| President Bush has declared major combat in Iraq over.
Protesters all over the Puget Sound area have packed up signs. But a
standoff between Bush supporters and anti-war demonstrators continues in
this salty little town, at the busy intersection of Commercial and 12th
avenues, the turnoff for tourists headed to the San Juans.
It's a battle of ideology, and a battle of wills. And, although numbers
have dwindled, sometimes to a solitary stalwart, neither side is willing
to budge.
Almost every Friday and Sunday, the patriot pro-Bush faction gathers on
the northwest corner, waving American flags, carrying signs with yellow
ribbons tied around the handles. "Proud American,"
"Remember 9-11," they read.
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Grant M. Haller / P-I |
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Andy Stevens shows
his true colors at the intersection of Commercial and 12th avenues
in Anacortes. |
"There's nothing wrong with peace," says Andy Stevens, 60, an
independent video producer in Anacortes. "I love peace. But what are
you going to give up for it?
"We're never going to get peace until we develop a zero tolerance
for terrorism."
Opposite them, war protesters hold their vigil, carrying signs that say
"United for Peace" and "How did our oil get under their
sand?" One protester changed the "q" in "No Iraq
War" to an "n."
Either side may get a thumbs-up, a scathing digital salute, a V-sign
for victory, or a peace sign -- what Stevens calls "the footprint of
the American chicken." It was Stevens, a vet who wears alligator
cowboy boots, who tore up one of the protesters' signs -- he claims the
man was an infiltrator from across the street -- an act that brought
police to the corner to dampen tempers.
The "colors don't run" sign belonged to Stevens, who had
posted a pro-Bush message on the reader-board outside her salon. "A
client said, 'Mary, aren't you afraid it will hurt business?' I said, 'It
can close my business! I'm not going to wait until it's popular to be
patriotic.' "
The "don't run the government" sign belonged to Ann Emerson,
the 89-year- old protester who worries the administration is leading the
United States into another war. "I'm just as patriotic as they are,
because I think, I read. They just swallow the party line."
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