The Fool Protestors Protest Too Much

[rhodescholar]

As i walked the streets of midtown manhattan today, amidst the hordes of those chortling nonsensical drivel in futile hopes of stopping an impending - and much needed - war to rid iraq of a tyrant, many things came to me all at once, but all can be summed up in one point: those protesting are neither very smart or well-informed.

Every one of the points they make against this war, either in discussions with them on the street or elsewhere over the past few weeks, have absolutely no merit. None take into account the overwhemling desire of iraqis, iranians and other middle easterners for democracy, who, despite their awful govts efforts, wholeheartedly support this war.

I will deign to slice through their weak points in a moment, but just a glance at those participating in the rally provides considerable evidence of their lack of credibility: communists, "Labor against War", teenagers with multi-colored hair and stinking of a committment to avoidance hygiene, ancient mariners trying to relive past glories of 1960s rebellion - which unlike today's protests, actually had substance, and of course, the now requisite "Free Palestine" chanters who, most deserving of all of the participatory groups of my most venomous exchanges, attaching their "movement" to any protest of the moment. I am sure that in the near future, PETA will be a co-sponsor of their events so as to maximize media exposure and provide as many sympathetic, ignorant pairs of eyeballs. Their presence in any rally absolutely destroys the credibility of any meaningful "protest" event.

Free palestine - but from what? The fact that there has never been a nation called "palestine," and that the WB arabs have rejected offers of an independant nation 4 times, like all facts served to those whose agenda they undermine, are simply ignored.

Getting back to the others, the preponderance of posters held aloft were consumed with a visceral hatred of George Bush, highlighted by "Bush is not MY President." If he is not, then are they planning to leave the country?

I will review their complaints one by one:

When a fool like Michael Letwin cries that the people who will suffer the most are the US poor, does this imbecile not realize that unlike in Viet Nam, today's US army is all-volunteer?

When people deride the whole pursuit as misadventure for oil, do they even understand that spending a quarter of a trillion dollars to liberate and occupy iraq until a new govt takes hold for some oil is hardly economical sensible?

Do they even consider wondering why the iranian, syrian and saudi publics all support this war for the potentially beneficial effects in spurring arab democracy to take a foothold in the region?

Do they only demand democratic, liberated lives for themselves, and feel that the iraqis are undeserving of it since they are arab, and therefore, inacapable of handling it?

Do they grasp that in an area of 22 arab league dictatorships, it is only the tyrants and despots who fear potential change?

And one of the most idiotic but typical proposals is to give the inspectors "more time." For what?

Before Saddam expelled the inspectors in 1998, there were over a THOUSAND of them operating there for almost 5 years. Today there are only 200 working in a country the size of Texas. Even 25,000 inspectors would be insufficient, especially given that saddam has had years to mobilize all of his weapons throughout the country, moving many to other despots like Syria for temporary safekeeping.

As in so many of the foreign policy issues over the last 60 years, the american left is utterly WRONG, along with their ideological compatriots overseas. They complained of US interventions in Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti, Grenada, Afghanistan and now Iraq. The more hysterical ones complain that of other instances where the US deigned not to get involved, such as in the Sudan. According to them, the US, regardless of president, can NEVER do the right thing.

As the current intellectuall bankruptcy of the Democrats in congress in other issues, they offer no well-thought suggestions to remove the entrenched, 30-year iraqi dictatorship. While many of the protestors might be well-intentioned - but hopelessly naive - I reminded more than a few that, the Bund rallies supporting the Nazis and against US involvement in the Second World War in NY city dwarfed today's events. Not surprisingly, many were shocked.

Getting back to the protesters themselves, far too many seemed there "for the coolness of it," i.e., college teenagers looking for an excuse to party in the big city. When Bush reviews the demographic makeup of this and other national rallies against the war, I am quite certain that he and I share will share one thought: the vast majority of americans older than 19 and not supporting the American Communist Party are behind him all the way in doing what America has always done best, promoting democracy throughout the world, and by force if necessary.

[ibrodsky]

Predictably, the Iraqi mass murder regime is ecstatic over the outpouring of support. Peaceful marches in Rome, London, NYC, and elsewhere were mirrored by a demonstration in Baghdad where marchers carried assaut rifles and burned the US flag.

IMO, the issue is not freeing the Iraqi people of a dictator. That would not justify war. The issue is that the Iraqi dictator has ties to terrorist groups and has weapons of mass destruction.

Apparently, the milions of protesters haven't figured out that biological weapons are not intended exclusively for battlefields. They provide a surreptitious way for attacking other countries - perhaps without the attacker ever being identified.

We still don't know who was behind the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11, but we do know Iraq has produced 2 million pounds of biological agents that have not been accounted for.

The current situation is in many ways similar to the situation during the years leading up to WW II. Instead of a small group of politicians like Neville Chamberlain spearheading an appeasement campaign, we have millions of gullible people, cynics who have convinced themselves that George Bush and not Saddam Hussein is the evil one, and Islamists.

Yesterday's marches will no doubt give great encouragement to terrorist groups. Nothing could have done more to help recruit more terrorists - who see the West as divided, with many who apparently believe that Al Qaeda had legitimate reasons for attacking the US. After all, millions of protesters said they believe the US is the aggressor. These people did not march against Al Qaeda.

Worrisome for us is the fact that unconditional support for Palestinians, with a large dose of antisemiticism, is aso part and parcel of this peace movement. Many if not most of these people not only believe the US is the aggressor, they believe that Israel is the aggressor. While they would not all support destroying Israel, that does not matter, as they have lent their support to the first stage of a two-stage strategy to put 5 million Jews to the sword.

Winston Churchill warned for years that Hitler had to be stopped. Today, we can be thankful that at least one leader had a clear vision and the personal skills to rally his nation and the free world.
But Chuchill had one advantage over George W. Bush: he was out of office and could issue all of the warnings he wanted from the sidelines until people woke up to reality.

G.W. Bush's problem is that he sees the danger and wants to snuff it out now - before Iraq and associated terrorists unleash more death and destruction. But human folly insists we wait until it's too late for untold victims...

Let's hope President Bush has the courage to stay the course and disarm Saddam Hussein!


Messages of support to: president@whitehouse.gov

[mosh]

the uninformed will learn the hard way.

[ibrodsky]

THE LATEST FROM PARIS: Bonjour. It's about 6pm Saturday here in Paris, and I've had a very interesting 36 hours here. My friend and I spent much time walking around, met with the president of the local Simon Wiesenthal Center (a Jewish anti-hate group), and visited the antiwar rally here in Paris. Here's a summary:

Anti-Americanism is rampant. I'm not trying to look particularly American, but it seems to come across; I speak decent French, but nobody cares. I've made sure to speak French--these folks are very testy about language--but it doesn't seem to help. I was buying the International Herald Tribune, the international version of the New York Times, and was asked if I was American or Australian. (Why the person would assume America or Australia are the only two English-speaking nations is beyond me, but these are the French.) I said I was Australian (no need for a fistfight) and she launched into a tirade about the United States and Israel. "Les israeliens, ils tuent les Palestinienns tous les temps." ("The Israelis are killing the Palestinians all the time.") I decided to listen to her, mostly out of curiosity, then responded, in broken French, "what about the bombings of Israeli children?" She shrugged and said "la colonialisme est un horreur." (Colonialism is horrible.) Irony abounded, of course, given the French legacy of failed colonialism. (Vietnam and Algeria stand out as examples.)

Anti-Semitism has died down as of late, though it is still present. I'm not a particularly religious Jew, but I made a point of attending synagogue today. Prior to entering the main synagogue, I was searched by a cop and interrogated at length by two congregants. The anti-Semitism isn't as bad in Paris as it is in the suburbs of Paris, where working-class Jews and working-class Muslims live by side. The man I met from the Simon Wiesenthal Center said that anti-Semitism is rampant in those communities. He said that while most of the anti-Semitic actions are committed by Arab immigrants, the authorities often turn away. For example, the police are extremely reluctant to report anti-Semitic activity as a "hate crime." Gunshots were fired through the window of a Jewish school bus several months ago, injuring an 8-year-old girl. The police declared this to be a "smashed windshield." The shooter was told to pay a fine of 300 Euros ($350) and perform some community service. "Jews Die" was painted on the side of a suburban synagogue a few weeks ago. The incident was reported as "vandalism." The willful ignorance of the problem stretches far beyond the scene of law enforcement. The PS (Socialist Party) has made a conscious decision to avoid reaching out to the 400,000 Jewish voters in favor of the 4 million Muslim ones. (This is true even though Muslims in France tend not to vote.) The party, which lost badly in last year's elections, refused to endorse Israel's right to exist in its official platform, urging "Middle Eastern nations to work to guarantee an end to the Palestinian refugee problem" and condemning "unilateral and unjust Israeli actions against the civilian population of Palestine."

The rally today was hysterical. Iraqi and Palestinian flags were everywhere, and signs openly declared that the United States and Israel are Nazi regimes. One sign showed Bush with a Hitler mustache, and another featured Ariel Sharon slaughtering a Palestinian baby at a chopping block, with the words "Israel wants Palestinian blood." One of the rallying cries was "Kill Bush." Another, delivered in English, was "Hey Hey Ariel, Your stinking ass should go to jail." I kid you not. This rally was a display of anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiments the likes of which I have never before seen. But I had the opportunity to see French soldiers, which was nice. After all, there are no French soldiers on battlefields.

I'll try to post again in the next few days, now that I've found a nifty Internet cafe in my neighborhood.

posted by Justin Weitz | 2/15/2003 12:26:55 PM

[localbrew]

Originally posted by ibrodsky

IMO, the issue is not freeing the Iraqi people of a dictator. That would not justify war. The issue is that the Iraqi dictator has ties to terrorist groups and has weapons of mass destruction.

Well said, my feelings exactly.

[Mediocrates]

http://www.spiked-online.com/printable/00000006DC61.htm

Column17 February 2003
A march built on mistrust and fear

by Mick Hume


No matter whose estimate of the numbers you choose to believe (750,000, 1.5million, two million - any advance on two million?), Saturday's London march against a war on Iraq was big. In an age of political passivity, why were so many moved to march on this issue?


It seems unlikely to be solely out of concern for the Iraqi people. For more than a decade, the United Nations Security Council has imposed punitive sanctions on Iraq that have caused considerable suffering. Meanwhile, the US and British air forces have continued to bomb Iraqi targets on an almost weekly basis. None of this has excited much protest in Britain or elsewhere in the West.


Nor have many of those who marched on Saturday been opposed to foreign wars in the recent past. Far smaller numbers made a stand against the first war against Iraq in 1990-91. There were no significant demonstrations against NATO's war against the Serbs over Kosovo in 1999.


Indeed, the majority of those protesting against war are still not opposed to the principle of Western intervention in Iraq, or to the future of Iraq being decided in Western capitals. The Franco-German plan for a 'peaceful' military occupation and carve-up of Iraq, over the heads of the Iraqi people, is widely welcomed as an alternative to war.


No doubt many of Saturday's marchers will claim their own particular reasons for protesting this time. But there is always an overall political impetus behind such mass outbursts. It seems clear that this impetus comes, not from events in Iraq, but from the domestic political-cultural climate in Britain and the West.


The two biggest factors motivating Saturday's marchers were the growing atmosphere of mistrust towards government institutions, and the pervasive culture of fear and risk aversion.


In recent years, for a combination of historical and political reasons, the established institutions of state and society have suffered a worsening crisis of legitimacy. This has undermined the public standing of every body from the churches to the trades unions, from the monarchy to the media, from parliament to the police force. British governments and political parties have found it increasingly difficult to command public authority and respect.


Under the previous Tory government, it became accepted that politics was all about hypocrisy and corruption, otherwise known as sleaze. Under New Labour, it is widely perceived that the main aim of government policy is to dupe the public, otherwise known as spin. The resulting atmosphere of mistrust has now hit the government's 'war on terror' and plans for an attack on Iraq. Nobody believes what they are told about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. And the louder the government tells us it is true, the more convinced we become that it is a cover-up.


In this light it was striking that, after the prime minister ordered troops and tanks to surround Heathrow Airport last week, many people immediately dismissed the operation as an armed PR stunt designed to whip up support for an unpopular war. One is left with the impression that, even if Tony Blair and Colin Powell had aerial photographs of Hitler invading Poland, most people would refuse to believe them. And many would say it was all an American-led conspiracy to grab Polish coal reserves. Many of the London marchers expressed this sense of being lied to by our leaders.


The other major factor motivating the march was the powerful culture of fear and risk aversion that now has Britain and the West in its grip. The roots of this phenomenon go back much further than 11 September 2001. Ours is an insecure age where the old certainties about right and wrong have long disappeared, and people often look at events as vulnerable individuals rather than secure members of society. In these circumstances, the loudest demand seems always to be, not for change, but for caution and safety first.


In the field of politics as much as those of science and society, it is now seen as unwise to do anything too far-reaching or innovative, for fear of what the unknown side-effects might turn out to be. The general assumption is that decisive action is most likely to make matters worse. This is reflected in the anti-war lobby's argument that attacking Iraq is too risky because it might lead to more terrorism in the West.


The obsession with avoiding risk informs the position of just about every protest movement today, whether the object of their fears is the MMR triple vaccination, GM crops or whatever else. All exhibit a deeply conservative better-safe-than-sorry siege mentality. From this point of view, the new anti-war movement appears to be modelled on the anxious outlook of the anti-MMR lobby, projected on to the Middle East.


A spokesperson for the Stop the War Coalition announced on Saturday that, 'If Blair thinks this is it, he's wrong. This is only the beginning'. Since she is a veteran of the Socialist Workers Party, presumably she hopes that the huge march will spark some wider movement for radical change. Dream on, sister.


The numbers mobilised against war were certainly impressive. But the underlying factors which prompted many of them to march look more like symptoms of weakness than of strength. What brought so many together above all was a shared sense of anxiety and powerlessness. That is not a healthy basis on which to try to prevent war, far less build a new movement which, as some commentators now claim, will 'change the face of politics'.


However many marchers there were, the weakness of their political case still leaves plenty of scope for Bush and Blair to get away with it (see Is Blair really 'risking everything' over Iraq?). It also guarantees that, whatever the outcome of the great game the Western powers are presently playing among themselves, the fate of Iraq will not be in the hands of the Iraqi people.