As evidenced by the throngs of people attending the recent anti-war rallies in cities across America and around the world, the contemporary “peace” movement is one of the truly significant social phenomena of our time. It has organized a number of massive, synchronized demonstrations – attended by millions – in hundreds of cities all over the globe. On February 15 alone, simultaneous protests against US military action in Iraq were held in more than 600 cities.

Though virtually unreported by the mainstream press, the organizers of every major rally to date have deep, longstanding ties to a brand of hardcore Communism that seeks nothing less than the destruction of the United States. A.N.S.W.E.R., for instance, which has organized the bulk of the rallies, is a front group for the Workers World Party (WWP) – a Communist organization that avidly supports Kim Jong Il’s regime in North Korea. Yet this purportedly benevolent cornerstone of the “peace” movement has in the past supported Soviet interventions in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan, as well as the Chinese government’s massacre in Tiananmen Square. United For Peace and Justice, the other principal organizer of the rallies, is headed by Leslie Cagan, a Communist radical since the 1960s who proudly aligns her politics with those of Castro’s Cuba. And the Not In Our Name project, whose condemnatory statement against President Bush’s “imperial policy towards the world” is publicly recited as a gospel of sorts at most of the rallies, is headed by C. Clark Kissinger, a longtime Maoist activist and a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

Given these facts, where does the average person – who professes no allegiance to revolutionary Communist politics, but only a personal desire to avert war – fit into the mix? Can any harm come from one’s attendance at a Communist-sponsored rally, if his only purpose is to express a wish for peace?

First of all, the vast majority of such attendees haven’t the slightest idea that the rallies are organized by hardcore Communists. This is of crucial significance, because when someone attends an event whose purpose is to take a stand on an important social issue, he generally ascribes an air of legitimacy and expertise to the assertions of the organizer and the featured speakers. If he is blind to their true agenda cloaking itself in the rhetoric of “peace,” he cannot know that he is being used as a propaganda tool by the enemies of his own country – and is being purposefully indoctrinated with all sorts of ugly beliefs about America that he probably did not hold in the first place. Indeed he will hear speech after speech referring to the US as the world’s foremost terrorist nation; as a greed-driven, power-hungry empire seeking world domination; as an outlaw country aspiring to take control of all Middle Eastern oil. And just as importantly, he is unlikely to hear so much as a word offering a different perspective. In short, he will hear the Communist party line about the many evils of the United States and capitalism.

This is in many ways reminiscent of the 1995 Million Man March, organized by Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Though publicly billed as a “day of atonement” for African American men, it was in reality a tag-team exhibition of racial hucksters taking turns verbally thrashing America as they stepped to the podium. Farrakhan, for instance, condemned “the idea that under-girds the setup of the Western world . . . white supremacy.” Kwanzaa founder Maulana Karenga lamented “the increasing racism and continuing commitment to white supremacy in this country.” Congressman Charles Rangel called black men “victims” of American racism and injustice. Jesse Jackson said blacks are “under attack by the courts, legislatures, [and] mass media.” “We’re despised,” he asserted. “Racists attack us for sport to win votes.”

A barrage of such rhetoric continued, virtually uninterrupted and unopposed, for several hours. And while it is possible that some of the men in attendance really did go for purposes of “atonement,” they were quickly buried by an avalanche of ugly, incendiary rhetoric much likelier to foster bitterness and hatred. And that rhetoric did not come from nameless talking heads behind a distant microphone, but from people they viewed as legitimate, authoritative commentators on the issues of race and justice. A great many minds were poisoned that day, all under the righteous-sounding banner of “atonement.” Marches and demonstrations inevitably reflect the agendas and philosophies of their organizers.

That is why, during the months leading up to the now-inevitable war in Iraq, not a single “peace” rally anywhere on earth has convened at an Iraqi embassy or publicly called upon Saddam to disarm. That is why no such protest has even implored the Iraqi dictator to free the tens of thousands currently being tortured to a slow and agonized death inside his notorious political prisons. Instead, the wrath of the protesters has been aimed solely at the United States – the  "Great Satan” in the Communist worldview.  

Take a look around. So long as America is not involved, we do not see protesters gather to denounce military actions anywhere in the world. Nor have we ever. Indeed, when did “peace” groups ever convene en masse to denounce the Soviet Union for exiling the entire Chechen nation to Siberia; for annexing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; or for sending troops and tanks into Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague? When did they ever condemn the wars and ethnic cleansing campaigns that China’s Communist regime waged against Manchuria, East Turkestan, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia? Why did they never once protest against these military incursions, the way they marched in opposition to America’s leadership of a UN coalition to drive North Korea’s Communist invaders out of the South? Why did they never even politely request the removal of Soviet missiles from Central Europe, whereas they vehemently demanded that President Reagan refrain from deploying missiles in Western Europe to achieve a balance of power? And more recently, why did they utter not a word about the systematic campaigns of mass torture and slaughter in Liberia, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Angola, Rwanda, Congo, or Sudan? For that matter, where were they hibernating when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990? They saw fit to begin barking for “peace” only when the “meddlesome” United States threatened to drive Saddam’s invading army out of the tiny Persian Gulf state.

Predictably, there was stony silence from the “peace” crowd when the US virtually ignored pre-9/11 attacks by Islamic extremists during the past decade – the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 bombing of two American embassies in Africa, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. So long as America continued to meekly “turn its other cheek” in the face of unprovoked barbarism, the “anti-war” activists were content. Yet when President Bush responded to 9/11 by sending troops to dismantle al-Qaeda’s Afghan training camps and their Taliban benefactors, the guardians of “peace” instantly swept back into action, condemning this “moral atrocity” that would supposedly kill countless innocent Afghans.

The “peace” movement clearly has very little to do with preserving peace and trying to spare innocent lives, and a great deal to do with sowing seeds of anti-Americanism in as many unsuspecting minds as possible. Those who attend such rallies with the purest of intentions should be aware that they are being used toward that end. They should be no more eager to attend a “peace” rally organized by revolutionary Communists, than to attend a “civil rights” rally organized by the Klan or the Aryan Nation.