Rain set the tone for the demonstration on Locust Walk yesterday to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war. Activists mourned the loss of those who died in the war and protested the policies of the "misinformation" dispelled by the current administration, attendees said.
The group began reading names of dead U.S. soldiers at 10 a.m. and continued to do so until noon. In addition to these names, they also remembered Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
The group noted that the highest number of casualties in the war were civilians and not soldiers from the warring armies. Participants then observed five minutes of silence, one minute for each of the five years the country has been fighting the war. Afterward, students from the groups involved stood around the compass for a presentation of "What I Heard About Iraq." The presentation consisted of quotes from people who promoted the war, such as President Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Posters and placards were placed in the area, one of which read, "Six billion bullets fired by U.S. troops. One for everyone on Earth." Similar statements highlighted the loss of human lives and the cost of the war.
The event was sponsored by Penn Faculty and Staff Against War in Iraq, the Christian Association, the Beyond War organization and the Penn Women's Center.
Annenberg professor and assistant director of Penn Women's Center Felicity Paxton said that PFSAWI aims to uphold the "responsibility of educators to counter disinformation."
President of the Christian Association Reverend Beverly Dale explained that the motive of the group was to make the Penn community remember the war and its costs in terms of human lives and economics. Although she noted that the interest in the group has diminished over the years, Dale said that "this is a moral issue that goes across faiths."
Disagreeing with the way the group organized the demonstration, College freshman Eben Lazarus said, "It is more provocative than [a formal] remembrance of the fallen soldiers. However, it definitely gets their point across."
PFSAWI was initially formed before the Iraq war in the fall of 2002 as a group against going to war, and now it continues to oppose the war.
