I wish I had been in town yesterday to witness one of these on-the-street mock military patrols, staged by Iraq Veterans Against the War:

Wearing camouflage fatigues and pointing imaginary guns, a half-dozen veterans subdued a crowd of anti-war protesters playing Iraqi civilians, throwing some of them roughly to the ground and handcuffing them.

“We believe that this is bringing the truth of the war here, the reality of the war here,” said Demond Mullins, 25, of Brooklyn, who served in Iraq as an infantryman with the Army National Guard in 2004 and 2005. “We should be ever mindful of the troops who are giving their lives, and we should be ever mindful of the dishonesty, the absence of truth that has caused us to engage in this war.”

Definitely in-your-face. I’m sure it gave the tourists in Times Square a good story to take home.