Via this post by Steven “Seat of the Revolution” Cherry, I learned about this story about tanks showing up at a war protest in Westwood, CA. There’s even some video of the tanks at the Free Internet Press site. It looks kinda scarry, and kinda confusing, too.
So I did a Google News search and came across this article in the Los Angeles Times that calls the whole thing a coincidence. To quote from that article:
“It’s a whole lot of nothing,” said Officer Kathy Simpson, a Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman. “The ‘tanks’ were there for Veterans Day. They ride in the parade and wave.”
The antiwar protest, sponsored by the group Act Now to Stop War & End Racism, was held Tuesday evening near the VA grounds, where a parade and exhibit were staged Wednesday.
As an aside: The LA Times has the absolute DUMBEST system for subscribing to the online version of its paper.
So, what’s the truth here? How the hell should I know? I will say this: I can easily imagine a group of war protesters believing that the APC (which isn’t really a tank, btw) was sent to stop them, and I can also easily imagine that the guys driving the APC saying to themselves “hey, as long as we’re here, let’s hang around for a few minutes and see what’s going on.” And I don’t think the video does anything to prove the point for one side or the other, either.