I've searched, but didn't find much on this story at DailyKos.
In Olympia, Washington, there has been some rather serious clashes between protestors and police over the last week, leading to numerous arrests, tear gas, concussion grenades, protesters assaulting journalists, and other events.
In brief, as far as I can judge, this is has happened so far. I got this summary of events from the Olympian's summary of events.
On November 5th, a US navy ship arrived home from Iraq loaded with military equipment; part of the equipment of a recently returned Army unit (3rd Stryker Combat brigade, part of the 2nd Infantry division). This point, I think, is key--this equipment and the soldiers it supported were coming home, out of Iraq.
The next day, protesters (the "Olympia Port Militarization Resistance" group, who are anti-war) protested peacefully in front of the ship. The day after that, Nov 7th, the first arrests were made after some protesters jumped in front of departing trucks off-loading some of the military equipment, in an apparent attempt to keep the equipment from moving. The 8th was quiet, with no military movement. The 9th, 40 protesters blocked some trucks from moving at all, and the police were caught without enough officers to remove the protesters. Note, they were blocking traffic on a public road, which is against the law.
Since they had kept two trucks from moving on Friday, Saturday is when it really escalated. The protesters were out in force blocking multiple streets, and the police used pepper spray to clear a path for the military equipment to return to its base. The arrests started going up in numbers as well. Sunday more clashes, and one of Olympia's city councilman complained about how the protesters were being treated. The Olympian, the local newspaper, and no friend to the war on Iraq, has concluded that the police acted entirely respectfully and that the protesters were repeatedly warned that if they didn't move off the road, they would be removed.
Monday was peaceful, but Tuesday night and Wednesday basically turned into a full fledged riot. Police windows were broken, an officer was injured, and there was plenty of tear gas, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, and bank windows smashed.
The Olympian complained that their reporters had to have the police rescue them from protesters who were angry that the paper was photographing their activities.
What are some of the events that have taken place? Protesters have thrown garbage dumpsters and made human chains to block traffic. http://www.theolympian.com/... details other events that have happened.
Pictures from the protests show several children being brought in to either be carried or used to stop the military convoy.
And the protesters have poured concrete on the railway tracks leading to the port.
Today, more protests may occur.
So what to make of all this? It's one thing to protest peacefully, but when people are deliberately trying to interfere with the movement of our military troops and supplies, isn't that crossing the line from protest to sedition? Wikipedia basically defines sedition as conduct which tends towards insurrection. It notes that peaceful protests are not included as sedition. This was not a peaceful protest, however.
When the military has to resort to subterfuge to move it's equipment HOME from Iraq due to the protesters, I think it's gone too far. And I don't think you could defend this as "supporting the troops" in any way.
When does protest cross the line from being peaceful and legal to sedition or treasonous conduct? It's rather disheartening to see the military having to use non-lethal force to just get to their own base in an American city. And, of course, behavior like this only makes the anti-war protester's look bad. If the Republicans call this treason, and supporting the enemy, it's hard to say they are wrong. After all, attempting to physically prevent the movement of troops is a rather large step to take, especially when they are trying to come home, and are not engaged in any sort of "peacekeeping" activity. There's no question here that the military troops were not a threat or danger to anyone, so there's no rationale that I can see to prevent them from moving.
What do you think? I would be interested to see other's thoughts on this story that will no doubt continue to develop.