Maybe they were just looking for an all-night taco place

[khaosworks]

MARINE APCs APPEAR AT ANTI-WAR PROTEST IN WESTWOOD

LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM, What were first reported to be tanks and now identified as Marine APCs showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood.

The APCs circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered.

Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the APCs, but police quickly cleared the street.

The people continued to protest the presence of the Marines, but after about ten minutes they drove off. It is still unclear as to why they were deployed to this location.

Video can be found here. Photos here.

Comments

[jost.livejournal.com]

A co-worker of mine who is former Special Forces saw the images of that incident and told us that there is no way those guys would have actually be deployed there with the equipment they had. There were no riot helmets, riot sheilds or other crowd control equipment. The limited view of the APC he saw also indicated to him that it was rigged for manuevers and not for combat/control operations.

[ddreslough.livejournal.com]

I have been known to wear a green baseball hat (that's about as close as I get to a green beret), but uh...I wouldn't need a riot shield if I had a big ass tank-car-thingie like that. I think they were sent for intimidation purposes. Then again, maybe they were just looking for parking spaces in LA, which I hear would require a car like that.

Plus *dons tinfoil hat*, who says your Special Forces buddy is telling you the truth? Don't they sign some kind of super secret pledge and wear funny underwear that'll crush their cojones if they tell any civilian the truth or something? And who says the superior officer of those two tank-car-bigass-gun vehicles was very smart? Maybe he read the wrong manual.

Or worse...maybe those guys weren't there for the protest at all. Maybe there was terrorism afoot and they really did get lost! Frankly, I don't know which situation would make me feel better. None, really.

On my next tax form, I'm going to write on it in big red letters: "Please cancel my subscription" or something. I don't know how much more of life in America I can take. I can't believe I pay for this product!