. Bud Cramer’s office at 200 Pratt Ave.  (corner of Pratt and Meridian).
 
Monday, March 19  from 5 to 7 p.m., the North Alabama Peace Network will hold an End the War Rally at Wellman Park, in Five Points (corner of Pratt and Andrew Jackson Way).

Contact: Tom Moss, 256-468-5314 cell, NAPN@knology.net  or Linda Haynes, 256-429-8639 cell, lahaynes@knology.net.

Mobile
 
Saturday, March 17  from noon to 3 p.m., the Mobile Citizens for Peace and Mobile Chapter of Veterans for Peace
will rally at Midtown Mobile Park (intersection of Government St. and Airport Blvd.).

Sunday, March 25, the Mobile Citizens for Peace and Mobile Chapter of Veterans for Peace and National Veterans for Peace will caravan to a peace rally in Midtown Mobile Park (intersection of Government St. and Airport Blvd.).

The National Veterans for Peace Caravan is starting from North Carolina headed for a hurricane Katrina rebuilding project in coastal Mississippi.  They will stop at the gates of several military bases across the southeast. On this day, March 25, they will stop in Mobile.
 
After the rally at the park, the groups will go to the local office of congressman Jo Bonner in Mobile. Since last July Citizens for Peace has been requesting a meeting with him, but he never finds the time. So people he claims to represent but won’t speak with are going to his office anyway - without an appointment.
                  
Contact: Fairlie Schreiber, president, Mobile Citizens for Peace, 251-450-5970 (w)   251-645-8539  (h), drunderhill@yahoo.com.
 
Mobile Resist, composed mostly of students and recent graduates of the University of South Alabama in Mobile, has a vanload of members driving to Washington, D.C., for the demonstration and march on Saturday, March 17.  Contact Patrick Aubrey, 251-709-8507,  numutke324@yahoo.com.
 
Montgomery
 
Monday, March 19  at 6 p.m., MoveOn Members in Montgomery will hold a candlelight vigil to “Stop the Escalation, Bring the Troops Home Safely and End the War,” at 1000 E. Fairview Ave. (at Woodley Rd in Old Cloverdale)/ The vigil will honor American soldiers who were wounded or killed in Iraq through a reading of personal accounts written by family members of those who have died. Details and signup at http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/event.html?event_id=34827.

Saturday, March 24  at 4:30 p.m., the Montgomery Peace Project will show films and have a discussion at the Civil Rights Memorial Center, 400 Washington Avenue. The Montgomery Peace Project is hosting the National Veterans for Peace convoy which is traveling through the south to promote Appeal for Redress. Contact Valerie Downes, 334-462-9522, valerie.downes@splcenter.org.

Oneonta    
 
Monday, March 19  from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., the Blount County Committee for Peace and Justice will hold a vigil to Observe 4th Anniversary of Iraq War at the Blount County Courthouse. Wear black and bring candles. They have permission to use the parking spaces in front of the courthouse to place our sandwich boards, which will have each year’s total of the dead (Iraqi, American: active military, contractors, reporters) and they will read names of Alabamainans who have been killed, including one Blount Countian. Contact Sara Rose at 205-429-3088, or Morris Gardner 205-681-4928, or e-mail bpeace@urisp.net.

Tuscaloosa     

Monday, March 19 at 4:30 p.m., the Tuscaloosa Peace Project and MoveOn will hold a vigil commemorating the 4th anniversary of the Iraq war at Denny Chimes on the University of Alabama campus. Contact David Lowe, (205) 246-6126 (cell), caple66wood@gmail.com.
 
Tuesday, March 20 at noon, the Students for a Democratic Society will hold a peace rally at Denny Chimes on the University of Alabama campus. Contact Chapin Gray, 251-605-7780, chapinrose@gmail.com.

Former Marine Jeff Key is one of a growing number of veterans who are speaking out against the war in Iraq.

A native of Walker County who served in Iraq, Key came to speak out on the Southside of Birmingham Saturday when the Birmingham Peace Project called a press conference to challenge a recent statement by Alabama Gov. Bob Riley about veterans and the war.

“I’ve never talked to a person in the military yet who didn’t say we ought to stay and we ought to win the war,” Riley reportedly said recently after a trip to Iraq.

Riley Voices Support for Bush, War in Iraq

Key said he came to set the record straight.

“There are many veterans who oppose this immoral war. I am one of them,” Key said. “It’s not going to solve the problems we have in the Middle East.”

Key recently wrote and performed in the play The Eyes of Babylon about his experiences in Iraq.

The Birmingham Peace Project said in a press release the group was “unable to remain silent before (Riley’s) blatantly ill-informed assertion.”

The group invited Gov. Riley to meet Key, along with former Navy recruiter Susan Mims, Veteran for Peace leader David Waters and others who will afford him the opportunity to meet military personnel who, for many reasons, condemn the Iraq War. Not surprisingly, the governor was a no show.

The group also invited Democratic Party nominee Lucy Baxley and Libertarian Party nominee Loretta Nall to attend, and Nall was the only one to show.

“As a Libertarian I believe that only defense is legitimate and since the Iraq war is not a defensive war it is both illegal and immoral,” Ms. Nall said. “If elected Governor of Alabama I will immediately call for the withdrawal of Alabama National Guard troops and I will be a vocal advocate for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. You should be wary of candidates who support the war or fail to call for immediate withdrawal of our troops. Remember that they do not have children fighting there.”

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Former Marine and playwright Jeff Key speaks to a small group of people at the Birmingham Festival Theatre Saturday, along with Libertarian Party candidate for governor Lorretta Nall, the Rev. Jack Zylman and Peggy Bonfield.

Just prior to giving lip service to the war dead at Arlington today, in a speech in which he said, “America is free,” King George W. Bush signed a law banning protests at military funerals.

Does anyone else see the contradiction?

Meanwhile, the Iraq Veterans Against the War say they will spend this Memorial Day in its “true meaning of remembrance” and not in decadent celebrations of the three-day weekend, barbeques, discount sales events, and flag-waving which has come to replace the image of fallen service members in the minds of most Americans.

On another Memorial Day note, it appears from perusing the online calendars today that the sad city of Birmingham, Alabama, can’t put together a single event to celebrate this somber national holiday at a time when the nation is at war. Or maybe all the mainstream media online calendars are just pathetic.

Guess we’ll break out the Yuengling and find some dead animal to barbeque. What do you think?