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Fugazi Banter: War

a crowd gathers in front of a band performing in front of the white house, under a banner that says "there will be 2 wars"
Fugazi performing in front of the White House on the eve of the Persian Gulf War. 1991.

Courtesy of the Fugazi live series. Photographer unknown.

By Dr. Rami Toubia Stucky

Introduction

Explore the Series

Between the late 1980s and early 2000s, punk band Fugazi played several times at DC-area parks. Many of their live shows were recorded by fans and then made available. These recordings not only capture Fugazi’s music. You can also hear bandmembers Ian MacKaye, Joe Lally, Brendan Canty, Guy Picciotto, and Jerry Busher address the crowd. Sometimes they prepared monologues or spun off into impromptu musings. Other times they invited guest speakers and activists such as Mark Andersen on stage. What was said was almost always political, though.

Check out the Rest of the Six-Part Series

This page is part of a six-part series that looks at the concerns of DC punks firsthand. Use the links to the right to explore the rest of the series.

Stay here to listen to activists and band members talk about the impending Persian Gulf War, anti-war protests at Andrews Air Force Base, and the cost––financial and human––of war in the Middle East.

Persian Gulf War

  • Fugazi: Persian Gulf War | January 12, 1991 - Lafayette Park

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        An excerpt from the banter in between songs at a January 1991 Fugazi concert held in Lafayette Park. The unidentified speaker (likely Cliff Newman of the Community for Creative Nonviolence) decries how the "war issue" takes money from federal programs that help Americans.

        Date created:
        01/12/1991
        Audio Transcript

      “We have a particular concern with this war issue. The people who live in our shelter, a lot of them are veterans and a lot of them are still enlisted in part of the armed service reserve system. And we don’t want this war to take place because it’s taking all the money and all the funding of the social service programs. Every day that we’re over there in the Middle East takes 31 million dollars out of federal programs. …And we could have—basically for or that kind of money we can set up affordable housing around the country. We can get people off the streets, out of shelters, and get them back into the mainstream. Get them back into lives.”

      Explanation

      A brick wall with white hatch / tally marks etched into each brick.
      Brick wall, at University of Rochester, with hatch marks for each death in protest of military operations during Persian Gulf War.

      Mertin, Roger, photographer. East facade; Wilson Commons, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. April 30, 1991.

      Throughout the 1980s, Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, was involved in several disputes with Kuwait. The reasons for the disputes were numerous. Iraq owed about $14 billion to Kuwait. Hussein felt that Kuwait was part of Iraqi territory. Kuwait was overproducing oil, causing oil prices to slump. Whatever the issues, Hussein felt like he needed to act. In August 1990, he invaded the neighboring country. Within hours, Kuwait was under Iraqi control.

      The invasion received international condemnation. The United Nations drafted a resolution demanding that Iraqi troops withdraw by November. The Iraqi government ignored their demands. In the United States, Congress was debating whether to go to war.

      By early January 1991, American military intervention was on the horizon. The United Nations was on board. An international coalition had assembled. War seemed inevitable when Fugazi played at Lafayette Park on the 12th. Two days later, Congress made it official, passing the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution.1

      Fugazi and their fans found several aspects of the Persian Gulf War objectionable. For one, they felt the United States had much larger problems to deal with. In 1988, 525 homeless families were being housed in DC hotels and other shelters. This statistic offers a snapshot into the district’s larger homelessness problem. Homeless families comprised an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the unhoused population in the district.2 If the United States went to war, they would be fighting on two fronts. One front would be the Middle East. Another front would be domestic homelessness. Fugazi made this point with a succinct banner displayed on the stage. “There Will Be 2 Wars,” it stated.

      To make matters worse, the United States would exacerbate the homelessness problem by fighting abroad. In 1991, government officials estimated that veterans composed nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population. This numbered about 150,000 veterans in total.3

      Anti War Protests

      • Fugazi: Refuse & Resist | January 12, 1991 - Lafayette Park

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            An excerpt from the banter in between songs at a January 1991 Fugazi concert held in Lafayette Park. Mark Andersen discusses "Refuse and Resist" efforts to protest the war on terror.

            Date created:
            01/12/1991
            Audio Transcript

          “Real quick. A couple of announcements: There are folks from Refuse and Resist who are going to go over to Andrews Air Force base to leaflet there, encouraging GIs to refuse to fight in the war. If you want to join them, go over there by the yellow banner.”

          Explanation:

          A bearded man seated in front of a bunch of microphones
          Abbie Hoffman, one of the founding members of "Refuse and Resist."

          Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer. April 1981.

          Several renowned civil rights activists formed Refuse and Resist in 1987. Among the founders were Sonia Sanchez, Conrad Lynn and Abbie Hoffman. They were primarily dedicated to protesting President Ronald Reagan’s “resurgent” and “rehabilitated America.” They took issue with the glorification of war “through the promotion of mindless Ramboism.” According to them, such culture under Reagan’s America prepared and sponsored an invasion of Nicaragua. They argued it propped up the Apartheid regime in South Africa. It bombed Libya, seized Grenada, and labeled anybody who resisted as “terrorists.”4

          Refuse and Resist continued to organize under the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Andrews Air Force Base, located in Prince George’s County, Maryland, was the perfect site for a protest. Founded in 1942, it has since become the airfield through which presidents typically fly in and out. By asking GIs to accompany them to the base, Refuse and Resist were not only protesting at a symbolic space. They were also continuing a tradition of veterans protesting war.

          Already by November 1990, over 50 US military personnel declared their refusal to fight in the Gulf. Marine Corps reservist Paul Dotson emphatically declared that he refused to “kill for oil.” US Marine Jeff Patterson made a similar statement. As his unit boarded an aircraft in Hawaii, Patterson sat down, blocking the runway. He then later commented that he refused to board the plane that was going to make him fight for “American profits and cheap oil.” Protests became even more extreme and desperate as the war dragged on. There were ultimately 300 reports of cases of self-mutilation among US troops who did not want to go to the Gulf.5 By May 1991, around 2,000 military members had applied for discharge as conscientious objectors.6

          The Cost of War

          Two women stand and speak into a microphone at the top of some steps, while several more sit holding signs in front of them. Signs say "Work for peace, join us", "you cant see a thousand points of light from a bomb shelter", and "our hands are clean"
          Gulf War protest. January 1991.

          Marshall, Michael [photographer]. January 1991. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America,

          • Fugazi: Billions | January 12, 1991 - Lafayette Park

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                An excerpt from the banter in between songs at a January 1991 Fugazi concert held in Lafayette Park. Singer Ian MacKaye contrasts the price of war with the price of domestic programs.

                Date created:
                01/12/1991
                Audio Transcript

              “Now with the billions and billions and billions of dollars that are being spent in the Middle East, that they can’t spend at least a couple hundred, or a couple thousand, here in Washington and other places where people who are dying in the streets here.”

              Explanation:

              The costs to human life during the Persian Gulf War were the following. More than 250 allied coalition personnel were killed. Kuwaiti casualties numbered in the low thousands. Around 100,000 Iraqi soldiers had died, possibly more. Tens of thousands of civilians perished during the war and its immediate aftermath. All told, the war cost as many as 200,000 lives.7

              This substantial loss of life came at a financial cost as well. President Dwight D. Eisenhower would have recognized this fact as early as 1961. That year, during his farewell address, he coined the famous term “military industrial complex.” This term referred to the relationship between a country’s military and defense spending. One side, the United States, benefits from receiving weapons. The other side, the defense industry, benefits from being paid to supply them.8

              Eisenhower’s fears about the “unwarranted influence” of an “immense military establishment and a large arms industry” proved true. During the Vietnam War, military expenditure was about 9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. When the war concluded in 1975, more than $111 billion had been spent.9

              Concern about the military industrial complex surfaced at the onset of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Congress originally appropriated only $1 billion for the war effort. However, when all was said and done, it cost $61.1 billion to liberate Kuwait.10

              Meanwhile, on December 11, 1991, an unhoused person died huddled under a blanket a block from the White House. It was DC’s second such death in five weeks.11

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              Last updated: March 20, 2025