Minneapolis, MN – Over 50 people protested on Aug. 6 to mark the 71st anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasak. The call was to stop to the endless series of U.S. wars and military interventions. The protest came five days after the start of what appears to be a new campaign of U.S. airstrikes in Libya. The protest was in the West Bank neighborhood of Minneapolis in front of May Day Bookstore and was well received by many African members of the community who joined in the protest or rolled down their car windows to wave and give peace signs to protesters.

The protest was organized under the call of ‘Say No to Endless War!’

Meredith Aby-Keirstead, a member of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, was one of the main speakers. She addressed the recent attack on Libya: “We have been given the excuse that the reason for these new Libyan airstrikes is because the U.S. has to take out the increasing danger of ISIS in Libya. We have been given this excuse as the justification for intervening and expanding Syria’s civil war and for a third intervention in Iraq. However, it critical to understand why Libya is a failed state and why ISIS has gotten stronger in Syria and Iraq. And it is not due to the lack of U.S. bombs but rather because of them! In Iraq, in Syria and in Libya the U.S. has taken out or destabilized governments that are independent of U.S. corporate interests and has tried to replace them with puppets. The U.S. has created the very instability it is claiming to save the people of the region from. But, after years of U.S. bombs, troops, weapons and meddling, does anyone believe more of the same will make things better for the people of the region? No!”

Aby-Keirstead continued, “As a movement we need to be more vocal about challenging the U.S. war on terror – especially when we are in an election cycle where neither major party candidate to be the next commander-in-chief is even attempting to promise to drop less bombs or bring the troops home. Please use today as a springboard for more action. We need to chant louder, we need to ask tough questions at campaign events, we need to call and pester members of Congress, we need to talk about this issue even when the media doesn’t – we need to make the issue of the War on Terror an issue of discussion and not cede the debate to the other side who uses fear of Islamic extremism to justify mass bombing campaigns in our name.”

After the protest there was program at Mayday Books with Sami Rasouli, an Iraqi-American peace activist who works in Iraq with the Muslim Peacemaker Teams where he gave a firsthand account on the affects of U.S. intervention.

The protest was organized by the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition and endorsed by a range of Twin Cities area peace and justice groups.

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