I’m in Washington, DC, a city I have not visited since the fall of 2000. Things here are very different from the place I once knew. I remember riding my bicycle on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol; today barriers and fences and police preventing access are everywhere.
The fourth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks was commemorated in the city today. The official event was the “Freedom Walk” sponsored by the Department of Defense to memorialize the date and “support our troops in Iraq.” The walk was a telling testament to the way the Pentagon sees freedom.
The walk was open to all, provided you registered online by last Thursday. Anyone attempting to join the march spontaneously faced arrest. The march’s route, which was kept secret until this morning, was closed inside two four-foot snow fences, to keep the march “sterile.” Police patrolled the fences to keep unregistered marchers away. If an unregistered marcher got into the march, he or she would have been easy to spot, because she or he would not have been wearing the red, white and blue t-shirt that was issued to each marcher.
The entire U.S. Park Police force was on hand to keep the march orderly, which they did on foot, on horseback, on motorcycles and with a helicopter hovering above the route. Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber, who organized the march, said the high security, registration for marchers and snow fences were required by the Park Police. Park Police Chief Dwight Pettiford said the Pentagon requested the security measures. “That’s what their permit called for, so we have those fences to keep the public out,” he said. Since Washington has been the venue for hundreds of marches without registration and snow fences, I tend to believe Chief Pettiford on this one.
Among the members of the public who were restricted from the march were members of the media, who were allowed to film the march from three locations, but were not allowed to accompany the marchers en route.
One reason cited for the lockdown was the presence at the march of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Reports on the march say he was “treated like a rock star” by marchers. Many of the marchers were active-duty members of the military. No word on whether they were handpicked and ordered to attend the event.
Mr. Rumsfeld and company deliberately tied September 11th commemoration and “support for the troops in Iraq” together, but the Iraq war has nothing to do with September 11th, beyond the fact that George Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld used our national grief as an excuse to launch a pre-emptive war.
Another march was held in the city today, a “Unity March.” Hundreds of people, representing different faiths, marched along the city’s embassy row as a statement of solidarity among all people of the world, to remind us that the only cure for terrorism is mutual support and understanding among the people of the world. No on needed to register, no one was turned away, there were no fences, Donald Rumsfeld did not attend.
On the 24th of this month, people from across the country will gather in Washington to call for peace and an end to the death and destruction with which this nation has punished on Iraq for the past two and a half years. Again, no registration, no fences. Come join us.
Freedom Crawls
I’m in Washington, DC, a city I have not visited since the fall of 2000. Things here are very different from the place I once knew. I remember riding my bicycle on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol; today barriers and fences and police preventing access are everywhere.
The fourth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks was commemorated in the city today. The official event was the “Freedom Walk” sponsored by the Department of Defense to memorialize the date and “support our troops in Iraq.” The walk was a telling testament to the way the Pentagon sees freedom.
The walk was open to all, provided you registered online by last Thursday. Anyone attempting to join the march spontaneously faced arrest. The march’s route, which was kept secret until this morning, was closed inside two four-foot snow fences, to keep the march “sterile.” Police patrolled the fences to keep unregistered marchers away. If an unregistered marcher got into the march, he or she would have been easy to spot, because she or he would not have been wearing the red, white and blue t-shirt that was issued to each marcher.
The entire U.S. Park Police force was on hand to keep the march orderly, which they did on foot, on horseback, on motorcycles and with a helicopter hovering above the route. Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber, who organized the march, said the high security, registration for marchers and snow fences were required by the Park Police. Park Police Chief Dwight Pettiford said the Pentagon requested the security measures. “That’s what their permit called for, so we have those fences to keep the public out,” he said. Since Washington has been the venue for hundreds of marches without registration and snow fences, I tend to believe Chief Pettiford on this one.
Among the members of the public who were restricted from the march were members of the media, who were allowed to film the march from three locations, but were not allowed to accompany the marchers en route.
One reason cited for the lockdown was the presence at the march of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Reports on the march say he was “treated like a rock star” by marchers. Many of the marchers were active-duty members of the military. No word on whether they were handpicked and ordered to attend the event.
Mr. Rumsfeld and company deliberately tied September 11th commemoration and “support for the troops in Iraq” together, but the Iraq war has nothing to do with September 11th, beyond the fact that George Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld used our national grief as an excuse to launch a pre-emptive war.
Another march was held in the city today, a “Unity March.” Hundreds of people, representing different faiths, marched along the city’s embassy row as a statement of solidarity among all people of the world, to remind us that the only cure for terrorism is mutual support and understanding among the people of the world. No on needed to register, no one was turned away, there were no fences, Donald Rumsfeld did not attend.
On the 24th of this month, people from across the country will gather in Washington to call for peace and an end to the death and destruction with which this nation has punished on Iraq for the past two and a half years. Again, no registration, no fences. Come join us.
© Mark Floegel, 2005