# Anti-War protesters change their minds... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2003, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555 "2003-03-23T15:29:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RandySpears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/858c86/32.png) [@RandySpears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandySpears)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/41 "2003-03-24T01:06:02Z")
> **[Breaking International News & Views](https://www.reuters.com/)** > [@](#): > > Civilians streamed out of Umm Qasr and the city of Basra. Reuters correspondent Rosalind Russell, south of Basra, watched dozens of trucks and battered cars pass, crammed full with household belongings. > > Machinegun and artillery fire echoed behind them. > > “There is fighting in the center, on the streets. It is terrible,” said Hussein, a 24-year-old engineer who works for the state-run southern oil company in Basra. > > “We don’t want Americans here. This is Iraq.” > > One group of Iraqi boys on the side of the road smiled and waved as a convoy of British tanks and trucks rolled by. > > But once it had passed, leaving a trail of dust and grit in its wake, their smiles turned to scowls. > > “We don’t want them here,” said 17-year-old Fouad, looking angrily up at the plumes of gray smoke rising from Basra. Anyone still wan’t to make an argument that **all** Iraqis are begging the US to liberate them? ---
**Author:** ![Mandelstam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mandelstam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mandelstam)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/42 "2003-03-24T01:48:01Z")
**Sam** , I know you are busy elsewhere on these boards finding greener pastures in the neverending struggle against SDMB “extremism.” But could you possibly tie up a few loose ends? So far in this thread **AZCowboy** has queried your characterization of the “radicals” on the SDMB on the matter of WMDs, and I’ve asked you, if possible, to back up another of your assertions with a link. You wouldn’t just be ducking these things, now would you? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/43 "2003-03-24T03:20:07Z")
Sorry, Mandelstam: I’m not ducking anything, but sometimes it’s tough to keep up with the onslaught. It seems I can’t say that I’ve dressed myself for the day on here without someone demanding a cite these days, and judging by the “Tree Pollution” thread, even that doesn’t seem good enough these days. Let’s see… Where were we? Oh, people claiming that Iraq doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction… Okay, I just posted about a dozen quotes from past threads of people either questioning whether Iraq has any weapons of mass destruction, or flat-out claiming that they don’t. Then I deleted it all, because I decided it wasn’t fair to those people. Some of them said it, but I remembered that they didn’t have that position later. Others are continually questioning it, but it seems clear to me that they’re just acting as foils and probably have doubts themselves. So, I’m not going to post names. Instead, I suggest that you search for “Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction”, “Scott Ritter”, and other related threads. There are plenty of examples. ’ ---
**Author:** ![Mandelstam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mandelstam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mandelstam)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/44 "2003-03-24T03:28:54Z")
**Sam** , I respect your decision not to humilate posters by dredging up material from old threads. As the request was **AZ** ’s I leave it to him to have the final word on the subject; but my own sense is that you have seen enough of the arguments by the posters in _this_ particular thread to have not represented their views so crudely. Still, as far as I’m concerned, we can let it pass. I’d be still be genuinely interested, though, in reading any article that claims that most Iraqi families have lost someone to Saddam’s regime if you can provide same. ---
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/45 "2003-03-24T04:11:00Z")
**Sam** , far be it for me to suggest that any good poster’s name here should be soiled by the comments they submit, so, no problem, don’t worry about backing up your claim. I’ve read a bunch of those threads recently, and I don’t remember anyone taking that position. I’ll let the readers decide for themselves. Having just scanned the tree pollution thread, I certainly don’t want to see that start up again. We’ve got plenty of others stuff to disagree about! ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/46 "2003-03-24T04:17:44Z")
Oh, looky! The right has discovered that some dictators are evil bastards who torture and kill their political opponents! I’m with ya, babies! That is, if you REALLY want to go after ALL the evil dictators who torture and kill political opponents, not just your hand-picked opponents. I’ll be proud if we do this! I’ll wave the flag, declare America the best of all nations and lead the charge for American intervention around the world … as long as we do it consistently. In many cases, all it would take to dump some of these evil bastid dictators would be dropping US support of them. I don’t think this will EVER happen. The right likes its tame evil bastards far too much. I think fighting oppression is just the rationale du jour for the current war. I hope you don’t find me unduly cynical, but see, the U.S. has a long and evil history of propping up guys just like Saddam, as far as their people are concerned. Look it up, if you can spare a moment from the spin machine … ---
**Author:** ![Milum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Milum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milum)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/47 "2003-03-24T04:37:01Z")
**I’d be still be genuinely interested, though, in reading any article that claims that most Iraqi families have lost someone to Saddam’s regime if you can provide same.** Math, Mandelstram, math. Iraq has a population of 23,000,000. The Iraqi people have a culture of a large, almost tribal, extended family…i.e. 46 or so members in the family group. This maths out to 500,000 Iraqis base figures who have lost family members. But then add 100,000 Kurds gassed in one fell swoop, plus miscellany Iraqi murders throughout the last 20 years estimated at 250,000. This totals 350,000 murdered. Ha! An estimate that cries for the recognition of the million or so other dead, but no matter, this minimal count still constitutes a “better than most”, “50%”, component of the torture and eventual elimination of Iraqi people. Hence… “Most Iraqis have lost someone to Saddam’s regime.” Is this enought murders to appease your objection? ---
**Author:** ![Mandelstam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mandelstam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mandelstam)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/48 "2003-03-24T04:49:59Z")
**Milum** : _“Is this enought murders to appease your objection?”_ I guess my politeness might have been lost on you, **Milum** , but I have no objection to “appease.” I have read whatever I can find on the subject of Iraqi sentiments in the mainstream publications I read on a regular basis (and there is frustratingly little of it), and I was genuinely curious what **Sam** , who reads different stuff than I do, might have come across. As to your math analysis. The problem is that political dissidence doesn’t tend to be randomly distributed across a population. Undoubtedly, some families are close to 100% loyal to Saddam (though I know the guy is pretty rough on his own associates), while others are close to 100% resistant. (And some will fall elsewhere on the spectrum in between.) Such patterns will probably vary regionally as well. So while I’m not at all rejecting **Sam** ’s assertion out of hand and would be genuinely interested in reading about it, I don’t see that your mathematical analysis constitutes some kind of prima facie evidence for it. But thanks for trying! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![wedgerat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@wedgerat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wedgerat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/49 "2003-03-24T05:10:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lissa \* > \*\*Does anyone have a link to concrete evidence that this is true? (Not that I doubt Saddam is capable of it; I just remember the outrage over the Iraqi-soldiers-dumping-babies-from-incubators story which turned out to be untrue.) \*\* I think this is a very good question, and one I would like to see an answer to. I’ve heard other people mention the plastic shredder story, but no cites, and the mention in the OP sounds almost like a friend-of-a-friend story. So, I’m not _doubting_ it, but I’d still like to see evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/50 "2003-03-24T05:24:25Z")
\*\*DarkMika, \*\* I started a thread in GQ about this subject. Let’s see if anyone posts anything there instead of taking up more space in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/51 "2003-03-24T05:35:48Z")
Mandelstam: I’ll try to dig it up again. But I read a LOT of stuff, both in print and on the web. I’ll do a web search and see if I can find anything, but I’m having a hard time thinking of what search terms I’d use that wouldn’t result in a zillion false hits. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/52 "2003-03-24T06:23:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zoe \* > \*\*And sadly, there would be no women voting. \*\* Yet. Baby steps. Remove the tyrant first, then work on social change. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/53 "2003-03-24T06:32:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zoe \* > \*\*And sadly, there would be no women voting. \*\* Yet. Baby steps. Remove the tyrant first, then work on social change. ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/54 "2003-03-25T13:30:35Z")
Foolish me, I thought I could restrict the content of a thread by writing the OP. People: I _don’t_ want to discuss Weapons of Mass Destruction. For the purposes of this thread, we can assume that Iraq doesn’t even _have_ them, or for that matter any prohibited weapons at all. What I am interested in hearing is how anti-war types respond to the reports of atrocities I posted in the OP. To refresh your memory: > [@](#): > > A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip “had shocked me back to reality.” Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera “told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn’t start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam’s bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head.” (a link to this story and another one are in the OP) I also want to know how they feel about the fact that some of their fellow anti-war protesters, who were clearly more committed to the cause than the folks here since they actually _went to Iraq_ to serve as human shields, have _changed their minds_ after seeing for themselves what is going on there. Now let me take a moment to answer some posters who did reply to my OP: > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Mandelstam \*\*\* > Here is an excellent article that was published in The Nation back in January, entitled [The Moral Quandary](http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030106&s=massing). The title of the article refers precisely to the predicament posed by those who live under Saddam’s oppression. No one on the left or the center or in Europe is opposed to helping the Iraqi people. > I suggest you read the article, which is not narrowly partisan at all._\* It was an interesting article, but very little of it was directly on point to the OP. There was however, this: > [@](#): > > Moreover, Saddam, despite his brutal record, is not now carrying out the type of mass slaughter he did against the Kurds in the late 1980s. Iraq today is not like Rwanda in 1994, when Hutus were massacring Tutsis, nor Bosnia in the early and mid-1990s, when Serbs were killing Muslims. So, however cruel Saddam’s regime might be, it is not perpetrating the type of atrocities that could normally justify a humanitarian intervention This is particularly striking. They seem to feel there is a statute of limitations on mass murder. If he’s not involved in _mass_ murder, _right now_…or at least, if there is no evidence of such…then humanitarian intervention is “not justified”. That’s not a “moral quandary”. That’s moral bankruptcy. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mandelstam \*\*\* > Although the Iraqi people have indeed suffered hugely, there are many reasons why this war may do more harm than good. I mean that both in the large extra-Iraqi scheme of things (b/c it will institute a pernicious preemptive doctrine, \*\* But this simply begs the question of why a pre-emptive doctrine of going after people like Saddam is at all pernicious. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mandelstam \*\*\* > b/c it will foment anti-Americanism and terrorism, \*\* Both of these things existed in spades before the war, and will no matter what we do. Do you honestly feel that the threat of these things being increased by the war outweighs the desirability of putting a stop to the sort of things I mentioned in the OP? If so, why do you think your fellow anti-war types, who have actually _been to_ Iraq, have come to disagree with you? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mandelstam \*\*\* > There is no guarantee that this war will “liberate” the Iraqi people. \*\* Of course. However, as I stated in my OP, we _do_ have a guarantee that innocent people will die if we _don’t_ invade. And they will die in some pretty ghastly ways, like, once again: > [@](#): > > put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head Do you think this may be one of the things that caused the people in the OP to change their minds? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mandelstam \*\*\* > Right now, in fact, it is quite possible that situation for Iraqi Kurds is about to grow worse as they face a greater threat from the Turks than they have (recently) from Saddam himself. Iraqi democracy could result in a tyranny of the majority in which a fundamentalist regime is imposed over all the rest; or it could mean years of ethnic infighting a la Yugoslavia, or years of foreign occupation. \*\* Could be, might be, maybe. How do you weigh these _possibilities_ against what is _actually happening_ in Iraq right now?. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RandySpears \* > \*\*I’m against the war (as waged by the US) because: > > I. I believe it to be a huge gamble with civilian life. > > II. I believe the reasons for US intervention to be shady at least. > > III. I believe that the US history in “humanitarian intervention” and the likes, in general and in the middle east in particular deprive the US of any credibility whatsoever. \*\* I addressed I above. As to II, assuming the reasons are “shady”, do you feel that you can never support someone doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? If not, under what circumstances could you? I am particularly interested in your answer because I personally don’t feel that the Bush administration’s motivations in this thing are entirely pure myself, but I still strongly support the war. One of the reasons is because of the sort of thing I mentioned in my OP. If you demand absolute purity of motive from a politician, _any_ politician, you are not going to get it. As to number III, I don’t understand that at all. What history are you referring to? Do you think preserving our credibility is more important than putting a stop to torture and mass murder? I don’t get it. And finally: > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RandySpears \* > \*\*Anyone still wan’t to make an argument that **all** Iraqis are begging the US to liberate them? \*\* **All** Iraqis? Do I even have to point out what a huge strawman that is? Especially given what we’ve learned recently, that a lot of these people have Fedayeen and other irregulars mixed in among them, wearing civilian clothes. ---
**Author:** ![Mandelstam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mandelstam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mandelstam)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/55 "2003-03-25T14:31:54Z")
**Weird** , one of the many key problems you overlook is that when Saddam _was_ committing violence on a mass scale the US wasn’t interested in doing anything about it. In fact at certain points in his ugly record, he was our ally (and that of other Western nations as well). Basically you have decided for yourself that Saddam’s atrocities justifies invasion. Yet invasion is itself a form of atrocity, even when the invading nation tries very hard not to kill innocent civilians as the United States is trying. Notice that so far the Iraqi people are _not_ greeting their invaders as liberators, while a [humanitarian crisis is already looming in Basra](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Humanitarian.html). _You_ may have decided that pursuing Saddam at this cost is a case of the end justifying the means: but outside of the United States and Britain, almost no one agrees with you. (And within those countries a substantial minority disagrees.) _If_ the Bush administration or any other world leader were genuinely determined to devote themselves to human rights, they would have to begin by pursuing that cause consistently. Bush has not and does not. He is flagrantly unconcerned with most human rights violations in most places. But, hypothetically, if Bush changed course, he would not only be consistent but he would also use the appropriate international channels to pursue justice in an acceptable, consensus-building way. (That after all is the way justice is pursued in a democracy: if we know that a serial killer is in a crowded theater in a foreign country, we don’t bomb it so as to serve justice.) Since we do not have a situation of genocide going on in Iraq, the right course might be to isolate Saddam as a kind of criminal and prosecute him for crimes against humanity. It might take a long time to do that; he might stay in power for a long time, and/or evade justice as Pinochet did. But it’s not up to us or any other country to simply appoint ourselves judge, jury, and executioner, especially when so many other lives are at stake, and when the majority of the world does not agree. Finally, the humanitarian rationale for this war is superficial: it is is not and has never been the administration’s main rationale for war. The main alleged cause for war is the alleged imminent threat that Iraq poses to the United States, and the preemptive doctrine through which Bush has authorized himself to act upon that supposed threat while disregarding key allies, the UN, and the majority of the world’s people. _“…this simply begs the question of why a pre-emptive doctrine of going after people like Saddam is at all pernicious.”_ It is pernicious because it sets a dangerous precedent. All sorts of countries can now “go after people like Saddam,” or say that their neighbors pose an imminent threat to their defense. Do you not see the danger there? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/56 "2003-03-25T14:40:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > **And if we can’t find any warehouses full of anthrax and VX, we had better come up with some. I mean that. Lie if we have to. The consequences of _not_ finding them are too dreadful to contemplate.** I understand the motivation behind this statement. It is still abominable. ---
**Author:** ![verybdog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/49beb7/32.png) [@verybdog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/verybdog)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/57 "2003-03-25T14:54:20Z")
[http://www.antiwar.com/photos/daughter.jpg](http://www.antiwar.com/photos/daughter.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/58 "2003-03-25T15:00:41Z")
**W\_A\_E** , I don’t know what your point is in having, by my count, repeated the line about plastic shredders five times already(especially since this story remains completely unconfirmed), but you are starting to sound like a broken record. Please go back and read the first dozen or so responses to your OP, which I believe directly address yoiur concerns. If you can’t be bothered, how about at least reading \*\*Mandelstam’s reply just above this one? And, having learned from your tactic, I’ll remind you once again, no need to repeat the plastic shredder story, unless you can provide addtional information verifying that it, in fact, occurred. WE HAVE ALREADY READ IT. REPEATEDLY. ---
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/59 "2003-03-25T15:14:43Z")
> [@](#): > > _ **Weird\_AL\_Einstein** wrote:_ > All Iraqis? Do I even have to point out what a huge strawman that is? OK, how about _most_ Iraqi’s. Do you think it is important that the majority of Iraq prefer occupation (liberation, if you like) by US troops versus the status quo? And no, the end does not justify the means. The US action is the equivalent to vigilantism in international law. With vigilantism, you can always point to the “good result”. But in the long run, it is an untenable position. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555/60 "2003-03-25T15:17:59Z")
Yes, **Weird Al** , we know that Saddam Hussein is a bad, bad person. We knew that long before this conflict started. That has nothing to do with whether this invasion is justified, legally and ethically. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-war-protesters-change-their-minds/163555.md?page=4)