War Protesters Stage Guerrilla Theater in NYC
CBS Radio & AP
May 27, 2007
NEW YORK — Iraq war veterans who oppose the war went on mock patrols and staged mock arrests Sunday in a roving guerrilla theater piece designed to bring the war home.
Wearing camouflage fatigues and pointing imaginary guns, a half-dozen veterans subdued a crowd of anti-war protesters playing Iraqi civilians, throwing some of them roughly to the ground and handcuffing them.
“We believe that this is bringing the truth of the war here, the reality of the war here,” said Demond Mullins, 25, of Brooklyn, who served in Iraq as an infantryman with the Army National Guard in 2004 and 2005. “We should be ever mindful of the troops who are giving their lives, and we should be ever mindful of the dishonesty, the absence of truth that has caused us to engage in this war.”
The protest, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, was repeated at busy locations around Manhattan including Times Square, Union Square and the World Trade Center site.
It was dubbed Operation First Casualty, recalling the adage that truth is the first casualty in war. Read the rest of this article here or here.
Editor’s Note: Artist Joey Skaggs has been an active anti-war demonstrator since the 60’s. Here are two related links from his Web site:
Vietnamese Christmas Nativity Burning, Christmas Day, 1968, New York
