An exciting new tactic in the struggle against the war in Iraq has emerged in the Pacific Northwest, specifically in Olympia and the state of Washington's South Sound region. Protests and direct action, aimed at stopping the transshipment of equipment and weaponry from Fort Lewis to Iraq through public ports, has forced the US Army to move to three different ports in Western Washington in the last year in an effort to avoid protesters and publicity.

The current wave of protests targeting ports drew its inspiration from an April 7, 2003 protest at the Port of Oakland, shortly after the war began, in which several hundred anti-war and labor activists were abruptly fired upon by police with rubber bullets at close range while protesting a shipment from nearby Concord Naval Weapons Station.

In 2004, Olympia activists learned that the Port of Olympia was being used for similar shipments from nearby Fort Lewis. After two years of unsuccessful letter-writing and petitioning to Port and city officials to stop the shipments, in 2006 the group Olympia Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) decided that, with a large pending shipment of Stryker armored combat vehicle to Iraq, they would switch to more direct protests. Because soldiers are flown to Iraq while equipment goes via sea, the equipment leaves several weeks earlier; activists reasoned that if they could delay or even prevent the equipment from reaching Iraq, the soldiers, as well, would be unable to be deployed.

What started as a relatively small protest in May 2006 gained momentum over the 10 days it took for the Army to move the Strykers to the Port and load them on the ship. The protests culminated on May 30, when 22 activists were arrested for trying to block access to the Port and police used pepper spray to break up the demonstration. Over the ten days, nearly 40 people were arrested for nonviolent acts of civil disobedience.

What began as a series of protests developed, over subsequent months, into a campaign to pressure the Port and City of Olympia to stop the shipments. A major focus became the cost, to the city, Thurston County, and the port, of law enforcement for the May 2006 protests, estimated for the various agencies at about $23,000 that the small city had not budgeted for. It helped that an Olympia city councilman, T.J. Johnson, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, became not only an ally but a significant organizer within Olympia PMR.

In early 2007, Olympia activists learned that another shipment was pending in advance of the deployment of 4,000 soldiers from the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division from Fort Lewis. Activists, the city, and port officials braced for another round of protests and direct action at the Port of Olympia, but it never came--the Army had been deliberately leaking misinformation. Instead, the Army chose not to confront the protesters, and began moving 300 Stryker vehicles to the Port of Tacoma on March 2.

The protesters moved with them. Tacoma PMR was born, and Tacoma, Olympia, and Seattle activists--and beyond--converged on the Port of Tacoma. As did law enforcement agencies throughout Western Washington.

From the beginning, the police presence at the Port of Tacoma was large, arbitrary, and violent. Since the vehicles were being moved from Fort Lewis late at night, generally between 10 PM and 6 AM, the protests were happening in those hours, too. By March 5, police were using rubber bullets, and three protesters were arrested and roughed up for no apparent reason. A legal observer was arrested on March 6. On March 9, there was another arrest, for carrying a backpack in an area where police decided backpacks should be banned.

By March 11, activists had developed a "Citizen's Injunction to Halt the Shipment of Military Material to Iraq." Fifteen activists, including the Olympia councilman, T.J. Johnson, were arrested trying to deliver the injunction; another eight were arrested for challenging the backpack ban, including a Buddhist monk carrying his traditional pouch for religious reasons.

Protests of up to several hundred people per day, and random arrests and police violence, continued through March 15, when the USNS Soderman set sail after ten days of protests. In all, 37 people were arrested, and this time law enforcement agencies estimated their costs as being up to a half-million dollars--a price tag that again became an issue at Tacoma's City Council. The Olympia and Tacoma protests both got widespread regional media coverage, and even though Tacoma activists had not been preparing for either the shipments or the protests, the events of March gave local anti-war organizers there a huge boost.

So for its next shipment, the Army turned to the small timber city of Aberdeen, on the Pacific Coast, 40 miles west of Olympia and 60 miles away from Fort Lewis.

The twin towns of Aberdeen and Hoquiam, combined, have only a third the population of the Olympia area, and less than a tenth that of greater Tacoma. As a more isolated, rural area, the anti-war activist community there is also smaller. But even at Aberdeen's Port of Grays Harbor, the Army did not get a free ride. When a report in the local Aberdeen newspaper alerted activists on May 2nd that Strykers and Apache helicopters bound for Iraq had started arriving at the port, Olympia and Tacoma activists began to meet with local Aberdeen activists to mount a response. Aberdeen PMR was born, and on May 5 and 6 more than 100 protesters (and dozens of police) massed on short notice at the port in what was almost certainly the largest anti-war demonstration in the county's history.

Meanwhile, the Olympia and Tacoma protests, each of which drove the Army away from their city's port, continued to reverberate. All but 15 of the original Olympia arrestees had either settled or had their charges dropped, and after an initial mistrial, in a second trial on June 16 charges were dismissed against the remaining defendants. At this writing, of the 37 Tacoma arrestees, 24 are being charged. Six had charges filed long after the original arrests, three as apparent retaliation after the activists had filed lawsuits alleging police abuse. All of these developments have generated extensive additional local media.

In the aftermath of the move to Grays Harbor, PMR activists from Olympia, Tacoma, Aberdeen, Seattle, and points between are attempting to regionalize their movement, so that no matter where Fort Lewis officials try to ship out their equipment next, there is a swift and coordinated response.

The port protests have also reverberated outside the region. Back in Oakland, site of the original 2003 protest, a new generation of activists took inspiration from the PMR movement this year and shut down the Port of Oakland during another Concord Naval Weapons Station transshipment on May 19--Armed Forces Day--when International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) dockworkers refused to cross the activists' picket line. Oakland activists also managed a letter of support for their protests from Mayor Ron Dellums--underscoring the utility of reaching out to both labor and elected officials.

Such protests can happen almost anywhere. One of the results of military pork barrel politics is that almost every community has a military base or military contractor nearby that provides some sort of logistical support for the war in Iraq. And in every single case, those goods need to get from Point A to Point B, often through public facilities. Protesting or blocking such shipments does not endanger any soldiers, because the equipment is shipped before the soldiers are even in Iraq. (The 4th Brigade's 4,000 soldiers arrived in Baghdad on May 2, nearly two months after Tacoma protests began.) And the protests highlight the fact that every community has a stake in this war, that taxpayers are all paying for this tremendous and criminal waste of life through the staggeringly expensive use of federal and even local tax dollars.

The experience of the PMR protests has yielded a lot of useful lessons. Among them: the importance of alliance-building with labor unions and workers, city and port officials, and even soldiers themselves; the utility of adhering to a code of nonviolence even in the face of extreme police provocation; the importance of observation in knowing when and where materials will be shipped; using the Internet to mobilize and organize people at new locations quickly; and, as the protests moved from city to city, the balancing requirements of offering the experience of activists from other locations while respecting the local needs and circumstances of the community hosting the protests.

A supermajority of the American public opposes the war in Iraq. Taking direct action against shipments to Iraq is a reminder to all that ordinary people are willing to do the job that Congress and the White House will not: to end the war. Until the war ends, every shipment, every base, and every military contractor should be fair game.

For more information on the PMR movement, visit omjp.org/Port2007.html.