US protesters clash on the streets

They chanted, "War is not the answer", as they gathered on Saturday in Washington's Freedom Plaza. Their placards reflected their diversity - from pacifists, gays and feminists to trade union militants, ecologists, anti-racism and anti-capitalist activists and Palestinian militants: "Not in our name", "Our grief is not a cry for war", "Free Palestine", "Defend civil rights", "US out of the Middle East", "End racial profiling".

"Eye for an eye and we're all blind," one banner read.

About 7,000 joined two peace rallies and a few dozen joined the inevitable counter-protests by flag-waving "patriots". Eleven were arrested in minor scuffles with the police. And yesterday several thousand more joined a walk organised by the Washington Peace Centre and American Friends Service Committee.

"War will not bring our loved ones back," Mr James Creedon told the crowd in the Plaza. An emergency worker from New York who lost four men from his team on September 11th, he said he too wanted justice but that did not mean the lives of more innocents.

"I know what war looks like," he said. "Ground Zero. That's what war looks like. We must stand up and say not in our name."

The Rev Lucius Walker of Pastors for Peace said that they had a duty to return America's debate to the social safety net, the protection of the environment, civil rights . . . "or we become part of the problem. We must return to those things that make for peace and justice".

Mr Eric Lecompte, of the group School of the Americas Watch, called for anti-war activists to fight for the closure of the school at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he claimed that the US taught terror techniques to military of right-wing regimes in South America.

"Why kill people who haven't killed anyone to show killing is wrong?" asked Ms Vanessa Dixon of the DC Healthcare Now Coalition, one of the dozens of organisations that have joined together in a broad coalition against US retaliation against Afghanistan.

Student leaders spoke of a mobilisation in the colleges for a day of action on October 27th, and union activists of resolutions at branch meetings against war.

But on the fringes of the rally, small groups gathered to argue with counter-protesters carrying their own patriotic placards. "God bless America", "Avenge our dead", they said, although one went some way further: "Nuke them, and there will be no war." "This isn't about racism, this is about exacting justice for 6,500 Americans and people from more than 70 countries around the world were murdered, murdered, mass murdered," said Mr Carter Wood, a government worker who called the demonstrators "the hard-core anti-American left." "America mass murders every single day," interjected a masked protester.

And Mr Frederick Ptersen told a TV crew that he did not blame the misguided young protesters for their lack of understanding, but their parents for creating a society that "is no longer able to define evil". "These kids are as close to fascism as any American has ever been," he warned.