Posted on 02/08/2007 5:30:55 PM PST by cf_river_rat
The peaceniks strike back.
Last week, I wrote about Joshua Sparling, a disabled 82nd Airborne Division veteran who says he was mistreated by anti-war protestors at a Jan. 29 rally in Washington, D.C..
Sparling and a few dozen others went to the National Mall to stage a counterprotest amid the tens of thousands of people denouncing U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Sparling says he was cursed at, called names and threatened with physical harm.
Since then, calls and letters have come in from the other side. A number of blogs and Internet sites have detailed Sparling’s activities, too.
All together, they paint a different picture of Sparling: It is a picture of a seasoned political activist, maybe even a conservative plant, who went out of his way to provoke anti-war protestors.
Jonathan Starling drove to D.C. from Fayetteville that Friday night. By 11 a.m. Saturday, he was watching speeches in a “pre-rally” sponsored by peace group Code Pink.
“Of the other 20-30 counter-protestors, Sparling was different,” writes Starling in a letter he sent via e-mail. “Others were across the street trying to drown us out with bullhorns.
“He (and one or two friends) came across the street to the front row yelling at the speakers within 20 feet of them. I spotted him quickly among the crowd as he was yelling and screaming and making the people around him very uncomfortable.”
Nevertheless, Sparling was allowed by the Code Pink group to speak and present his side of the issue, Starling says, and one of the peace activists even hugged him between speeches.
Debbie Liebers says she saw Sparling’s group later Saturday, when she was taking a break from rallying. She had come up on a bus that morning from Fayetteville with about 50 other people, including her 10-year-old son, Jacob.
“He’s a veteran of the peace movement,” she says.
Of her encounter with Sparling’s group, she says: “As soon as you walked up you saw this sign that said, ‘Hippies smell’ and it had a gas mask on the sign.”
She said the counter-protestors were disruptive and provocative. Spit or no spit?
When I first talked to Sparling, he mentioned that he was a friend of conservative radio and TV commentator Sean Hannity. That was by way of explaining how he wound up on Fox News, where he gave his side of the protest and also proposed to his girlfriend.
He is not exaggerating his connections. He has been linked not only to Hannity but to conservative figures Ann Coulter and Oliver North, and has participated in rallies with both. A steady stream of stories has detailed his alleged run-ins with liberal activists.
Sparling told me and several other media outlets, including The New York Times, that a protestor in D.C. had spit on the ground near him. The Times reported that Sparling spit back, which he denied when I spoke to him.
The whole account has now come very much into question, and reporters and bloggers who have looked into the incident can find no one to verify it beyond Sparling himself.
Liebers says circulating such stories is unproductive.
“We don’t need that,” she says. “We’re just ordinary people. All we want to do is end this war. We want to bring our soldiers home.”
Columnist Myron B. Pitts can be reached at pittsm@fayobsever.com or 486-3559.
Looky here what showed up in the local fish-wrapper today.
Comments?
PING
The Activism topic sidebar is for activism, protests, news and business of Free Republic Chapters only.
Thanks.
Yeah, and they never spit of returning Vietnam soldiers either.
I hate some people. And that's not a term I use lightly.
Sorry AM, sure figured this would qualify.
Thanks.
I guess where cf_river_rat got hung up was that this story is about what happened during an FR chapter "activism/protest event."
Should he put it in the NEWS sidebar instead?
Thanks.
No email reply from the fellow yet; but it's only been 9 hours.
:-)
Howdy!
Where can I view that vid/links?
Thanks!
-happi
If there was any provocation, it was a provocation to think, not spit and curse and threaten him.
But apparently, in their small and intolerant minds, any "speech" which does not agree with their political position is provocative.
We, the counterdemonstrators and pro-American group who razzed Code Pinko and Jihad Jane were not "disruptive". We were vibrant, somewhat loud (the police asked that the bullhorns volume be lowered so that the Pinkos would not be disrupted, and the volume was lowered). However, our signs and voice power were certainly heard and seen, by hundreds of passerbys who honked their horns and waved.
Sparling was with us for a while and he was polite and gave interviews.
His missing leg was REAL. So was his 82nd Airborne t shirt.
Our group included two Vietnam war POWs, Mike Benge and Larry Stark. Both know something about Hanoi Jane, and Mike and I, as well as Col. Bud Day and Dolf Droge made a documentary about her communist background (in 1988 - "The Unofficial Autobiography of Jane Fonda").
This communist bitch and her red friends will never get a pass from us.
Max Friedman, Vietnam correspondent, Human Events, 1970.
For those who want to watch it on Google, here's those links:
Vietnam Redux (Pt 1)
Vietnam Redux (Pt 2)
Vietnam Redux (Pt 3)
Thanks! I'll check those out!
So what? These 'peace-nuts' are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. They want everyone else to do what they are unwilling to do - swallow it when someone provokes them.
Now wait a second. Sparling is a war hero. Is he being "swift boated" by the anti-war / pro Kerry crowd?
Of course the difference is, the swift boat vets were telling the truth.
Thanks for all your hard work and perserverance. You are a real trooper!
He has all the hallmarks of a conservative plant. Military service, missing limbs due to combat and a purple heart.
His counterparts have a lilly liver, yellow streak and reap the benefits of never serving, like exercising their right to free speech as defended by "conservative plants".
If this columnist won't respond to tglstakoma's offer to view the footage, maybe a telephone call to him and/or his boss? A letter to the editor with the video address? Failing that, what would be the cost of a small (business card size or maybe a little bigger) ad with the info?
This guy has so much wrong, I don't know where to start.
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