100 Attract Cheers, Jeers for Protesting U.S. Policy in Gulf

About 100 people on Sunday protested the U.S. military deployment in the Middle East, drawing both cheers and taunts from passing motorists and pedestrians.

“Orange County doesn’t want another war,” said Jack Kent, a Huntington Beach physician. “Residents here have a role to prevent another Vietnam.”

Demonstrators from the newly formed Orange County Coalition for Peace in the Middle East rallied for three hours Sunday at the intersection of Anton Boulevard and Bristol Street near South Coast Plaza.

The anti-war demonstrators handed out bumper stickers and flyers to bewildered Veterans Day shoppers as they waited to cross the intersection. For some passersby, the protest was too much to bear.

“You have no right carrying the flag,” one motorist shouted.

Others were more supportive and expressed their solidarity by honking and waving at the protesters.

Kent and several others in the demonstration said they were fearful of war because they have relatives and friends in the military buildup in the Middle East.

“I have a nephew whom I want to see again,” Kent said. “We don’t want our loved ones coming back dead.”

The demonstrators included veterans, college students and members of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination group and the National Organization for Women. One teen-ager held up a placard that read, “Peace Dude,” while a senior citizen carried a sign that said, “Bring Troops Home Now.”

Several protesters made the most of the afternoon event by passing out flyers and buttons for other causes such as “End South Africa Apartheid” and “U.S. Out of Central America.”

Jeanie Bernstein, a founding member of Alliance for Survival, said Sunday’s rally was intended to “wake up shoppers.” Bernstein, a veteran of several anti-Vietnam War protests, said the U.S. military presence in the Middle East was “history repeating itself.”

“We’re spending over $1 billion a month in the desert,” said Bernstein, waving an American flag. “Even in affluent Orange County, there is something wrong in spending that much money in a place we have no right to be in.”

The rally was organized two weeks ago by several groups fearful of a U.S. military strike against Iraq, said Shirley Cereseto, a spokeswoman for the coalition. Cereseto, a retired Cal State Long Beach sociology professor, said the group decried President Bush’s decision last week to double the number of troops to the Persian Gulf. The United States currently has 238,000 members of the military in the region.

The additional troops could include as many as 18,000 Marines from bases at Camp Pendleton, El Toro and Tustin.