My Own Side

On the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War, the World Can’t Wait activist group and the other usual suspects protested at Westlake Mall in the middle of Seattle.

Here’s a wide shot. I got roughly half the crowd in this one.

All of the great warm and fuzzy feelings toward their country were on display here as always.

The flag in the picture above has a bomb in the stars, and across the stripes it says “United We Sit and Watch.”

These guys were ready. Not just bandannas, but plexiglass riot shields, complete with “Viva La Revolucion!” printed across one.

But the scariest part is yet to come. Don’t even try messing with The Raging Grannies!

Here’s a Palestinian supporter, complete with keffiyeh, Palestinian flag and Israel bashing sign. Apparently no outrage at all about the daily rocket barrages into the Israeli town of Sderot.

Across the street were a few troop supporters, carrying the flags of the different armed services.

I take it this guy is not a Bush fan. His sign says “I Hated Bush Before It Became Cool.”

No surprise what you find on the book tables at these events. This book is titled “The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels - A Road Map to History’s Most Important Political Document.” “Indispensable” says Howard Zinn. What is it with these people? If there was only one thing we learned from the 20th century, other than Disco being dead, it is that Marxism is an utterly failed ideology. It is a wonderful sounding idea that miserably fails to deliver anything but death, abject poverty and an occasional train that runs on time.

There were a few young kids getting involved in the fun. I hope they find something else to do after school before they become completely radicalized.

Speaking of becoming radicalized, below is a picture of Emma Kaplan from the failed shutdown of the Tacoma Mall Recruiting Station. She was also at todays protest, causing trouble again. Take a look at this link for a great picture of her in the Seattle P.I. that really says it all.

This is a picture of an angry Palestinian-American from the protest here last year.

She was back again this year, and her rhetoric has only gotten worse.

From Palestine to Iraq, people everywhere are rising up in resistance. Stand up to the worlds superpower. Turning the superpower’s dreams of empires into nightmares. Let us join them!

Our circumstances are not harsher than the circumstances of the Palestinians and the Iraqis, and if they can stand up to powers, if they can turn the superpower’s dreams of empire into nightmares, then so can we!

For the full gallery of pictures, go here.

Click here for last year’s protest.

Yes, it’s true. Michael Moore loves me. He linked to my post on the Tacoma Recruiting Station protest, right from his homepage. Ok, it was probably a Michael Moore minion, God knows he can afford some. He has a roundup of protests across the country, and I am there under the “PHOTOS” for Tacoma, WA. But I do have to wonder if he actually read what I wrote before linking.

In any event, a big Welcome! to his fans! Browse around, be at peace, close your eyes, take a deep cleansing breath and repeat after me: “There is no terrorist threat! There is no terrorist threat!“

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!