The fifth anniversary of the Iraq War is coming up, and so the usual gaggle of communist front groups came down again to “shutdown” the Recruiting Center at the Tacoma Mall on March 15th, 2008, but this time they had a surprise waiting. The place was already packed with military families and supporters.

From this wide view, you can’t even see the protesters. They huddled in a group around to the right of the building. Fortunately, as this KIRO news video shows, the mismatch in numbers even became the story to the MSM, rather than any dramatic “shutdown” the protesters had hoped for. Here are some shots of the protesters.

Yes, that is a recycled Ron Paul sign.

This protester is shy a few stars, sorry to say. Maybe he burned all his other flags.

The college kids were well represented as usual, but always around are the older mentors who are helping to fill these kids brains with Marxist mush.

Orange armbands seem to be “in” nowadays. Note the updated World Can’t Wait fist logo above. I guess it is to show solidarity with terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay.

After the Times Square bombing, the police are taking threats against recruiting centers more seriously. This time, the police outnumbered the protesters. This first picture shows the first line of a double wall of police that separated the two groups, with many other officers off to the side.

Bloggers like Michelle Malkin and groups like Move America Forward have been tracking the rise in attacks against recruiting centers. Here are some pictures of people who get what the American military is all about.

What the protesters lack in solutions and reason, they compensate for with emotion and drama. Here is another one of their paper-mache projects.

They also had a cute skit. The evil Miss America pulls the puppet strings of poor, duped kid. Fortunately for peace and social justice, he rebels and throws off his strings, leaving a disgruntled Miss America behind as he skips off to upbeat music from a boombox. Kind of impressive how they managed to pack so many stereotypes into such a short skit.

They also brought in several containers of shoes, which they had tagged with names of Iraqis killed since the start of the war. Next to them were boots representing U.S. soldiers killed, in some cases actual ones donated by the families. As I was looking at the display, I wondered how much space you would need to show all of the shoes of Iraqis killed by Saddam and found in his numerous mass graves? You don’t hear much about them anymore, because they don’t fit the narrative, but it is typically disingenuous of the left to skip that part. If we had not invaded Iraq, would there be a Lancet study done on the thousands of Iraqis killed by Saddam over the last five years?

But on the other side, one of the troop supporters had come ready with a little drama of her own. Introducing: 60’s Flower Child!

I think she was talking about this:

As always, the protesters had some catchy chants.

U.S., Imperialist!

Number One Terrorist!

What Are They Recruiting For?

Murder, Rape, Torture, War!

Fallujah, Haditha, Guantanamo Bay!

These Are The Lies (Words?) The Recruiters Don’t Say!

Rolling in to support the troops were numerous bikers. Some nice hogs.

The troop supporters were there before the protesters arrived, and they stayed there long after. Be very skeptical when they put up a report on their websites about what a successful action this was. Protesters are generally a dour lot, but I was almost feeling sorry for them, they looked so deflated at first.

Be sure to go here and check out the full gallery of pictures from this protest.

Also, I covered another protest a few months ago at this same recruiting station, the link is here. Below is my favorite picture from that day. Keep your chin up!