By the afternoon, when the peace rally began marching past the pro-war group, shouting matches begun, and things got ugly. A man named Tahmir told a kid with a video camera that Saddam's forces had murdered his father and sent his family a bill for the bullet. Another man, old and bearded, wearing a wool hat and glasses, held a sign with a child's drawing of a person crying tears of blood, and the words, "Human Rights Are Abused in Iraq." A smirking white antiwar protester walked over and shouted, "War won't cure your impotence! Go prop up the Kuwaiti oligarchy!" Behind him, a woman held up a sign reading, "Powerpuff Girls for Peace" with pictures of the cherubic cartoon superheroes.

Nearby on Constitution Avenue a drum circle formed, and a few hundred people started dancing. Chants went up -- to the tune of "Who Let the Dogs Out," some sang, "Who kills Iraqis? Bush Bush Bush Bush. Who is a Nazi? Bush Bush Bush Bush." A young blond woman wore a sign that announced, with staggering self-congratulation, "I speak for the voiceless victims of war."

Meanwhile, the actual Iraqis got increasingly incensed, some screaming, "You don't know anything about Iraq!" Again, they took up their chant, "People yes, Saddam no! He's a fascist, he must go!" The peaceniks tried to drown them out with, "1, 2, 3, 4, We Don't Want Your Racist War!"

A bearded man in a devil outfit and seashell necklace, carrying a sign saying "Satan Loves America," tried to explain to the Iraqis that, in fact, the U.S. had helped arm Saddam. "You're selling your own people short," he said cryptically. An Iraqi man in a suit gave him a withering look and replied, "We know what we're doing."

By then, Leif had walked over and said to the hippie devil, "Both us and the Soviet Union are guilty of propping up murderous regimes. Should we now allow them to stay in power?" The devil replied, "Since we are the most murderous regime in the world, should we be allowed to stay in power?" He gave Leif a smug look.

By now the Iraqis were chanting in Arabic, and crying, "Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!" (God is great.)

A man on Constitution Avenue carried a sign that might have been made just for them. "A Sincere Message to All Wannabe Warmongers," it said. "Go Fuck Yourself."

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