On Wednesday, March 19th, hundreds gathered in Washington, D.C. to protest the 5th year of “shock and awe” inflicted upon Iraq. Non-violent civil resistance was the theme of the day, and it took place all over the city.

World Can’t Wait, Drive Out the Bush Regime decided to rally in Lafayette Square Park directly in front of the White House, since that’s where one of the biggest war criminals in history resides. The others visit there daily.

Our plans were to call attention to not only the illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, but highlight this current Regime’s love for torturing anyone, enemy combatants physically, and the general public mentally and emotionally. At 2 PM there was a very dramatic demonstration of waterboarding, showing the media and others watching that to water board someone IS DEFINITELY TORTURE.

There were dozens of media outlets standing directly outside the White House Fence with cameras in hand, and rain coming down, straining to take pictures and videos of the atrocity of waterboarding. All were perfectly fixated on what was happening before their eyes, and gasped when the “enemy combatant” was held down, screamed at, kicked, and then gallons of water poured into his face. When the demonstration was finished, I could hear mumbling, more gasps, sounds of horror, and a complete lack of conversation as everyone who witnessed this was visibly upset and disgusted.

At that point, myself and another WCW member took out a 1,000 ft. roll of yellow “CRIME SCENE: DO NOT CROSS!” tape and started unraveling it in the pouring rain right in front of the White House fence. The photographers went nuts trying to get footage, and we were trying desperately to get it straightened out so you could read the imprinted message, and get it past the Secret Service and police standing in our way.

A melee broke out and we ran very close up to the fence where we were able to get close enough to hold it up for photos. The police ripped it apart, but I still had the roll in my hand, running in the opposite direction, toward the entrance of the White House, with another person grabbing the end again and running in the other direction. We managed to get more tape out of the roll, until it was knocked out of my hand by a SWAT cop.

However, we had a second roll hidden, and I went back to retrieve it. We started again unraveling the second roll, which we were able to, with the help of people just standing there watching, get close up to the fence, and down the sidewalk. I held the roll on my arm as others pulled the tape, and we both ran in opposite directions. The SWAT cop ran for me again, but I dodged him, but ducking and running in the rain, since he had sunglasses on! As well as did all of them. The melee continued and by this time the cops had had enough and grabbed me. I was surrounded by 5 super-sized D.C. cops, and they took my CRIME SCENE TAPE! But there was still some floating around on the streets.

As soon as that happened, I heard the SWAT cop say “cuff her.” And I stood there watching the scene unfolding around me. People were so angry and yelling “war criminals” “arrest Bush, not her!”

It took 7 super-sized cops to walk with me to a van, and then I saw cops on horseback enter the street, trying to disburse the mob that had gathered, all chanting ‘ARREST BUSH, NOT HER!” The cops were visibly shaken; I could see their faces up close. They formed ranks around me and kept yelling at the other officers, “Watch the back, get back over to the fence, they’re going back!” At that point I thought we would see something out of the 60’s where the mob would turn over the police van, and push back against the cops. I couldn’t help but smile at the scene unfolding around me.

We almost had a truly historic, angry moment where we weren’t fooling around with posters, costumes or speeches. I’d say there may have been 50 people there that I saw truly yelling and trying to get me back, and away from custody. I just kept walking with the officers, knowing that the mood of this crowd was just the beginning of what was yet to come.

Urewera Raids: 'Operation 8' Trials Begin Today

Annemarie Thorby of the October 15 Solidarity Group: Over four years ago in New Zealand, on October 15th 2007, more than 300 police carried out dawn raids on scores of houses.

That was the day more than 60 homes up and down the country were raided, 17 people arrested and the Tuhoe community of Ruatoki, a small rural town in the Te Urewera region of the Bay of Plenty was locked down... More>>