Anti-war demonstrators rally across Houston as tensions rise
Hundreds of anti-war demonstrators gathered across Houston on Sunday afternoon to protest the possibility of another war in the Middle East in the wake of an American airstrike that killed a top Iranian general.
In the Galleria area, protesters wielded signs that said “U.S. troops out of Iraq” and “Stop the War Now.”
“We have a right to stand against U.S. foreign policy because we are taxpayers,” protester Syed Qamber Ali Zaidi said as he waved a sign and waggled his fingers at his infant son in tow.
Cars honked in support as Zaidi and 50 other protesters at the corner of Westheimer and Post Oak chanted “no justice, no peace, U.S. out of the Middle East.”
“The U.S. government has killed millions of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and other countries in south and southwest Asia in the past few decades,” said David Michael Smith, an organizer with the Houston Socialist Movement. “It is absolutely imperative to prevent another war.”
On Thursday, President Donald Trump ordered an airstrike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an elite commander of Iran’s Quds Force, as he traveled in neighboring Iraq. Iranian officials and foreign policy experts say the targeted attack will drastically escalate tensions in the Middle East, with Thursday’s airstrike marking the height of rising tensions during the Trump administration.
While Sunday’s protests in Houston were dwarfed in size compared with rallies across the nation and globe Saturday denouncing the strike and the possibility of war, the message echoed those worldwide.
“I would like to see hands off Iran,” said Meghan Nguyen, a University of Texas at Austin student.
Inside the loop, a coalition of anti-war and civil rights groups, including the Houston chapters of Democratic Socialists of America and Black Lives Matter, hosted a peace rally at Discovery Green. More than 200 protesters and curious stragglers enjoying the mild temperatures
“It’s not so much who (Soleimani) is but what he represents: an unnecessary use of force.” Carlos Campos, an organizer with Houston Democratic Socialists of America
downtown followed in calls for peace in the Middle East.
Carlos Campos, an organizer with Houston DSA, said the choice to call the downtown demonstration a peace rally was deliberate because the U.S. is not yet at war.
U.S. government officials should have tried Soleimani in court rather than kill him, Campos said.
“We see this as another ploy to keep up numbers for Donald Trump,” Campos said.
Protester Reem Albishah attended Sunday’s protest downtown to demonstrate against what she said was “a rich man’s war.”
Carrying a black and white sign that read “I don’t give a damn about Uncle Sam,” Albishah said she was at first shocked by Thursday’s news. Like Campos, though, she saw it as a calculated move to advance U.S. interests in the Middle East.
“My hope is that more people feel empowered to say something,” she said.
Campos said he hopes to see the U.S. withdraw from the Middle East.
“It’s not so much who (Soleimani) is but what he represents: an unnecessary use of force,” Campos said.