Protestors gathered outside Long Beach Terrace Theater where former President George W. Bush spoke at the Distinguished Speaker Series on Monday Sept. 20.
ANSWER Coalition, a non-profit with a chapter in Los Angeles, held an “Arrest Bush” rally, where the participating demonstrators called out the Republican’s misuse of the media to disguise the invasion of Iraq after the 9/11 attacks.
Demonstrators called Bush a “war criminal” during the protest. They demanded his arrest for his crimes against humanity, such as the congressional approval of the use of force on Iraq in 2002.
Protestors said Bush invaded these countries to exploit the Middle East’s oil resources, which resulted in thousands of lost civilian lives.
Veteran Louis Raprager III, who participated in Monday’s rally, was on the USS Abraham Lincoln when Bush gave his “Mission Accomplished” speech in May 2003.
In this speech, the former president had announced the end of major combative operations in Iraq. However, after this speech was made, the war in Iraq continued on for the next eight years, according to the United States Institute of Peace timeline. The last U.S. troops did not pull out of Iraq until December 18, 2011.
It was the “Mission Accomplished” speech that motivated Raprager to retire from the Navy, he said. Bush had put on a photo-op moment to say the mission was over, Raprager said, but the U.S. military was still bombing people.
“Seeing civilians being injured, and having my friends dealing with those ghosts and killing themselves, it’s not good,” Raprager said.
Around 50 protestors gathered on the sidewalk, holding signs which read “Arrest Bush Now”, “End the Occupation of Iraq” and “U.S. out of the Middle East”.
“No matter how many dollars people spend on their speaking engagements, they leave knowing that people were angry,” Josh de Leon, a Long Beach community organizer and speaker at the rally, said.
The ANSWER Los Angeles coalition members demanded that the former president have his legacy “be recognized as criminal,” according to their Twitter.
War Criminal and former President George W Bush is scheduled to speak in LA & LB on 9/19 and 9/20 as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California. His presence is unwelcome and his characterization as “distinguished” is laughable. ARREST BUSH NOW! Protests 🧵 pic.twitter.com/fmOMhgLo1s
— ANSWER Los Angeles (@AnswerLA) September 3, 2021
“George W. Bush must be arrested and held accountable for his crime,” the organization Tweeted. “The catastrophic invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which has lasted nearly 20 yrs, has killed at least 250,000 Afghan people, 71,000 of them civilians.”
The 43rd president, who was elected for two terms from 2000 to 2008, visited both Beverly Hills and Long Beach to speak on his experience of eight years in the Oval Office and offer his thoughts on the current state of the nation.
The former president has been criticized by the coalition for invading Iraq after the attack on 9/11. Bush said the U.S. was after weapons of mass destruction created by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Despite years of search, no weapons of mass destruction were located. Hussein was executed in 2006 after being found guilty of crimes against humanity for his participation in the Dujail Massacre.
“I went in there as a result of a very changed environment because of September the eleventh,” Bush said, during a 2014 interview with CBS.
The former president said during the interview that he was concerned about possible weapons that would make the attack on the Twin Towers pale in comparison.
Diego Sanchez, a demonstrator at the rally, said Biden pulling American troops out of Afghanistan would make people realize the impact of the war Bush initiated 20 years ago.
“We need to start becoming more conscious of what the United States truly is,” Sanchez said. “The United States is not innocent at all.”