Feature Archives

On December 1st 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that he would send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan in the coming months, bringing the total number of American troops occupying Afghanistan to nearly 100,000. Describing the war as "not just America's war," Obama vowed to start bringing the troops back home by the middle of 2011.

On December 2nd, several hundred protesters gathered at 5pm at Powell and Market in San Francisco to voice their opposition for Obama's war plans.

From Dialogues Against Militarism, "On Saturday, November 7, About 25 of us trudged towards military prison 400, just outside of Tel Aviv, coils of razor wire and lookout towers looming above us, fields of mud and dry grass to our right. we began setting up the sound system and preparing for the day’s goal of reaching earshot of Or Ben-David, a young Israeli being held in prison for refusing the army draft."

On Sunday, October 25th, Zoya, a member of the radical underground organization Rawa, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, will speak in San Francisco. Zoya's talk is part of a national tour in the U.S. against the ongoing U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and the threat of fundamentalism posed by the Taliban.

While President Obama spoke inside the St. Francis Hotel on October 15th, thousands of protesters turned out to deliver messages of their own. Health care was just one of many topics as people gathered from the left and right, rubbing shoulders and competing for space for their placards in the crowd. A large group of single payer health care plan advocates supported by physicians and nurses wielded some of the largest banners and drew a heavy turnout.

On Thursday, October 22nd, Ehud Olmert, a war criminal and Israel's former Prime Minister, will be speaking at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco for the World Affairs Council. During his last weeks as Prime Minister of Israel, Olmert unleashed a horrific war on the people of Gaza, that left over one thousand dead, a majority of them unarmed civilians, and hundreds of them children. It destroyed thousands of homes, leaving tens of thousands homeless. A demonstration calling for Olmert's prosecution for war crimes will be held at Union Square at 5:30 PM.
UPDATE: 22 Bay Area residents arrested for disrupting speech

On Thursday, October 15, hundreds came to Civic Center, to protest president Obama's appearance at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in a fundraiser for the Democratic National Convention. Earlier in the day another demonstration took place at SF City Hall to oppose the continuous cuts in education funding.

On Saturday, October 17th there was an anti-war march and rally in San Francisco starting at 11am in U.N. Plaza. Protesters demanded that U.S. troops get out of of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and that the U.S. government spend money on jobs, pensions, health care, and education rather than wars and corporate bailouts.