US anti-war grannies isolated on Afghanistan

Grandmother may know best, but for a group of feisty grannies leading US protests against the war in Afghanistan, the problem is that no one's listening.

The Granny Peace Brigade is not just the most colorful anti-war group in the United States today -- it's one of the only ones.

"It's pretty pathetic," said Joan Pleune, 70, one of seven grandmothers aged 65 to 90 who went to court Tuesday in New York to face disorderly conduct charges.

"We've done all these symbolic actions. We get arrested here and there, but it's symbolic," grey-haired Pleune said. "We need masses in the street."

The absence of those masses reflects significant change in the United States, where the occupation of Iraq drew fierce opposition, but the escalating deployment in Afghanistan retains broad support.

Iraq fatally tarnished the presidency of George W. Bush. In contrast, Barack Obama won the White House promising to win in Afghanistan, something he soon backed up by ordering a 50 percent increase in US troop levels to 59,000.

Political science professor Robert Shapiro said Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, is widely seen as a "justifiable war" because the Taliban sheltered Al Qaeda prior to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"Now the key factor is to give Obama some opportunity to deal with it. But if things don't go well I think you'll start seeing opposition," said Shapiro, who teaches at New York's Columbia University.

As media coverage of Afghanistan steps up, that opposition may already be growing, albeit still far from Iraq levels.

A Gallup/USA Today poll last month found that 42 percent of Americans thought sending troops to Afghanistan was a mistake, up from 30 percent earlier this year, a new high.

Criticism of the Iraq operation, while higher, is inching down.

"As the United States is reducing the size of its military force in Iraq and increasing its troop strength in Afghanistan, the public's opinions about the two wars seem to be adjusting accordingly," Gallup's analysis said.

David Elliot, at True Majority in Washington, said the left-leaning activist group opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq, but not the war in Afghanistan.

"Quite frankly, the energy and attention in Washington, DC, today is on passing the Obama budget with the priority on health care, education and clean energy," he said. "That's where the focus is."

The peace grannies aren't surrendering.

They won a small victory Tuesday when prosecutors decided at the last minute to drop the case related to their arrest last month outside a military recruitment center on Times Square.

The guerrilla grannies celebrated outside court with hand-painted placards taking the place of walking sticks.

"It's sad," Rodrigs' friend, Adam Schwartz, 40, said. "People are involved in themselves now. It's a different generation to what you had in the '60s, when people were more socially conscious."





Dancers from Ensemble of the Turkish state opera and ballet perform the play "Rose Garden" during the Skopje Dance Festival. AFP/Robert Atanasovski

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