Anti-war protesters were allowed to spray paint on part of thewest front steps of the United States Capitol building after police wereordered to break their security line by their leadership, two sources toldThe Hill.
According to the sources, police officers were livid when theywere told to fall back by U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Phillip Morse andDeputy Chief Daniel Nichols. “They were the commanders on the scene,” one source said,who requested anonymity. “It was disgusting.”
After police ceded the stairs, located on the lower west frontof the Capitol, the building was locked down, the source added.
A second source who witnessed the incident said that the policehad the crowd stopped at Third Street, but were told to bring the policeline in front of the Capitol.
Approximately 300 protesters were allowed to take the steps andbegan to spray paint “anarchist symbols” and phrase such as “Ourcapitol building” and “you can’t stop us” around the area, thesource said.
In Washington, counterprotesters also converged on the mall in smaller numbers, but the antiwar demonstration was largely peaceful.
There were a few tense moments, however, including an encounter involving Joshua Sparling, 25, who was on crutches and who said he was a corporal with the 82nd Airborne Division and lost his right leg below the knee in Ramadi, Iraq. Mr. Sparling spoke at a smaller rally held earlier in the day at the United States Navy Memorial, and voiced his support for the administration’s policies in Iraq.
Later, as antiwar protesters passed where he and his group were standing, words were exchanged and one of the antiwar protesters spit at the ground near Mr. Sparling; he spit back.
Why were these anti-war nuts allowed so close to the Capitol? The last time I checked the freedom of speech didn’t extend to vandalism. And anarchy symbols? Opposition to the war is one thing, but calling for anarchy is quite another.
This is just more evidence that the folks who attend these anti-war rallies that get so much adoring media attention are on the fringes of American politics. Just look at the pictures in this post and see the opinions and sentiments on display. These aren’t “average Americans” expressing some dissent, these are dyed-in-the-wool political radicals many of whom (like the anarchists mentioned above and the pro-Palestinian groups in the post I just linked, as well as a myriad of other far-out socialist and communist groups) are just using an Iraq war protest as a venue to get attention for their own loony causes.
Yet the media white washes their protests. We are given the idea that these are just ordinary folks upset at a bit of foreign policy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. These people don’t just oppose the current war in Iraq, they oppose all wars. They don’t just think America is wrong in this war, they think America is always wrong. Heck, most of them probably opposed the invasion of Afghanistan too right after 9/11. The organizers of the protest, United for Peace and Justice, certainly did.
You won’t hear much about the anarchists defacing our Capitol. You won’t hear much about the anti-war nut who spit at one of our soldiers who served this country honorably. Heck, in a few years the folks on the left will probably be denying that the spitting incident even happened much like they deny that the Vietnam vets got spit on as well.
If most Americans had a full glimpse of just who these anti-war protesters are the protesters themselves would be shunned. Unfortunately, the media who sympathizes with the anti-war sentiments isn’t about to let that happen. Heck, we can’t even get an accurate read on how many people were at the protest.