[Fm OG--They say war isn't the answer. Fine, good, okay, right. Well, what the hell IS the answer then???]

SacBee

Anti-war forces muster in San Francisco Bay area

By Michelle Locke Associated Press Writer

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- Lu Irwin needs a little help carrying her peace banner through the streets these days. But her resolve to oppose war, any war, hasn't dimmed a bit.

"War is no solution to anything," Irwin, 78, declared as she marched for peace in a quiet Berkeley neighborhood.

As the country prepares to go to war over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands, pacifist forces are mustering in the San Francisco Bay area.

"We need to be looking for the people that perpetrated this and they should be tried by our courts and our justice system," said Barbara Lubin, one of the organizers of an anti-war rally Tuesday in Berkeley. "We cannot go and bomb an entire nation of innocent women, children and men."

The rally, which organizers called an "emergency response to the beat of war drums," brought together many of the same people who opposed the Persian Gulf War 10 years ago, mounting a series of protests -- including one that temporarily shut down the Golden Gate Bridge.

Recent polls show most Americans believe the United States should retaliate.

But there is an alternate point of view, one espoused by U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, the Democrat who represents Berkeley and Oakland and was the lone standout against giving President Bush broad war powers.

"There has to be more than just picking out one country and letting loose," said Barbara Sykes, chairwoman of the Social Justice Center of Marin, which met Monday night to decide how to respond to the possibility of a U.S. military strike.

Lubin, executive director of Middle East Children's Alliance, a Berkeley-based group of Jews critical of Israel's policies toward Palestinians, knows she's in the minority.

But she feels compelled to offer an alternative to the message of retaliation and revenge.

"We ourselves have just felt ... what an attack on innocent civilians is like," said Lubin. "We need to learn from that."

On Sunday, a block-long procession of people walking two and three abreast made their way through Berkeley's upscale Elmwood neighborhood. Several carried signs saying, "Thank you, Barbara Lee."

Another sign said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." A small child wore a hastily made placard that read, "no hurting people."

Cars tooted in support and their drivers flashed the peace sign.

Among the walkers was Irwin, who was sticking close to a stranger who'd volunteered to carry her peace banner, a colorful standard featuring a dove and an olive branch. She had the banner made a decade ago after being arrested while protesting nuclear weapons research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 35 miles from Berkeley.

She said war is not the answer to terrorists taking over domestic jetliners and smashing them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.

"We're violently opposed to the idea of going to war to revenge what happened," she said firmly. "The real worry is that there will be this hysterical overreaction."

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001