New York protest: ‘Stop U.S. proxy wars!’

Some of the protesters, holding Syrian flag, June 13.
WW photo: Greg Butterfield

Outside the New York studios of CNN June 13, hundreds of people had the opportunity to hear the truth about U.S. wars and interventions around the world that they don’t get from corporate media outlets. The occasion was a rally and speak-out against U.S. proxy wars around the world and President Obama’s plans to deploy 450 additional troops to Iraq.

Many people stopped to listen and talk to organizers on the bright early summer day. Anti-war and community activists distributed hundreds of flyers urging people to get informed and join in building a mass movement against war and racism.

“From Yemen to Donbass, it’s one war on a global scale,” said Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center. “But no matter how many bases, troops and military hardware it uses, the U.S. is unable to impose its domination without meeting powerful resistance.”

Flounders explained how corporate media like CNN cover up the U.S. role in the Saudi bombing of Yemen, the Ukrainian shelling of the Donbass People’s Republics and the funding of rebel movements from Syria to Venezuela by censoring information and spinning military aggression to Washington and Wall Street’s liking.

“The Pentagon doesn’t build bases anymore — in Iraq they now call them ‘lily pads,’ as if they were flowers,” said Flounders. “The U.S. doesn’t deploy troops but ‘trainers and advisors.’ U.S. mercenaries are called ‘private contractors.’”

Johnnie Stevens, of the Peoples Power Assembly, said: “There’s a war against the people of the world and a war against the people here at home. We need money for jobs, housing, schools and hospitals. We need to fight racist police terror here, not people resisting U.S. oppression around the world.”

Speakers and participants represented the Syrian American Foundation; Solidarity with Ukraine Antifascists Committee; Pakistan-USA Freedom Forum; Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST); U.S. Friends of the Soviet People; Workers World Party; and other groups.

Solidarity messages were received from the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine; Ukraine Antifascist Committee of Bologna, Italy; and the Donbass Anti-Nazi Committee in Rome.