Posted on 03/24/2003 7:14:32 AM PST by areafiftyone
They assembled at noon on the east side of Broadway, just below 42nd St. Above them rose a billboard for The Gap and another that showed a beaming Al Roker tipping a weatherproof hat. They were here to support President Bush and the war in Iraq, and they started with "God Bless America" and chants of "U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!"
As with the immense anti-war demonstration on Saturday, many of their sentiments were expressed with hand-lettered posters. GIVE WAR A CHANCE! and WAR IS THE ANSWER and SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. Some were polite and thoughtful.
"This is designed to be an antidote to the negativity, the anti-Americanism of what we saw yesterday," said a retired policeman named Michael Fandal. "The troops are risking their lives. We're learning that freedom is not free. This is the least we can do for our guys. Basically, war is not pretty. We had to go in and get Hitler. Now we have another crisis, and we have to terrorize the terrorists ...."
Up on the electronic zipper running around the side of the old Times building, there was news about American soldiers who had been captured or killed in a fierce ambush in Iraq. The news did not seem to chasten the crowd. "U.S.A! U.S.A!" they chanted, raising clenched fists to the sky, many of them with blazing, angry eyes.
A speaker with a bullhorn shouted that "all major organizers of anti-war rallies are Communists! ... They want to take this country and turn it into Cuba!"
This rally was organized, I was told, by the Christian Coalition, the Zionist Organization of America and freerepublic.com, a right-wing Web site.
More signs bobbed in the sunlight: NUKE IRAQ, BOYCOTT FRANCE, said one sign, aimed at TV cameras on the west side of Broadway. I SUPPORT OUR COUNTRY and U.S. TROOPS SAY "NO MORE" and U.S.A. RULES. The strangest said: $ FOR FREEDOM NOT THE BOARD OF ED.
I ran into John Bal, a Vietnam veteran, a former police officer, who wanted to show his support for the soldiers, even though he was skeptical about the Bush administration. "I thought this was going to be something else," he said, and showed me his own sign, whose message was simple: "My heart aches for coalition forces and Iraqi casualties."
Another man told me he had marched for civil rights in Mississippi, had been jailed there, and had come - to his own surprise - to support Bush and the war. "Sept. 11 changed everything," he said, with a certain sorrow in his voice. "We have to fight this war or we'll never be safe again."
Now they were chanting, "U.S.A! U.S.A!" again, and broke into cheers when a fire ladder came past them in the open lanes, and cheered again, for a police emergency vehicle.
Behind me a heavyset, bearded man was suddenly screaming at a middle-aged woman, "You're a bigot! That's what you are! You're a bigot!" And then he rushed her, knocking off her glasses, and started to punch her, and a cop was there, shoving the enraged man away, protecting the woman, and leading her away to safety.
"U.S.A! U.S.A! ..."
One thin young man who supported the war said to a friend, "That's just not right, man. You never hit a woman."
"Yeah, but she must've said something."
"But you don't hit a woman, man."
Someone started singing "God Bless America" again, and images of our amazing week after Sept. 11 flashed through my mind, that week of extraordinary unity that is now breaking into pieces.
Across the street in the media pen, I talked for a while with Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, who argued vehemently in support of the war.
He believed that the Iraq war would be a warning to Iran, Syria, Libya and other countries that "we are not cowards. I believe there's a reasonable chance that if the Saddam regime is eliminated, it may not be necessary to fight the others." Yes: there could be no guarantees.
"But it's like chemotherapy," Klein said. "It could have terrible side effects. But if you don't try chemotherapy, you're dead."
At the corner of 41st St., a lone thirtyish man in jeans, lean and bearded, held a simple sign toward the demonstrators: "Thou Shalt Not Kill."
"Go away!" shouted a furious woman. "Go away! Go away! Go away!"
He wandered away. Now they were chanting, "God Bless Fox News! God Bless Fox News! God Bless Fox News!"
Biblical injunction
On 42nd St., I saw the man with the "Thou Shalt Not Kill" sign standing out of sight of the demonstrators with another bearded fellow who held a small sign that said: "No War."
A wild-eyed man (also bearded) approached them, and shouted: "Get the f--- out of here! Get the f--- OUT of here!" A cop eased over, cool and restrained, and nothing happened. Now some people were leaving the demonstration. One muscled young bravo passed the two bearded men, and shouted at the man in jeans, "F-you, you s------!"
The zipper was telling us that it was a bad day for soldiers in Iraq. The chants began to fade into a kind of bored futility. A long way from Times Square, soldiers were killing and dying. I glanced back and Al Roker was still smiling from the billboard.
Originally published on March 24, 2003
Best laugh I had all day. That was priceless.
A true philosopical conservative would have some concept of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Sadly, another product of the public school system is heard from
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