15 February 2003: The day the world said no to war

When Tony Blair spoke to the students of Colby College, Maine USA, on the day of their graduation, he gave them pearls of wisdom to help them make their way in the world.

"Successful people are not defined by a restless search for fame or fortune," he said, "but by an insatiable desire to be better."

Would this be the same Tony Blair who in the five years since he stepped down from being the UK's prime minister has earned by some estimates up to £60 million? Who is available to hire by any banker, oil conglomerate or despot, as long as the price is right? Or who charges hundreds of thousands for his speeches.

As for "an insatiable desire to be better" -- Blair should have added, better than me, that is, who lied to the British people, parliament and even his own ministers to bounce Britain into an illegal war with Iraq in which one million Iraqis lost their lives.

"Be a leader, not a follower," Blair told the students, neglecting to add that at a secret meeting in April 2002 he told George W. Bush that he would be his servant wherever the neo-con war plans took him.

"Be of an open mind," said the man whose mind on war with Iraq was so closed that he ignored the huge majority of the British people who opposed the Iraq war, and who demonstrated in unprecedented numbers, with up to two million people on the streets of London on 15 February 2003, the largest protest in British history.

As for his appeal for international cooperation and an understanding of other people's cultures, could this be the same Tony Blair whose war policies made the world ever more divided and insecure, whose attacks on civil liberties at home led to a rising tide of anti-Muslim hatred, and who - as the Middle East "peace" envoy -- has refused to criticise Israel's attempts to erase out of existence Palestinian culture?

Thankfully, just as the war criminal Blair is unable to go anywhere in the world without being confronted by protesters, Lisa Savage and others were there when he spoke to the students at Colby College.

Why I heckled the war criminal Tony Blair

If you woke on a beautiful spring Sunday in May on a pond in Maine, what would you do?

A canoe ride on water as smooth as glass, and breakfast on the deck, perhaps -- followed by disrupting international war criminal Tony Blair at Colby College graduation in Waterville!

Who knew our protest would lead news coverage of the ceremony? (Washington Post, WGME, Houston Chronicle, and Daily Mail, to name a few.)

With the BLAIR IS A WAR CRIMINAL sign I scrawled hastily in pink lipstick, we approached the back row of the outdoor ceremony where the former British PM, who lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and has the blood on his hands of thousands of innocent civilians, was to speak.

Before we even made it off the street we were approached by a man from Vermont who said, "Thank you for being here. I was disgusted that Colby would invite such a slimy speaker for graduation this year." (More of the disgusted were heard from in Op-Ed News and the local newspapers.)

As we stood holding our signs and quietly listening to graduates give a prayer and then a speech, we were approached by Colby College security guards who told us to keep quiet or else we'd be asked to leave.

When the introduction for Blair began I waited for a pause and then called out "Tony Blair is a war criminal! He should be arrested. He lied us into war in Iraq. He's a war criminal!"

Just then I was grabbed by my arm and turned to find myself staring into the badge of Waterville's Chief of Police Joe Massey, who told me I had to leave. I told him he really shouldn't have his hands on me, and wriggled free.

A couple of Colby security guards and a few more uniformed police scurried up and the guards said they had warned us that we had to be quiet to stay. We were now told if we didn't leave we'd be arrested, so my husband and I decided to go back to our car.

Ridgely Fuller stayed behind to call out "War Criminal!" once again as Blair approached the podium. She, too, was asked to leave.

Because both of us had CODEPINK on our sign and banner, the Associated Press report picked up this nugget, ostensibly a quote from Waterville police (which I very much doubt):

Lawrence Reichard stayed behind to call out "warmonger" and more, and when he refused to leave, was arrested. We know Lawrence from Occupy Bangor, and I've seldom seen a happier mug shot than the one of him released by the Waterville Police Department and carried by news outlets in the US and the UK:

As we walked back to our car our escort had dwindled to two Colby security guards. I asked one of them if he supported what had been done in Iraq, killing thousands or maybe even a million women, children, and other civilians.

He said he didn't have any opinion about that. "I'm just doing my job," he told me.

I said that was the defense used by German soldiers during the trials of Nazis after the war, that they were just doing their job. I asked him if he ever studied history and he said no, so I suggested he might want to look up the Nuremberg trials sometime.

As he gave us our final warning that we'd be arrested if we tried to come back,  it was just as Ridgely caught up to us. I told him, "We are civil disobedients. We've been arrested before, like at the White House."

His eyes lit up. "Really? You mean the one just the other day?"

Another thing that made me think he was kind of sympathetic to our side was when I had asked my husband, "Why do you think Colby chose such a creepy speaker for their commencement?" the young security guard commented, "Yeah, Bates" -- another Maine college -- "got Robert DeNiro."

As we left the campus I saw an acquaintance who works at Colby, in a pretty dress, standing obediently off to one side.

I feel that the passivity and complicity of US citizens in the dirty dealings of NATO and its member nations, blindly paying federal taxes every year to fund the slaughter of innocents, afraid to protest, afraid to rock the boat for fear of job loss or being seen as impolite, is actually the biggest threat to global security.

And that's why, as my compatriots were protesting the disgusting spectacle of the NATO summit in Chicago this weekend, I disrupted Colby College's graduation ceremony.