…and talk to the anti-war protestors, what would you tell them?
Would you say, "Hey guys, I understand what you are trying to do here, but I just got back from April 10th, 2003, and Saddam loses. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers die, about 100 Americans, and countless Iraqi civilians. In fact, once they were sure Saddam was gone for good, the Iraqi people in Baghdad were waving American flags, kissing pictures of President Bush and hugging soldiers.
"There is a very real possibility that Saddam saw your protests around the world and in his sick and twisted way determined that he would hold out because world opinion was with him. Even www.theonion.com has a funny blurb about the possibility ‘Saddam Misinterprets Anti-War Protest As Pro-Saddam’ .
“I know you have the right to protest. But I am telling you the outcome. Lets try to avoid this war and pressure Saddam out by NOT giving him reason to doubt the American resolve.”
What trumps what? The right and ability to protest or the lives lost in this war?
What, you couldn’t fit your crowing into one of the other 25 or so “neener neener” threads currently active?
Firstly, your assumption that Iraq would automatically have surrendered if not for anti-war protests is itself, er, debatable, to say the least.
Hey, if I can go back in time at any point, I’d wait until a couple of years from now to see what sort of regime replaces the Ba’athists, and to see whether US security has really been enhanced. 'Cause, like, we don’t actually know that yet.
Right. It IS an assumption that Saddam would not have resisted if it were not for the protests, but if we do go on that premise, what would you do? Protest or not?
I am not questioning anyones right to protest, I am jus trying to see where in the list of life’s priorities it falls for people.
But the thing is, that’s a crazy premise. You’re trying to make the argument that the anti-war protestors caused the war to happen, and the evidence doesn’t seem to support it.
So, if I went back in time two months, I would say what I did say:
“Protest or not. It doesn’t matter…Bush wants war and he’s not going to listen to you anyway.”
I’d tell my cow-orker to write something down for me before she gets arrested. Then I would have her hold onto all the money from my bank account that I just withdrew. I would have her give the “early me” the March madness results and the money.
I was a moderate Pro-War advocate from the time I was mortified by an Anti-war’s ignorance. Much of everything I said 2 months ago were pretty near dead on. I did pessimistically think the war would last a year tho. silly me for giving The Elite republican Guard too much credit. Suffice it to say that the core of the anti-war movement is not suitably impressed with what has happened thus far. Nothing you can say will ever really convince them that this war had to be fought in spite of the civilian casualties, the destruction and the loss of international image.
You seem to be saying that now that things are over and we won and didn’t is go so well… don’t you feel silly. The simple point is most anti-war demonstrators could have predicted exactly what has happened up until now. This is only the beginning. The really nasty stuff is just starting. Ask the same question in a year or two. If democracy is installed in a stand alone government not dependent on the US and the rest of the Arab world doesn’t want our heads then I will definitely say that though what we did was wrong it seems to have worked out for the best.
… I’m… dumbfounded. Exactly what part the argument against war do you somehow not get? It sounds like, against ALL probablity, you’ve missed the point completely.
This war was a bad policy idea because of it’s effects on 1. what other nations think of us and their people do towards us, 2. what it does to the role of international law and the UN, 3. its implications for the role of our President.
This is all without gettting into how corrupt and secret-societyish the Bush administration is; I know those who toe the Republican party line can’t accept this in good faith. (Cheney just got the power to classify ANY document at a whim. He has called the Freedom of Information Act a “dangerous nuisance” and plans to use his power to destroy it. He is generally classfying any information that could embarass his administration.) I
This is and has always been a choice of what is better for the most people in the long run. None of this has ANYTHING to do with how quickly or easily we win the war. I don’t understand why you folks keep acting like the war is legitimate because we won…
I would have said “Wow! Obvious GWD is right on… Iraq is a massive threat to America with such an ill-equiped army”. Then I may have mentioned something about the repercussions of invading an Arab country, but you would probably have your fingers in your ears.
What is up with the half a dozen or so posters vomiting wargasmfilled posts all over GD and the Pit with their “Protesters are unamerican morons” threads every six seconds? You give the sane war supporters bad names.
I was protesting against the war in February and, although protests ceased in my area after the first week of the war, I still think the war was a bad idea. Not only has nothing happened to change my view, nothing has happened that I couldn’t and didn’t myself predict as a likely outcome. I did not expect the war to be long. I expected at least some Iraqis to be happy in its immediate aftermath: to find themselves still alive, and free of Saddam. In fact, I would be happy in their shoes.
Although I disliked Saddam’s regime as much as anyone, I still think that war on these terms was wrong and for numerous reasons. With UN support I would have been okay with the war; without it I did think it was mistake and I still do think it was/is a mistake. You have probably heard the reasons before (although you show no signs of understanding them): a dangerous preemptive (preventive) precedent has been set, diverging from an international law stance to which the US has adhered for 60 years; the United States has behaved like an imperial power and has alienated its most important allies; the war will exacerbate terrorism, swelling the ranks of Al Qaeda; the war was justified–although few outside of the US bought this justification–on grounds of WMDs that so far have not been found; in making those arguments the Bush administration used unreliable and out-of-date evidence and misled (and continues to mislead) its own citizens on the connection between Saddam and 9/11; the US has no consistent policy of promoting humanitarian liberation and, indeed, does not even insist on human rights enforcement within the “coaltion of the willing,” or sign on to human rights treaties that have been signed by the all but the most repressive countries; paid for more or less unilaterally, the war and its aftermath are hugely expensive (involving as many as 250,000 troops to be stationed in Iraq for at least 5 years) and I don’t think that this particular imperial adventure was a priority in terms of either national security or the things we need at home.
Personally, I don’t know anyone who opposed the war who has changed his or her mind in the last 48 hours, because I don’t know anyone who opposed it because he or she thought we would lose, or that it would take too long. Most people I know felt that winning the war would be relatively easy: but feared the complex aftermath and the numerous geopolitical ramifications.
As I write, we do not even know how many Iraqis have died in this war, and some news organs are reporting that it may not even be knowable. Certainly they number in the thousands. The war is not over. Food and water are lacking for many Iraqis. Civil order needs to be established. Factionalized Iraqis are already starting to kill each other. No US troops have gone home.
While I’m very pleased indeed that the bombing is over, and that the killing of civilians is likely to be far less from here on in, and I don’t really understand your mentality. Not only are you counting your chickens before they’re hatched, it’s not even clear that you undertsand what the chickens are in the first place.
I sincerely hope that you think twice before starting yet another redundant thread.
