Global Policy Forum

By Eils Lotozo

Mildred McHugh had never attended a political protest until a few months ago. Now she's a regular at antiwar demonstrations, carrying a sign that reads, "Bring my son home."

"I feel so outraged about the way we were misled about the war," said McHugh, 44, of Pennington, N.J., whose soldier son, Steve, is stationed in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. "I need to be out here and feel like at least I'm doing something... . If it doesn't save my son, it might save someone else's."

A member of Military Families Speak Out, McHugh is the newest of recruits to an increasingly energized peace movement.

The movement seemed poised to sink into despair a year ago, after protests drew millions around the globe but failed to halt the Iraq invasion. Instead, as U.S. involvement drags on in a hostile Iraq, the death toll rises, and American public opinion shifts, peace groups are finding new allies and using a range of tactics aimed at influencing policy.

"We weren't sure last spring when [President] Bush declared the war over what would happen to this movement, but it has not died away at all," said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice. Based in New York, the antiwar coalition has grown over the 14-month war from 200 groups to more than 800. In March, the coalition organized a day of protest, with rallies in 300 cities.

On June 26 and 27, that group and Win Without War, a coalition of 39 national organizations - including the National Council of Churches, MoveOn.org, and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities - will lead demonstrations to pressure the President to set a firm date for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

"During the Vietnam War it took years for people to realize what we were doing was built on a construct of lies," said Dave Cline, president of St. Louis-based Veterans for Peace. "With Iraq, it's only taken a year. This is Vietnam on speed."

In one week last month, said Cline, his group enrolled 150 new members. "There's been a steady increase in people who say, 'I can't be quiet any more.' " For these new peace activists, getting involved can range from joining a peace vigil to writing letters to the local paper or elected officials. "Those kinds of protest are not a million people on the [Washington] Mall, but they are nonetheless significant, especially taken together," said Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University historian who has written about the 1960s.

In many ways, the peace movement has transformed itself since the early protests against the coming war, in the fall of 2002. Then, most of the largest demonstrations were organized by International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). That group, allied with the Communist Workers World Party, has also defended dictator Slobodan Milosevic, and its unfocused demonstrations often seemed to feature as many "Free Mumia" posters as antiwar slogans.

United for Peace and Justice was launched in October 2002 by more mainstream peace groups as an alternative to ANSWER. So was Win Without War, whose more centrist approach and patriotic emphasis drew groups not normally associated with antiwar efforts, including the NAACP, National Organization for Women, and the Sierra Club. Kazin, who wrote critical op-ed pieces about the anti-American tone of some of the early Iraq protests, said that now "people in the peace movement are being as practical as they can be."

Author Paul Loeb, who has written about social activism for three decades, said he's seen the peace movement broaden its geographic reach.

"The protests aren't just in the predictable places, like Seattle or Berkeley or New York," said Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. "What is very clear about this movement is that it is everywhere."

Loeb recalled an e-mail from a soldier's mother in El Paso, Texas. "She said, 'I kissed my son good-bye when he was called up and then I went off to a peace march.' "

One of the most surprising developments, though, has been the growing number of military members and their families who are joining peace activists to protest the war.

"We military families have a direct stake in this," said Charlie Richardson, cofounder of Military Families Speak Out, which supports an immediate troop pullout. "Our sons and husbands and wives were sent into a war based on lies, and we think speaking out is the most supportive thing we can do for the troops."

The group has grown from two families to more than 1,500 in little more than a year, said Richardson, whose son is with the Marines in Iraq. "Our numbers go up every time troops are extended or redeployed."

Lansdowne's Pat Gunn was inspired to join after her son Jason, who had been severely wounded in Iraq, was redeployed by the Army - against a doctor's orders, she said. "It's not working," Gunn said of the U.S. occupation. "It's time to put something else in place."

Even these passionate new allies, though, may not be enough to help the peace movement affect events in Iraq, some observers say.

"These movements are enormously important in reflecting the divisions of the nation," said James Jay Carafano, a former Army lieutenant colonel and a scholar of military affairs at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "But I don't think history has proved they are terribly important in influencing popular opinion or shaping public policy."

But ex-Marine Michael Hoffman, who was in the Iraq invasion force, isn't discouraged. Hoffman, of Morrisville, plans to keep up the "whirlwind" schedule of antiwar speaking engagements he's been on since his discharge a year ago.

"I realized going into it the reasons given for the war weren't adding up," said Hoffman, 24. "And a lot of the guys felt as strongly as I did. But we had to put that aside because the main thing was to get home and help our friends get home."

Hoffman said those questions persist. He recalled a protest where he spoke in March in Fayetteville, N.C., that attracted soldiers from nearby Fort Bragg.

"They weren't in uniform but I could tell by their haircuts they were military," he said. "They told me, 'We can't get up and make a speech, but you need to keep doing what you're doing.' "