Minneapolis – On December 17, around three dozen anti-war activists and community members braved 15-degree temperatures and snow flurries to gather outside the busy shopping center at Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenue. Billed as “Send an anti-war message for the holidays: Say no to U.S. wars,” the action was organized by the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition. Holiday shoppers honked and waved in approval at the demonstrators’ signs and banners, which featured slogans like “Money for human needs, not war!”

Speakers drew attention to the ongoing US/NATO proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, denouncing the U.S. aid which fuels that war and calling for negotiations to immediately end the conflict. According to the New York Times, U.S. aid to Ukraine in 2022 surpassed $100 billion, thanks to new budget legislation passed this week.

The protesters also demanded an end to ongoing U.S. military interventions in Iraq, Syria and Somalia, as well as escalatory actions against Iran and China, and U.S. aid to Israel.

Thistle Parker-Hartog of the Anti-War Committee also highlighted the latest U.S. aggression on Venezuela: the kidnapping of diplomat Alex Saab, who now faces legally dubious money laundering charges in Miami. “He was on a mission to negotiate obtaining supplies, and especially food, for the sanctioned Venezuelan people,” she explained. “The war on Venezuelan self-determination continues, and the judicial warfare in the case against Alex Saab is a prime example of that.” Saab’s trial is expected to begin early next year. More information can be found at FreeAlexSaab.org.

The action was endorsed by the Anti-War Committee, Climate Justice Committee, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Haiti Justice Committee of Minnesota, Mayday Books, Minnesota War Tax Resistance, Movement for People’s Democracy, Party of Communists USA, Socialist Party USA – Twin Cities Local, Twin Cities Assange Defense, Twin Cities CPUSA Club, Welfare Rights Committee, Women Against Military Madness, and Veterans for Peace Chapter 27.

The Minnesota Peace Action Coalition’s next anti-war rally will take place on Saturday, January 21 at Mayday Plaza, 301 Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis, at 1 p.m.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #AntiWarCommitteeAWC

The elections are over, and fortunately, the worst right-wing candidates did not prevail in most races. However, the Anti-War Committee remains concerned with the lack of meaningful debate over the Biden administration’s policies that are fueling the war in Ukraine, with no end in sight and a growing risk of escalation. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, the Congressional Progressive Caucus issued a letter calling for a negotiated ceasefire in Ukraine. The letter was a small step, but in the right direction. Facing repercussions from Democratic Party leaders, caucus members quickly retracted it and reaffirmed their support for funding and supplying the war indefinitely.

The anti-war movement is progressive. We march in the streets, not only against imperialist US foreign policy, but also against racist killer cops, anti-union employers, the destruction of the climate, discrimination against LGBTQ people, cruel immigration policies, attacks on reproductive rights, and more. Progressives in Congress did a disservice to the movement they claim to represent by uniting in support of Biden’s Ukraine war policies. We’ve even seen some of our representatives try to imply that the anti-war position is aligned with Trump and his bigoted followers.

In reality, we know that Trump and his supporters have no credibility to claim to be anti-war. During his presidency, Trump violated the Iran nuclear deal in order to impose cruel “maximum pressure” sanctions that caused humanitarian shortages during the worst phase of the pandemic. Trump attempted regime change in Venezuela and Bolivia, and kidnapped Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. Trump gave speeches about pulling US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, but ultimately never did so, instead increasing airstrikes in both countries and declaring a “keep the oil” policy of blatant theft. For Palestine, Trump didn’t even pretend to be anti-intervention; his administration provided unprecedented support for Israel, moving the US embassy to occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and cutting aid to Palestinians. He also presided over the Israeli annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights region.

Sadly, Biden’s administration has followed in Trump’s footsteps and exacerbated US military intervention abroad. Biden has kept sanctions in place around the world, continued to imprison Alex Saab, and pivoted even further away from diplomacy with Iran. Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, but in the most disgraceful way imaginable, seizing billions in the country’s sovereign assets despite a looming humanitarian crisis. Biden has kept the troops in place illegally occupying Syria’s oil fields. In occupied Palestine, Biden has re-pledged absolute US support for Israel’s oppressive “military edge” over Palestinians and other regional targets.

This year, after helping provoke the war in Ukraine with brinkmanship and NATO expansionism, the Biden administration has settled on a policy of open-ended, indefinite military aid to Ukraine, which, coupled with a lack of diplomacy, has solidified exactly the type of “forever war” that Biden once campaigned on stopping. Prolonging this conflict creates more refugees and costs more Ukrainian lives. It floods an already unstable region with more and more weapons, empowers right-wing extremist groups, and continues to risk escalation into a potentially nuclear world war.

Our progressive supporters want to see the billions in US military aid end now, along with the imperialist institutions like NATO that helped spark the war in the first place. We see our responsibility as standing up to our government’s role in the violence. We know from the wars the US helped wage in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, that US interventions are systemically incapable of bringing freedom or peace. It’s time for Congressional progressives to stand firm for real anti-war values.

Money for human needs, not for war! No proxy war with Russia in Ukraine! Disband NATO!

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #Ukraine #AntiWarCommitteeAWC

Minneapolis, MN – On October 25, 35 Haiti solidarity activists held a rally in front of the office of Senator Amy Klobuchar under the slogan “No U.S./UN Military Intervention in Haiti.”

This new military intervention in Haiti continues years of foreign interference in the affairs of that country. Peace and security will not come from turning to the UN Security Council, the Organization of American States (OAS), and especially not the U.S. government, which has poured money into the repressive Haitian National Police, which has collaborated with death squads. Turning to the UN, the U.S. and the OAS to “stabilize” the crisis in Haiti today is akin to pleading with the arsonists to quell the fire they have unleashed.

Activists began the bannering with chants including “No to occupation – yes to liberation!” “No to occupation – yes to reparations” and “No to occupation – yes to self-determination,” to the honks of rush hour traffic.

Speakers included Andrew Josefchak of the Anti-War Committee, who recounted the history of U.S. intervention and the resistance of the heroic Haitian people. “U.S. forces are preparing to deploy to Haiti in order to crush the popular movements of the Haitian people, who have led the way forward in the Americas in the struggle against colonialism, imperialism and slavery going back some 200 years.”

Josefchak continued, “But this isn’t the first time the U.S. has tried to turn back the clock on the Haitian Revolution. Ever since the revolution ended slavery in 1804, Haiti has faced U.S. financial bullying as well as outright invasions. France and the U.S. forced Haitians to pay $30 billion in reparations for their own freedom from their former slave masters! We’re never taught in our schools that a long U.S. invasion and occupation from 1915 to 1934 reinstated slavery on the island. Years later, the U.S.-backed Duvalier family dictatorships ruled from 1957 to 1986. Another U.S. invasion happened as recently as 1994. These invasions and economic coercion have kept the Haitian people from the full self-determination that all people are entitled to by right, and another invasion will only make things worse.”

For the past four years, Haitians have courageously taken to the streets and faced police and paramilitary attacks as they demand their human rights, a fair election, an end to the U.S. domination which has kept them the poorest country in the hemisphere, basic economic rights including a living wage, and an end to corruption and plundering of their public resources. Thousands of unarmed Haitians have been killed but still they struggle for justice.

Bruce Nestor, member of the Haiti Justice Committee and a member of the National Lawyers Guild, who was in Haiti in 2004 shortly after the U.S. coup which ousted the popularly elected President Jean-Aristide, spoke of what U.S./Canadian intervention under the UN auspices really means and looks like. “It means intervention on behalf of political elites who are partners of the international corporations and investment banks in exploitation of Haitian people.” He went on to say, “These elites will get contracts to provide all the services to the troops, the food, cleaning of places they stay, etc., and with this money fund the gangs they hire to oppress the Haitian people and to gain their own political power. This will not bring security, will not bring a stable environment for an election, but will support powerful people who are the source of all that is wrong in Haiti today.”

Other speakers were April Knutson of the Haiti Justice Committee, Marcy Shapiro of the Haiti Justice Committee and WAMM's Solidarity Committee of the Americas, and Christine Harb from the Party of Liberation and Socialism. The Minnesota Peace Action Committee and Women Against Military Madness also played leading roles in organizing the protest.

#MinneapolisMN #Haiti #antiwar #AntiWarCommitteeAWC #Americas

Minneapolis, MN – On September 16 members of the MN Anti-War Committee (AWC) held banners on the footbridge over Interstate 35W at 24th Street in south Minneapolis during rush hour to raise awareness of Israeli attacks on the human rights of Palestinians.

The bannering was held on that day to mark the 39th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatilla massacre. In 1982, from September 16 to 18, right-wing paramilitaries backed by Israel and the U.S., murdered 3500 mostly Palestinian residents of a refugee camp in Lebanon.

#MinneapolisMN #Palestine #FreePalestine #AntiWarCommitteeAWC #MiddleEast

Minneapolis, MN – On August 9, around 100 Palestine solidarity and anti-war activists packed the sidewalk outside Senator Amy Klobuchar’s downtown office to demand immediate action to end U.S. aid to Israel. The action was called on an emergency basis after several days of Israeli military attacks on Gaza as well as ongoing raids on the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank.

This latest round of Zionist violence began on August 5 when Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) bombed a residential building in Gaza to assassinate a resistance leader. The unprovoked attack reportedly killed ten people, including a five-year-old child and several civilians, and was followed by sustained IOF bombardment of the besieged enclave for days. In total, the attacks on Gaza killed 48 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 17 children. Several additional Palestinian were killed by the IOF in the following days amid raids and arrests in the West Bank.

The Minneapolis protest was initiated by the Anti-War Committee (AWC) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and quickly endorsed by more groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations – Minnesota, Youth for Palestine MN, Women Against Military Madness, and the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition.

“Since 2009, how many massacres have we had in Gaza? Countless,” said Taher Herzallah of AMP. “How many children did we lose? How many generations did we lose? How many people have become homeless or permanently wounded and injured?”

“The people of Gaza will not let anybody break them,” he continued. “They will not let a bombardment, or the Israeli government, or Zionism, or anything that happens, break them and break their will to live.”

Activists slammed Senator Klobuchar for her hawkish record, including strong support for U.S. aid to Israel, but the AWC’s Andrew Josefchak explained, “Even if people like Klobuchar are against us, we are still making gains.”

“Palestine only makes the news when Israel bombs Gaza, but the fight continues all the time. There are victories all the time, not only in the rising tide of heroic resistance fighting in the West Bank, but here too,” said Josefchak, citing recent divestment announcements by U.S. corporations like Ben & Jerry’s and Pillsbury after being pressured by solidarity activists.

Organizers announced the next local Palestine solidarity action, a protest demanding that the Minnesota State Board of Investment divest its millions in public pension funds from Israeli companies like weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. That action will take place Tuesday, August 23, at the Governor’s Mansion in Saint Paul (1006 Summit Ave), at 5 p.m.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #Gaza #Palestine #AmericanMuslimsForPalestineMinnesotaAMPMN #AntiWarCommitteeAWC #MiddleEast

Minneapolis, MN – Around 75 people rallied on August 6 to commemorate the deadly U.S. atomic bombings of Japan during World War II and to call for an end to U.S. wars and provocations that threaten nuclear war in the present. Activists lined busy Lake Street with signs and banners while chanting anti-war slogans and delivering speeches.

77 years earlier, on August 6, 1945, the U.S. warplane Enola Gay detonated a nuclear bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, U.S. forces detonated another nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. Comprising the only uses in history of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict, the two attacks killed an estimated 129,000 to 226,000 people, almost entirely civilians. The anniversaries of the bombings have been commemorated by peace activists around the world ever since.

At the Minneapolis rally, activists highlighted the renewed threat of nuclear war stemming from ongoing imperialist U.S. foreign policies.

Kent Mori is an organizer with the Japanese-American social justice group Tsuru for Solidarity as well as the Twin Cities-based Climate Justice Committee. “Since at least 2014, the U.S. and NATO have been meddling in Ukraine, provoking that government to serve as a proxy to fight Russia. This proxy conflict doesn't serve the interests of the Ukrainian people, only U.S. and NATO aggression. And it brings us closer to the possibility of nuclear war,” Mori explained.

“The U.S. military is also the largest single organizational source of greenhouse gases,” he added. “You could say U.S. aggression and imperialism is climate change in action.”

John LaForge, co-director of the Wisconsin-based peace and environmental justice group Nukewatch, also spoke at the rally. “Rehearsals for attacks on Russia by NATO forces involve nuclear war rehearsals,” he said. “The NATO exercises practice with weighted dummies to practice nuclear war attacks on Russia on a regular basis – rehearsing and preparing for nuclear weapons use on Russian territory.”

The event was called by the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, and endorsed by Antiwar Advocates of Minnesota Congressional District 2, Anti-War Committee, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Mayday Books, Minneapolis-St. Paul Hiroshima Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, Minnesota War Tax Resistance, Movement 4 A Peoples Democracy, Nukewatch, Party for Socialism and Liberation – Minneapolis, Party of Communists USA, St. Joan of Arc Peacemakers, St. Paul Eastside Neighbors for Peace, Socialist Action, Socialist Party USA – Twin Cities Local, Twin Cities Assange Defense, Veterans for Peace Chapter 27, Welfare Rights Committee, and Women Against Military Madness.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #AntiWarCommitteeAWC

Minneapolis, MN – On March 30, over 50 activists gathered to show solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle against Israeli apartheid and occupation. They waved Palestinian flags and dropped banners on the footbridge over Interstate 94 between the Walker Sculpture Garden and Loring Park – across all eight lanes of traffic – demanding an end of U.S. aid to Israel, an end of Israeli occupation, the right of return for Palestinians, and an end to vaccine apartheid. The response from people passing by was overwhelmingly positive with a lot of honks from cars.

The action coincided with Land Day, which commemorates the events of March 1976, when the state of Israel announced it was going to steal more Palestinian land. In response to that announcement, Palestinians – under a brutal 18-year military occupation at the time – organized a general strike and marched in protest from the Galilee to the Negev. On March 30, 1976, Israeli soldiers (IDF) shot into the crowds of unarmed protesters, injuring hundreds of the Palestinian protesting and murdering six. Hundreds more were arrested and taken to Israeli prisons.

The first Land Day was the largest organized protest against Israeli land theft up to that point. It was a giant leap for the Palestinian national cause and has been a day of commemoration ever since. Land Day’s significance in the Palestinian political calendar was compounded in 2018, when hundreds were killed and thousands injured by Israeli sniper fire as Palestinians demanded the Right of Return to their stolen land with mass protests in Gaza, called the Great March of Return.

Mariam El-Khatib from American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) told the crowd, “You know sometimes we say it’s been 45 years since Land Day, it’s been 73 years since Al Nakba, it’s been all these years since all these events, but it’s really important to recognize that Palestinians have been resisting every single year, and they resist every single day.”

El-Khatib continued, “Every day they’re going through checkpoints, every day they’re having to deal with the harassment of the soldiers, every day they’re having to deal with their existence being criminalized. We all believe it: Palestine will be free.”

Currently, 5 million Palestinians are living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. For decades now, the Israeli regime has purposefully destabilized medicine, electricity, housing and water in these regions, and it’s no surprise that this vindictive policy extends to the COVID-19 response.

As a result, thousands of Palestinians are dying, and there is a malicious lack of a plan to distribute vaccines. This has been a year of immense hardships for Palestine.

“Palestinians show us that not giving up means something. Even as conditions worsen in Palestine, the political situation here is finally showing a glimmer of hope,” said Wyatt Miller of the Anti-War Committee (AWC), “Elected officials in U.S. Congress have made proposals to reduce aid to Israel. Things that were once politically taboo, like the Right of Return, are now part of the conversation. They’re trying to outlaw criticism of Israel on college campuses precisely because people are finally starting to pay attention.”

The protest was organized by the MN Anti-War Committee and American Muslims for Palestine MN; it was cosponsored by Women Against Military Madness, Jewish Voices for Peace, Climate Justice Committee, and Students for Justice in Palestine.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #Palestine #LandDay #GreatMarchOfReturn #AntiWarCommitteeAWC