Discussing an ugly war on a lovely day

We sat under a tree in Patrick Briggs’ frontyard in Pasadena on Thursday, next to a row of pansies, on a spring day so lovely it seemed strange to talk about war.

“It’s like the ‘The Americanization of Emily,’ ” said Briggs, recalling a character in the 1964 movie who was living the good life while others died in World War II.

I had heard about the small antiwar rallies Briggs occasionally stages at Hill and Orange Grove and stopped by to meet him. He’s the guy who had a run-in with Pasadena City Hall in 2004, when officials ordered him to take down a banner hanging over his front door because it was too big.

It said: “War Starts With W. Bush Lied; People Died.”

Briggs, a database analyst, sued the city and won. These days, though, he and his wife, Maddie Gavel, who writes advertising copy, have a different sign up. This one says:

“Those Who Exchange Freedom for Security Deserve Neither and Ultimately Lose Both.”

Not much subtlety there, but the disaster in Iraq and continued bickering in Washington cry out for blunt declarations.

Briggs has spoken out against the war from the beginning, a voice of reason amid the cheerleading from Washington and the mainstream media.

Briggs, a member of All Saints Church, attended large rallies in the war’s early days, but he didn’t appreciate the extremists who insisted the U.S. was evil and other countries could do no wrong.

“That’s no different from what Bush does,” he says.

Though he aggressively opposed the war, Briggs recognized the complexities of history in the Middle East. He wanted to rally for economic and diplomatic leadership, not tribunals.

He said it doesn’t matter whether 200 people or only five show up at the rallies he helps organize. In the time he’s been out there, the tide has turned, with polls showing that six out of 10 Americans favor a pullout from Iraq by next year.

I told Briggs that one of the things I’m angriest about is that staying in Iraq guarantees continued carnage, and leaving could mean even more. It would be hard to walk away from a mess we created by having gone it alone when trusted allies and common sense warned against.

“It’s a hard thing to do,” Briggs said, “but it’s hard to ask our troops to continue to get killed.”

What’s even harder is to hear Bush talk about honoring our troops, as he frequently does, or to suggest that others do not.

No one has done greater dishonor to our troops than President Bush, who didn’t hesitate to send soldiers into battle without a clear signal to them or the American public as to the reason. Now he’s threatening to veto a bill passed by the Senate on Thursday that ties war funding to a commitment to withdraw troops by 2008.

We know that critics of the administration have been smeared, that soldiers have been asked to risk their lives without benefit of the best armor available, that wounded soldiers have come home to scandalously inadequate medical facilities.

And yet, here was Bush on Wednesday:

“If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible.”

Yes, Patrick Briggs told me, he too had bristled at that quote.

A warm breeze kicked through the camphor trees and stone pines at Loma Vista and Hamilton. In Iraq, the death toll topped 130 on Thursday, one of the deadliest days in years.

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steve.lopez@latimes.com