U.S. Flags on Veterans' Graves Replaced With Swastikas

Nothing a good pistol-whipping couldn't take care of:

ORCAS ISLAND, Wash. (AP) - Vandals burned dozens of small American flags that decorated veterans' graves for Memorial Day and replaced many of them with hand-drawn swastikas, authorities said Monday.

Forty-six flag standards were found empty and another 33 flags were in charred tatters Sunday in the cemetery, authorities said. Swastikas drawn on paper appeared where 14 of the flags had been.

Members of the American Legion on this island off Washington's northwest coast replaced the burned flags with new ones Sunday afternoon.

The vandals struck again on Memorial Day after a guard left at dawn, the San Juan County sheriff's office said. This time, the vandals left 33 of the hand-drawn swastikas.

"This is not an act of free speech. This is a crime," Sheriff Bill Cumming said in a statement released Monday afternoon.

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My Comments:
What's all the fuss? The people who did this thing were merely doing their part to "resist American holidays as a way of resisting the American mythology" and "look for opportunites to subvert the holidays of the empire in which we find ourselves".


UPDATE (31 May 2007)
I doubt very seriously that this was an "antisemitic hate crime". This was an effort by the vandals to compare those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces to fascists.