I’ve attended the majority of the significant antiwar protests in Washington since 9/11. At a 2005 demonstration, a police attempted to whack me on the head with a wooden pole. At a 2007 demonstration, I snapped a picture showing George W. Bush hanging next to the US Capitol. However my preferred demonstration was a potent little racket that I practically missed out on.
On a bright late summer day in 2013, I ambled to downtown Washington to hike with a bunch of folks who enjoyed bantering as much as I did. The path for the jaunt started on the National Shopping center, passing by the Smithsonian, heading toward the The Second World War Memorial and points beyond.
However my luck ran out early that day. The hike leader, a vivacious Italian American woman, revealed that she had a special treat for us: a “licensed tourist guide” would provide us with remarkable insights along the method. The tour guide was a short, tubby fellow expanded as if he possessed the Secrets of the Temple.
The hike leader announced, “Let’s go,” and then turned the program over to her special guest. “Let me inform you about the Smithsonian Organization,” the certified guide started, blustering as if he were resolving an audience that had simply granted him an honorary doctorate. He then bludgeoned us with every possible detail about the history, architecture, and bathroom restorations of the Smithsonian Castle. He followed that up with a Wikipedia-on-amphetamines performance on the National Museum of Natural History on the other side of the Shopping mall. Prior to a Vaudeville hook might pull him off stage, he started rattling at high speed about the National Museum of American History, with the Washington Monument dragged onto his verbal launch pad. All the hike attendees lived in the DC location but he was prattling on as if we ‘d just arrived on a spaceship from Mars.
Which was when I was summoned by an inexpensive cigar. That dude’s twaddle was another reminder on the perils of any federal government licensing program and gave me more compassion than ever prior to for Washington travelers.
I left stage left and headed toward the White Home. Undoubtedly, I didn’t have an invitation for a late early morning tea in the Oval Office. But I heard there might be some mayhem close by that day.
President Obama was saber rattling toward Syria after a chemical weapons attack had just recently killed hundreds of civilians near Damascus. It was uncertain who perpetrated the atrocity. Syrian rebels prevented United Nations inspectors from surveying the website to confirm the details of the attack. That showed the Assad routine did it, according to the Obama administration. The CIA was funding terrorist groups in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime– part of Obama’s attempt to turn the Middle East into a paradise of democracy. Those terrorist groups had likewise used chemical weapons against civilians, however atrocities by US allies never appear on the radar screen inside the Beltway.
The antiwar movement had actually been comatose for five years, since Obama had actually ascended into the White Home. All subsequent United States bombings and drone assassinations ended up being presumptively progressive and therefore unworthy knocking. But the capacity of a brand-new war in Syria was a defibrillator shock for moribund activists.
With my Nikon video camera flopping around my neck, I turned the corner from Fifteenth Street onto Pennsylvania Avenue, behind the White Home. That stretch of the avenue had long been closed, with concrete barriers to prevent truck bombs and ice cream suppliers from zipping down the way. In the range, I saw a smattering of demonstrators.
As I got more detailed, I saw a mournful young person with a crew cut, sunglasses, and an “Iraq Veterans Against the War” Tee shirts waving a sign knocking “Obama the Warmonger.” A few of his friends were using Young Americans for Liberty T-shirts or Murray Rothbard T-shirts and explained themselves as “paleo-conservatives.” Their conservative, antiwar fervor was among the couple of positive traditions of the Bush administration. They were proudly raising handmade signs that were readable at a range of twelve feet or less. They meant well, but I hoped that none of them were ever put in charge of the highway department’s indication program.
Standing near those guys was a thirtyish lady with the hairiest underarms I ever saw. She was wearing a Veterans for Peace T-shirt– the same group that invited me to the Mall years prior to for “the finest speech I never provided.” She informed me she had actually just recently “transferred for love,” transferring to Washington from Long Island. However her love was not carrying over to the DC area, which she currently despised. At least she was a quick student. She took discomforts to assure me that she was not one of those leftist pinko types just because she opposed war.
Mentioning leftist pinkos, Code Pink– a feminist antiwar group– was on the scene. Their activists brought a cardboard full-size replica of a smiling Obama listed below an indication announcing “I have all the proof I need (simply not the truths).” Many activists feared Obama was on the brink of repeating the Bush administration’s rush to war in Iraq based upon ridiculous claims that might not pass a laugh test.
There were a few lots Syrians on the scene, divided into 2 groups who passionately disliked each other. The majority of the Syrians however a gaggle of folks gung-ho on the United States government toppling the Assad program fiercely opposed battle their nation. A couple shoving matches broke out in between those demonstrators.
The protest was bit more than the remote buzzing of a gnat, barely perceptible on the other side of the high metal fence surrounding the White Home.
And then the US Cavalry showed up for the antiwar activists. Okay, it wasn’t the US Cavalry– it was a lot of communists from Baltimore. Okay, possibly they weren’t communists, however they were the type of hard-core leftists that made lots of Democrats queasy. A busload of sixty protestors arrived and poured into the streets bring excellent signs and brilliant banners recognizing them as fans of ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). They rapidly deployed a remarkable bold-red NO WAR ON SYRIA! banner, and I photographed four of them raising it with the White House in the background. Those protestors marched in an oval, chanting, “Hands off Syria.” That group knew how to make itself heard raising hell.
The Park Authorities and Trick Service had actually mainly neglected the protestors as long as they were a scattered rabble. However the Baltimore group changed the video game and officialdom started its intimidation efforts. An overfed Park Law enforcement officers waddled into the middle of the street and started ostentatiously videotaping all the protestors. From his vapid visage, I thought he was called either Wilbur or Clarence. Would the images he caught fatten up secret federal dossiers on the activists? Every few years, another scandal emerges over law enforcement agencies unlawfully surveilling peaceful demonstrators. Political appointees assure it will never happen once again and after that the abuse resumes after the spotlight moves away.
Word circulated amongst the protestors that Obama would be making a significant declaration on Syria at 1:15 p.m.– less than an hour later. Experts anticipated that Obama would reveal that he had released a cruise rocket attack on Syria. The leader of the response protestors urged her cadre: “CNN states the antiwar rally is being heard inside the White Home– keep shouting, and louder!”
As I loitered in the street, taking photos and chewing on an inexpensive cigar, I talked with conservative military veterans who were far better informed on foreign policy than most Washingtonians. I likewise palavered with a couple ANSWER zealots about a legendary Baltimore German brewery that had actually just recently gone belly-up.
And then the other United States Cavalry showed up– a squadron of mounted Park Cops using intense blue helmets who almost charged into the serene crowd. Some of the Park Authorities had connected black strips to their badges to hide their identification numbers. I thought that was brazenly prohibited however possibly not because they were The Law. Covering badge numbers would make it much more difficult for demonstrators to determine specific officers who abused them.
As the horses began to spread demonstrators, a big truck supported to the scene and a freshly gotten here pack of Park Police began unloading sections of metal fences which they continued. Authorities initially connected the metal fences around the outskirts of the demonstrators on the street and on the pathway next to the White House fence. Then, a few minutes later on, police officers started moving the fence lines towards each other. Politico reported later on that day: “About 100 peace activists were fenced into a protest zone on the walkway in front of the White Home … Police officers blocked other protestors– and a press reporter– from getting in the demonstration zone, stating the one opening was an exit only.”
The Obama administration was restoring a repellent Bush administration legacy– complimentary speech zones. After the 9/11 attacks, avoiding lèse majesté– any affront to the self-respect of the supreme ruler– surpassed the First Amendment. When Bush circumnavigated the nation to speak, the Trick Service would browbeat police into setting up “totally free speech zones” where dissidents could be quarantined far from the media and public view. I composed among the first exposés of this censorship charade in late 2003. Anyone who quietly held up a the “No War for Oil” indication outside the “complimentary speech zone” might be jailed. The feds lost several court fights but the violent practice continued since few protest groups might manage to eliminate the world’s biggest law firm, the US Justice Department.
I was standing in the middle of the area being cordoned off, enjoying complimentary speech being eliminated lawn by backyard in real time. As the fence line came closer to me, I seemed like I was watching G-men hammer nails into the casket of the First Amendment. Judges had postponed many times that police could do as they please, positive that no federal authorities would be jailed no matter how many humans rights they squashed.
As the “complimentary speech zone” narrowed, police started alarming anybody who declined to leave the street. After I was repeatedly threatened with arrest, I foot dragged towards Lafayette Park, moving just quick sufficient to prevent getting handcuffed. A lots years into the federal supremacy era after the 9/11 attacks, anybody who did not instantly obey approximate commands was now guilty of “interrupting the peace.”
At 1:15 p.m., Obama stepped up to the microphone in the Rose Garden in what the New York City Times called a “hurriedly organized look … as American destroyers equipped with Tomahawk missiles waited in the Mediterranean Sea.” As antiwar chants might be heard in the background, Obama stunned the media by announcing that, though he had actually chosen to attack Syria, he would seek congressional authorization before launching the missiles. Obama declared, “I’m positive in the case our government has made without awaiting U.N. inspectors.”
That protest and Obama’s statement spurred me to write a short article that the U.S.A. Today headlined “We Can’t Trust White House Syria Claims.” The editors added a subheadline that made me burst out laughing: “The administration needs to learn from the past and tell the entire reality.” Ya, I was resting on the edge of my chair awaiting the entire reality from the feds. My piece, published the week after the demonstration, concluded, “America can not manage another ‘trust me’ war based upon secret evidence … People are left clueless about perils until it is far too late for the country to draw back.”
Happily, American public belief strongly opposed plunging into another Middle East quagmire and Congress never greenlighted Obama’s attack on the Assad program. Obama guaranteed sixteen times that he would never ever put United States “boots on the ground” in the Syrian civil war. He quietly deserted that promise and, starting in 2014, launched more than 5 thousand airstrikes that dropped more than fifteen thousand bombs on terrorist groups in Syria. But the US federal government might have stepped in even more aggressively without the courage and caterwauling of White House protestors along with numerous other Americans who pushed back versus the warmongers.