Teachers protest war in Iraq

“I’m dealing with the kids and their emotions every day,” the seventh-grade English teacher with spiky purple hair said Thursday. “A lot of the kids’ parents are in Iraq for the second or third time.”

Mooha was among about 20 locals who turned out for a war protest Thursday morning that was part of a national effort to showcase anti-war teachers. The 53-year-old Las Vegan held a neon yellow sign with the words, “How about a textbook surge?”

The protest at the federal courthouse on Las Vegas Boulevard was organized by a national group, Americans United for Change, that hopes to put pressure on federal lawmakers who continue to support President Bush’s war strategy, including Nevada Reps. Jon Porter and Dean Heller and Sen. John Ensign, all Republicans.

Jeremy Funk, a spokesman for the group, said “teachers against the war” protests were planned this week and next week in Colorado, Illinois, New York, Ohio and Oregon in addition to Nevada. He said the effort is part of a larger campaign to show that “all different voices, all different walks of life,” oppose the current strategy in Iraq.

Last month, the group organized a rally of Las Vegas clergy members against the war.

The teachers Thursday joined a protest and vigil that was organized by local Catholic Workers, the movement of pacifist Catholics, five years ago, before the war began, said Billie Jean James, a 64-year-old retired teacher and poet who attended Thursday’s protest. The vigil has been held every Thursday morning since, she said.

James, clad in black mourning clothes and an American flag bandana, lamented the protest’s small size.

“It’s important that it’s here, but I think it would be a lot more effective if the street was lined with people,” she said as passing cars honked their approval. “During Vietnam, when we had the draft, it brought people out into the streets.”

James said she believes most people agree with the protesters, but feel distant from the war and aren’t motivated to activism.

Chelsea Van Zanten, a 36-year-old elementary school speech pathologist, said she thought the war was a waste.

“What frustrates me is, we just finished a busy school year and my department is very short staffed,” she said. “We don’t have enough funding, and yet I see billions and billions of dollars being spent on the war.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is on the outs with the Democratic party’s liberal base after he helped pass a Senate bill funding the war without a timeline for troop withdrawal. But his constituents at Thursday’s protest were more understanding. Shannon Axelrod, 33, said Reid did what he had to do.

“He had to give a little,” she said. “The bottom line is, we’re a red state, and he has to keep all sides happy.”

Axelrod said she was encouraged by Thursday’s news that Reid plans to force several more war-related votes in the Senate before that body takes its July 4 recess.

A spokesman for Porter said the Republican congressman believes it’s too soon to tell whether the current strategy in Iraq is a success.

“Congressman Porter has given General (David) Petraeus the opportunity to allow this plan to succeed,” Matt Leffingwell said. “He will look for tangible indications of success when he (Petraeus) returns to Congress in September.”

Heller has been singled out as a target by Americans United, which aired television ads slamming his war stance in Reno earlier this year. His spokesman, Stewart Bybee, did not return phone calls or e-mail Thursday.