Each side takes a corner on Nassau Street.
By: Jennifer Potash
Protesters on both sides of the Iraqi conflict squared off on opposing Nassau Street corners Saturday.
Princeton Borough Police officers closed Palmer Square East to through traffic as about 100 anti-war protesters from the Princeton Peace Network lined the sidewalks in front of Tiger Park and at Nassau Presbyterian Church.
For the first time since the war began, about 25 individuals supporting the war effort gathered along the Nassau Street sidewalk near the McCaffrey’s Express kiosk and One Palmer Square buildings.
The "Support Our Troops" rally was organized by a Princeton University student organization called Princeton Coalition Against Terrorism to illustrate other viewpoints about the war.
"I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to protest while war is under way," said David Konieczkowski, a Princeton University freshman and chairman of PCAT.
"That is the freedom of an American, after all. But if (Princeton Peace Network) is going to be tying up police resources while we’re on a Code Orange alert, the least they could do is mix their hope for peace with some support of the troops who are winning that peace."
Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky, a Princeton University junior and PCAT member, said his group is a diverse mix of students across academic disciplines as well as political viewpoints.
By contrast, the Peace Network, Mr. Ramos-Mrosovsky said, seems made up of individuals who "protest for every left-wing cause."
The Princeton Peace Network has been holding weekly rallies and protests since the fall.
For the Saturday event, several protesters painted their palms red to symbolize the death of civilians in war and chanted "No blood for oil." Mostly, the hour-long protests consisted of each side flinging slogans at each other cries of "Stop arming terrorists" by the antiwar protesters met the response of "Go to Iraq and be a human shield" from the other side.
And the protesters sparked a third group to join in the undecided.
A group of six teenagers from Hopewell Valley Regional High School and West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South stood in the middle of the crosswalk at Palmer Square East shouting, "Undecided, undecided." The teens, just hanging out in the downtown on an unseasonably warm March day, took a tongue-in-cheek approach to the protests.
"Opinions are for those with free time," quipped Adrienne Hisbrook, a ninth-grade student at WWP-South.
Princeton Borough police officers were on the scene and assisted with keeping a smooth traffic flow and helping pedestrians at the crosswalk.

