Thousands in US protest funding of Ukraine war, call for disbanding NATO

Thousands of anti-war demonstrators took to the streets in Washington on Sunday against the US government's war-mongering policies, urging the Joe Biden administration to stop supplying arms to Ukraine and disband the NATO military alliance. 

The biggest demonstration was held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, a symbolically significant venue for American political activists, as people participated in the 'Rage Against the War Machine' national rally.

The protesters at the rally, who held anti-war placards, called for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, an end to US funding and military aid to Kiev, and diverting the Pentagon budget to fund numerous domestic needs.

The anti-war protesters also demanded the dissolution of the NATO military alliance, blaming it for the horrors of war across the world. 

Nick Brana of the “People’s Party” and Angela McArdle of the Libertarian Party, who moderated the national rally, described the event as an opportunity by the organizers and the speakers from across the political spectrum of the United States to “bring together” the “left and the right” and end the war in Ukraine.

Pacifist journalist and author Chris Hedges delivered one of the keynote speeches at the event.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper, set the platform for the notable “left-right” speakers who would follow up in the national gathering.

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American pro-peace activists call for an anti-war rally in Washington, DC.

Veteran US Congressman and former presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, Ron Paul was one of the speakers who spoke at the rally, stating that a “simple” way to stop the wars was to “end the Fed!” – and to not send people to war unless they vote for it.

“If you cannot print the money, you cannot collect taxes by debasing the currency and stealing the wealth from the people, unnerving the middle class and the poor because that is who really pays for this, you could not have a war,” Paul said.

“Why do the people go to war?” Paul asked, answering himself that, “If you think you should have war – have a vote and make sure that the vote is carried out by the people between 8 and 24. This is the group that gets punished the most.”

Former US Congresswoman and presidential candidate, Tulsi Gabbard, also spoke, reminding the crowd of what caused her to run in 2020, and how there was “no other candidate willing to talk about the dangers where this new Cold War and nuclear arms race would lead.”

“And so here we are. Two short years later what I warned about then is now a reality. This proxy that we are fighting against Russia right now could turn at any moment into a direct conflict between the United States/NATO and Russia,” she said, warning that “anyone with a little bit of common sense” knows that a Cold War can at any moment turn into a hot war against a nuclear-armed country.”

“And here is the insanity of it all: we have talking heads on TV, we have politicians, we have very powerful people here in the United States and all around the world speaking with a straight face about ‘how we gonna fight and win’ as if such a war could be won. It cannot be won,” she stated.

She added that there is "only one destination for such war, and that is a nuclear holocaust.”

Former Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, another speaker at the event, called for slashing the Pentagon’s enormous budget, arguing in her speech that even the “$100 billion we are spending to support the war in Ukraine” could help the nation solve a wide range of domestic issues.

“This murderous military spending consumes resources desperately needed here at home: by 70,000 people who die each year for lack of health insurance; for a half million homeless people on any given night out in the street; for 33 million marred in student debt; a 100 million in medical debt, 22 million impoverished children and on and on.”

Former Congressman, Dennis Kucinich, who fought for the Democratic nomination in 2004 and 2008, cited a bombshell report by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to demand accountability from the US government.

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“In blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline, this government has used illegal and unconstitutional means to destroy the energy resources needed to protect millions of people in Europe during the winter, and then to profit from its illegal actions by selling energy to Europe at a four to six times markup,” Kucinich said.

“We know what each of you did. We will not rest until you are held accountable by Congress, by the International Criminal Court, and by the American people at the next election.”

Kucinich pointed out that the White House’s “greatest talent is to craft misinformation and disinformation to subvert the media and misuse it as an instrument to incite fear and hatred among our people, exciting partisan divisions at home through cross-politics, and stirring ancient hatreds abroad through lies, deceit, false flag operations and provocations which profane the very essence of democracy.”

At one point, comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore went on stage.

Dore jokingly asked the crowd why the US was sending funds to aid the pro-Nazi Kiev government when rightwing sympathizers in the country were in dire economic straits and needed money to purchase eggs for survival.

“Why are we sending that money to Nazis in Ukraine when we could be funding Nazis here in America struggling to buy eggs?”

Among the speaker at the event at the Lincoln Memorial, which also included Max Blumenthal of the Grayzone and Jill Stein of the Green Party, Dore and Paul received the most cheers and applause from the participants.

Similar demonstrations were also held in Bath and Westbrook, Maine to protest the billions of dollars the US was spending to arm Ukraine to fight Russia.

Peace groups and other organizers of the rallies also called for the dismantling of the US-led NATO organization and a slash in the US military budget.

Lisa Savage, one of the organizers of the protest and a former US Senate candidate said the US should not be spending billions of dollars to arm Ukraine when there were pressing issues to take care of for Americans at home.

"We're not fully funding education and we don't have universal healthcare, but we have billions to send to Ukraine," she argued.

Savage likened the current Russia-Ukraine conflict to World War III and warned that it could even spark a nuclear confrontation.

Protesters at the rallies held signs, flags, and banners at a busy Route 1 intersection in Bath where motorists passed.

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