Protesters weave passions into Olympia's history
BRAD SHANNON
THE OLYMPIAN
04 June 06
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The arrests of anti-war protesters at the Port of Olympia over the past
two weeks evoked comparisons to protests of earlier eras, including
Vietnam and the U.S. attack that pushed Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991.

The recent protests were in many ways more intense, by Olympia
standards, than past outbursts of civil disobedience, according to many
people who participated in or witnessed the earlier actions.

The port protests had been building up over the course of three years
since the United States invaded Iraq and deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.

The biggest confrontation came Tuesday, when 22 people were arrested on
trespassing and other charges as port workers moved the last convoys of
Army Stryker vehicles for loading onto an Iraq-bound ship.

Protesters allegedly pulled open a port gate and occupied public land,
leading to confrontations that included police using pepper spray and
making arrests - the fourth time over a 10-day period that protesters
were arrested.

Benjamin Groves, 20, a protester and student at The Evergreen State
College, said he hopes the arrests, which by one account got attention
in more than 70 media outlets in the United States and overseas, spur
other U.S. activists to take similar action. "These protests are acting
as an example for the rest of the country and for other peace groups
around the country to replicate," explained Groves, who was arrested on
an allegation of trespassing.

"If this happens constantly ... it will put more pressure to end the war
and it will cost counties and public ports even more money."

Groves said that besides taking some of the profit out of the port's
loading of armored vehicles onto military ships, he hopes the military
decides it's not worth supplying the war through Olympia.

But Groves acknowledged it's unclear what good will come of the protests.

"On the one hand, if there weren't 22 people arrested, it wouldn't have
made national or international news, like getting in the Guardian in the
U.K.," he said.

Yet he has concerns about public reactions. "Is there going to be a
backlash? I'm not sure," he said.

Protests at the port in 2004 failed to stop shipments of equipment to
Iraq, and protests in 2003 had no effect on President Bush's decision to
invade Iraq, which was a more popular idea with the U.S. public at the time.

Protests at the state Capitol in 1991 similarly had no effect on
then-President George Bush sending U.S. troops into Kuwait and later
Iraq to dislodge and defeat Saddam's occupying army.

But in contrast to the series of protests over the past 10 days, which
drew as many as 100 people at any one time, protests against the
invasion in 2003 drew almost 1,000 to the Capitol.

And a protest against the first Persian Gulf War drew 1,500 protesters,
according to news accounts, and close to 70 of them took over the state
House chamber, standing on lawmakers' desks and camping out for the night.

Unlike the recent port actions, the 1991 House encampment was largely
peaceful and did not lead to arrests or damaged property, according to
the House chief clerk at the time, Allen Thompson.

Activists say the stormy Vietnam era a couple of decades earlier also
was relatively peaceful in Olympia with few, if any, arrests of note.
Some activists did "draft counseling" to tell young men what their
options might be, including becoming conscientious objectors, according
to Jolene Unsoeld, who spoke out against the war and later became a
state legislator and congresswoman.

Most Northwest protests of the period were in Seattle.

"I don't remember any arrests," said Margery Sayre, an Olympia retiree
who opposed the Vietnam War and, in 1963, had joined Dr. Philip Vandeman
for a public debate in which the pair argued against the U.S.
involvement in Vietnam. "It's more immediate here now."

Sayre said she remembers "letters to the editor and letters to
Washington. They were very mild compared to these protests" at the port.
"Yet these protests are very mild compared to what they could be and I
think they will be" as opposition to the Iraq war grows.

Just as with protests in the earlier eras, the recent actions at the
Port of Olympia raise questions about how a person can oppose the war
while also supporting the troops.

"That was a big concern then with people who were against the war, and
obviously I think it still is," Unsoeld said. She and her husband,
Willi, took more of an educational than confrontational approach to
speaking out against Vietnam in Olympia during the early 1970s before
she entered state legislative and congressional politics, she said.

Another question raised by last week's protests - and the protests that
preceded it - is whether such activity is effective.

Larry Mosqueda, a protester and member of the local Olympia Movement for
Justice and Peace who also teaches at The Evergreen State College, said
he hopes the port protests can do for the U.S. occupation of Iraq what
protests in the late 1960s did in turning the public against the Vietnam
War.

"Basically, the protests during the Vietnam War had a profound effect on
the U.S. perception of its role in the world," Mosqueda said. "It took
until 1968 for the majority of the people to come out against the war."

But Vandeman, the now-retired doctor who argued in 1963 against the
Vietnam War and, more recently, against the Iraq invasion, questioned
the value of the port protests.

"I realize what they are saying, and I think that it's good to make a
statement. But probably the other venues would be more effective,"
Vandeman said. "I don't think you'll make any progress on that issue of
stopping shipments to Iraq. ... We need to stop shipments of troops and
we need to get out."

But veteran activist Glen Anderson said news of the protests was picked
up by dozens of media outlets - more than 70 by one Olympia Movement for
Justice and Peace tally of outlets in the United States and around the
world. "That helps the rest of the world see that not everyone goes
along with Bush's thing," Anderson said.

The protests plainly irritated veteran Don Gibson, commander for the
Veterans of Foreign Wars' Ira Cater Post 318 in Olympia, which held a
convention this weekend in Olympia.

"It really bothers us that they come down here and destroy property,"
Gibson said, alleging property destruction at the port that some
protesters have denied took place. "It hurts the community. It hurts us
big time. I would like to see us come together and unite. We don't like
to lose our troops either."

Gibson said he shares the wish that U.S. troops could come home, and
said it's important to support those troops until they do. "Now that
we're in a situation like Korea or Vietnam, it's hard to get out of
there," Gibson said. "We're going to support our troops any way we can"
until the Iraqi military can take over.

The veteran said he thinks the younger protesters from Evergreen just
don't understand the purpose of the military and "what we do to protect
the country."

Unsoeld thinks the Olympia protests are too recent to gauge their value,
she said.

But just as Vietnam had turning points when police and military forces
over-reacted to U.S. street protests, Unsoeld thinks a similar juncture
was reached with Iraq last November when U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a
Democrat and highly decorated Marine from Pennsylvania, called for U.S.
troops to begin coming home, because they'd become "a catalyst for
violence" by insurgents.

"John Murtha speaking out, I think, was a turning point. Because he had
such an irrefutable record of supporting the troops and the military,"
Unsoeld said. "So his voice on that gets more people thinking. It gives
them pause."

And now with evidence showing that U.S. soldiers might have murdered
two-dozen civilians in an Iraq massacre last November, the war's sagging
popularity could decline even more. The question is whether protests of
the kind that led to arrests at the port will gather steam or go away.

"I think the protest you saw at the port was more like the protests
evident back in the 1960s," said Bob Partlow, a former news reporter and
conscientious objector to the Vietnam War who grew up in Olympia and was
active in anti-war efforts in college at Bellingham. "There was passion
to this," Partlow said, describing the Iraq occupation as a "quagmire
accomplished" that needs to end. What's missing this time, Partlow said,
is leadership of the kind that the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy of
Minnesota supplied for urging the U.S. pullout from Vietnam.

Ralph Munro, former secretary of state and a Republican, said the war
question is more complicated this time around because close to 1 million
Iraqis voted under elections the U.S. invasion made possible. And he
expressed fears that military families are again in the middle. The
Olympia protests were a drop in the bucket compared with what was seen
in the Vietnam era or with the World Trade Organization riots in Seattle
a few years ago, according to Munro. But the protests are understandable
because "war is a very difficult thing," he said, calling it a good
thing to have people speaking out on both sides.

"The vast majority of American citizens are concerned about Iraq - how
do we get out of there and how far does this go? But they also realize
more than a million people went out to vote in Iraq. There are some
positives," Munro said. "I'm just grateful I live in a country where you
can have protests."