The police tape fluttering gently marks the front line. On one side sits a rag-tag collection of tents, home-made placards calling for the troops to come home and a long line of white crosses representing the soldiers killed in Iraq.
On the other side of the small country lane there is a smart collection of garden-style awnings filled with fold-out canvas chairs, lined with glossy placards proclaiming ”Bush Country”, ”IM4W” and ”Support Our Troops”.
A sign on the highway welcoming visitors to Crawford declares the population to be 705, but today the figure is likely to be at least four times that. Thousands of pro- and anti-war activists are making their way to this little corner of Texas for the culmination of protests that began when United States President George Bush arrived for his five-week ”working vacation” at the beginning of August.
Leading the anti-war rally will be Cindy Sheehan (48) the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, whose vigil outside Mr Bush’s ranch has given the US peace movement in America a new focus and forced the president on to the defensive.
Ranged against her are various conservative activists and military families, including the ”You Don’t Speak for Me, Cindy!” tour, which began in Sheehan’s home town of Vacaville in California and is due to arrive in Crawford at midday today.
Its figurehead is Deborah Johns, the mother of a marine serving in Iraq. The pro-war demonstrators will hold a rally in the little town, not far from Fort Qualls, which was set up in memory of Louis Qualls — a marine killed in Iraq last year but whose father, Gary, is a staunch Bush supporter.
Between them they are determined to drag the spotlight away from Sheehan, and Saturday’s two rallies promise a showdown.
Waiting at Camp Reality — the pro-war activists’ name for their headquarters — is Valerie Duty (46) a local resident who declares a little coquettishly that she is a ”friend” of the president. She is on the telephone when The Guardian arrives, trying to arrange a delivery of donated bottled water, a physical necessity in the wilting, 38C heat. ”There has been a silent majority during the siege against our president,” she says. ”But this weekend that majority is going to speak out.”
Duty says she respects Sheehan’s right to do what she is doing, but says she does not speak for the majority of soldiers’ families. ”She is a nice woman, I have met her several times … but she is being used by these leftwing groups who want to get at the president.”
Mike Greenfield (49) from Colorado, agrees. ”They just hate Bush. They are losers and they are bad losers.”
Greenfield criticises Sheehan’s connections with the leftwing group Moveon.org, and says he has heard that Michael Moore is helping to finance her campaign.
Asked about the pro-war groups’ links with Move Forward America, which is sponsoring the ”You Don’t Speak For Us, Cindy!” tour, Duty says all their donations come from concerned individuals.
New York Times columnist Frank Rich describes the attacks as the ”swift boating” of Cindy Sheehan, a reference to the campaign to discredit John Kerry’s Vietnam war record that was credited with derailing his presidential campaign.
But over at Camp Casey — named after Sheehan’s 24-year-old son — they accept the criticism as a badge of honour.
Anne Wright, a career diplomat who resigned on the eve of the war, points out that the protest has come far from its start as three women sleeping in a car at the end of the road to Bush’s ranch.
”There has always been a peace movement out there [but] finally we have managed to get some media attention, and it has given all those people out there a focal point.”
When Sheehan was forced to return home to California last week after her mother had a stroke, many expected the protest to fizzle out. But by the time she returned on Wednesday it had grown. Most of the protesters have moved to a field donated by a local farmer, a stone’s throw away from the presidential ranch.
A big white marquee has been erected and minibuses shuttle protesters in from Crawford. In a kitchen area, volunteers prepare meals for up to 200 people, much of it with donated food — including 220kgs of bison meat from a local farmer. ”I’m a vegetarian cook but I was like, ‘OK, I’ll cook meat for the revolution’,” said Rebekah Patrode (28) who drove 2 880km from Wendel in Massachusetts to be here.
Joan Baez, the folk singer, came to talk to some of the families and ended up staying three nights, while organisers estimate that about 8 000 people have visited the site in the past three weeks. They are expecting at least 1 000 to come this weekend before the camp packs up on Wednesday.
Conservatives have tried to dismiss the activists as the ”lunatic fringe” of former Vietnam protesters, but not all are the usual suspects.
Larry Donovan (87) has come 128km from his cattle ranch in Georgetown, Texas, to pay his respects to Sheehan.
”I just love her,” he said, a cowboy hat protecting his head from the sun. ”With all the cheap politicians that we have it takes one lone woman to start something — but you know, I think that the politicians might just have to follow.”
Oliver Utne (21) a student from Connecticut, is directing traffic outside the camp. ”People like Karl Rove [Mr Bush’s political chief adviser] have done very good job of convincing people that if you are a mainstream American then you have to be in favour of the war. Well, I’m a mainstream American and I wanted to come here to show that you don’t have to be a wacko to be against the war.”
The protesters at Camp Casey believe they are gaining ground. Sheehan will begin a countrywide bus tour when she leaves Crawford, ending in Washington DC on September 24 for a long-planned anti-war march through the capital. In reality, the turnout then will be a better barometer of public sentiment than which of the protests manage to mobilise the most support on Saturday.
”We hope that the people of America will use that event to put pressure on the White House and show in huge numbers the public angst and the need to end the war and stop killing people,” Wright said. ”But you know, I feel we have the momentum now. I want to come here to show you don’t have to be whacko to be against the war.” – Guardian Unlimited Â