Utahns rally to cry of no more war

With nearly 2,400 U.S. soldiers dead since the war in Iraq began, about 300 protesters Saturday joined Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson in shouts of, "No more!"

Anderson spoke at a noon anti-war rally on the grounds of the Salt Lake City-County Building.

Sponsored by the Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice, the protest included live music, poetry and passion on the part of speakers like Debbie Johnson.

"We need to bring our troops home — alive, now," she told the audience.

Johnson has a son who is in the military and is headed to Iraq for a second time. She wouldn't give her son's name or the branch of military he's serving in for fear of retaliation against him.

Johnson said Iraq is being "ravaged" by U.S. military weapons that carry depleted uranium. "Who really is using weapons of mass destruction?" she asked.

Salt Lake Community College student Isaac Giron, 21, told the crowd that neither political party in Washington can be trusted to bring peace in Iraq.

"We can only trust the people of this nation," Giron said. He called for a "mass action" to help end the war.

Sam King recalled a "shocking interruption" to his life as a University of Utah student in 1968 when he was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War, which he said is similar to the Iraq War.

"You would think we'd have learned," King said.

King said he supports the warrior and not the war, and then read his poem, "Heirs to Freedom's Legacy," which was a tribute to soldiers who fight for freedom.

Julie Holzer spoke on behalf of the United Steelworkers and criticized military recruiters for targeting the disadvantaged children of working men and women who are not being paid what they're worth.

Anderson urged the crowd to its feet and yelled, "No more expenditures of almost $6 billion per month on this tragic war . . . No more dependence on foreign oil while we could become independent if we focus resources wasted in the Iraq War on clean, renewable sources of energy."

Anderson's 15-minute speech included an accusation that much of the media has served as "little more than a bulletin board for false government propaganda."

The mayor called for an end to "arrogance, incompetence and timidity posing as leadership" in Congress and an end to complacency and apathy by Americans.

"At times like this, silence truly is complicity," Anderson said. "Silence is an affirmation of the status quo. We will only see change when the people assert their own moral authority and no longer leave it to the self-serving, shiftless, sycophantic servants of the corporate rapists and pillagers of our people."

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