Dooms Day for Bush!

War Supporters Follow Anti-War Rallies
Sunday September 25, 2005 5:31 PM
AP Photo DCPM105
By ELISABETH GOODRIDGE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Military families and others defending the war in Iraq took their turn Sunday to demonstrate on the National Mall, if in much smaller numbers, and counter the massive protest against the war a day earlier.
About 100 people had gathered before a stage set up on the eastern portion of the mall as the noon rally began. A large photo of an American flag served as a backdrop for the stage, and country music blared from speakers while other banners and signs proclaiming support for U.S. troops waved in the breeze.
John O'Neal, 64, from the Philadelphia area, carried an American flag over one shoulder as he moved around those near the stage. Asking ``Do you want to vote?'' he offered a chance to dip a finger in a cup of blue paint, symbolic of the elections earlier this year in which Iraqis showed off ink-stained fingers proving they had voted.
``This is an indication that efforts the United States has made in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to free and democratic elections,'' O'Neal said.
To the west, near the Washington Monument, workers were taking down the stage used for Saturday's marathon anti-war protest that attracted 100,000 people according to police estimates.
Organizers of Sunday event to show support for troops and President Bush's policies acknowledged that their rally would be much smaller. Still, they said their message would not be overshadowed.
``We're hoping for more folks,'' said Kristinn Taylor, a leader of FreeRepublic.com, one of the sponsors. ``People have been fired up over the past month, especially military family members, and they want to be heard.''
Earlier, Taylor said organizers were prepared for 20,000 people to attend the pro-military rally, billed as a time to honor the troops fighting ``the war on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world.''
On Saturday, demonstrators opposed to the war in Iraq surged past the White House in the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the U.S. invasion. The rally stretched through the night, a marathon of music, speechmaking and dissent on the mall.
In the crowd were young activists, nuns whose anti-war activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children in uniform lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest.
From the stage, speakers attacked Bush's policies head on, but he was not at the White House to hear it - he was in Colorado and Texas, monitoring hurricane recovery.
A few hundred people in a counter demonstration in support of Bush's Iraq policy lined the protest route near the FBI building. The two groups, separated by a police line, shouted at each other.
War supporters said the scale of the anti-war march didn't take away from their cause.
``It's the silent majority,'' said 22-year-old Stephanie Grgurich of Leesburg, Va., who has a brother serving in Iraq.
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On the Net:
ANSWER Coalition: http://www.answercoalition.org
Gold Star Families for Peace: http://www.gsfp.org
Families United for our Troops: http://www.unitedforourtroops.com