"Pinky" Protests Iraq War in Cuernavaca Park with Tent City Protesters

Denver's Cuernavaca Park on Monday, August 25, Had a Little Bit of Everything, Including an Elderly Woman Wearing a Shirt that Said, "Arrest Bush!"

Denver -- Cuernavaca Park in near the Platte River in Denver is so named because of the original Nahuati name, Cuauhnahuac, meaning "near the woods." It is a Park of Protest this week, during the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Tent City protesters were set up in the park on Monday, August 25, with a replica of a Guantanamo Bay cell (see "Mother Jones" archived article for exceptional coverage of same), Amnesty International, legalize-cannabis promoters, music fans lined up to get tickets to "Rage Against the Machine's" free concert on Wednesday at the Denver Coliseum, and Veterans Against the Iraqi War.

As I approached the park on foot, from behind me, a walky-talky voice said, "No, dude. I don't have a knife."

An orange-clad city employee was speaking to a colleague as he struggled to tear down a peace symbol sign on a sheet that was hanging over Interstate 25. The sign said, "Denver for Peace."

I moved into the park and spoke with Matthew "Pinky" Ornstein of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who told me that approximately 35 veterans and citizens involved in Operation First Casualty plan to re-enact an Iraqi occupation in downtown Denver on Tuesday. The group has already done this in seven cities across the United States, including New York City and Chicago, Pinky's hometown.

"Won't you get arrested?" I asked.

"Not if those who are being shackled, with hoods thrown over their heads and thrown to the ground, as happens during a real Iraqi occupation, move quickly before police arrive." Nevertheless, booklets were being handed out advising participants what to do if they were arrested.

Ornstein, nicknamed "Pinky" after an unfortunate laundry incident when he threw some personal items in with the red flash shirts aboard his Coast Guard ship, enlisted in the Coast Guard to protect and serve.

After 9/11, he spent one year guarding oil tankers with the Boston 1^st Unit in areas like the Panama Canal. As a Florida absentee voter on the boat in 2000 whose ballot didn't count, he was disheartened. When the Iraq War loomed, Pinky feared a Wag the Dog-like move was afoot to involve the United States in an unnecessary war.