WASHINGTON, 21 February 2003 — Hollywood celebrities and US church leaders called on Wednesday for a “virtual march” on Washington via phone, fax and e-mail to oppose any military intervention against Iraq.
The protest was announced just days after global demonstrations by millions of people against President George W. Bush’s stance on Iraq that insists Baghdad must give up its alleged weapons of mass destruction or face military action.
“Today we are calling for Americans who are opposed to a US-led invasion of Iraq to keep marching,” said Tom Andrews, head of the “Win Without War” coalition of nonprofit, religious and civil activist groups that oppose a military campaign in Iraq.
“The virtual march on Washington will be an opportunity for every American opponent of an invasion of Iraq to stand up and be counted in every state in the United States,” Andrews told a news conference. Television advertisements starring actor Martin Sheen and airing from yesterday on local cable stations in Los Angeles and Washington will urge viewers to register on a coalition website.
There, they will commit to calling Bush and each of their senators in Congress at a chosen time on Feb. 26, said Andrews, a former Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from Maine from 1990 to 1994.
Andrews said the goal was to have the phones in the offices of the president and every member of the Senate ringing every minute of the day with a call from someone opposed to the war. Free fax services are also offered on the website (www.moveon.org), Andrews said.
The National Council of Churches, an ecumenical grouping of 36 Christian denominations and part of the “Win Without War” group, will also call for a day of prayer “and faxing” from congregations, Andrews said.
Sheen, known for speaking out on a range of social issues, stars as the fictional US president Josiah Bartlet in a popular television White House drama “West Wing”.
Comedian Janeane Garofalo and actress Anjelica Huston were among the personalities speaking at a parallel briefing in Los Angeles.
“My fondest hope is that President Bush will answer his telephone and look out his window ... and that he will have an epiphany and a change of heart and this war will not take place,” said “Babe” star James Cromwell in Washington.
Meanwhile, veteran actor James Earl Jones said he doesn’t oppose the US taking on Iraq.
Jones, who appeared at the University of North Carolina campus at Pembroke as part of a distinguished speaker series, says the nation “can no longer play games.” He says his only concern is that the US gets involved as soon as necessary and hangs around to see the job through this time.
He says his only beef against the US involvement in the 1991 Gulf War as well as military action in Bosnia and Somalia is that it took too long, and that, in his view, the US didn’t finish the job.
