What, exactly, do the anti-war demonstrators want?

So the Stop The War coalition and International A.N.S.W.E.R are still marching against the war. Could someone please tell me what they want, and why they think what they want is right?

Do they want:

  1. An unconditional withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq?

  2. A change in behaviour of U.S. troops? Are they claiming that the U.S. is committing atrocities or anything?

  3. The U.S. to pull out and the U.N. to take over? With whose soldiers?

I must admit I don’t understand what they want. Everyone agrees that ‘cutting and running’ from Iraq would be a disaster, so why would they want that? Marching for civil war?

The U.N. route has been tried. The U.N. won’t get involved. And anyway, the U.N. does not have its own soldiers. It would still be U.S. soldiers doing the heavy lifting.

My take on the protests is that they are fundamentally irrational. The protestors have no real demands - they just want to hate the U.S., so they’re throwing a big damned tantrum. But hey, maybe I’m wrong.

So, if you’re an anti-war protestor, please help me out here. What are you protesting, what hard results do you wish to see come out of your protests, and what do you think that would accomplish?

To feel good about themselves…

as their actions change nothing externally.

(emphasis added regretfully)

Yes. You are. Further, you are much too smart to make such an insinuation inadvertantly.

How dare you, Sam?

I’m not speaking for anyone else, and I haven’t taken part in an anti-war demonstration.

Still, I would like to see George and his PNAC crowd pay to clean up the mess they made, out of their own pockets.

You mean… the people’s pockets?

And yes.

That has happened/is happening.

Liberals are also bitching about that.

87 bill.

But I think mainly, they detest George Bush to the degree that they wont consider his administration’s position to be even a rational policy (which it undoubtedly is, whether or not you agree that it’s appropriate).

But some of them are die hard Stalinists, no kidding, and they DO hate America, elu. There is no doubt about this, and if people against the war don’t want to get painted into the same space as these people, they should stop denying it and denounce them just as much as they denounce Bush’s policies.

Sam:

From what I’ve seen, it is a bit more complex than you are proposing. Yes, there is a strong “we just hate the big guy” element. Yes, there is a muddled message with every left wing cause people seem to be able to dredge up. But if you filter out that stuff, and try to distill the pure anti-war elements, it looks very much like a desire to get the US to:

  1. Turn over the occupation and nation building to the UN. Yes, there would be some US troops still involved, but the command and control function would originate from the UN.

  2. Confine future agreesive military actions to those sanctioned by the UN.

But some of these folks may not even have a coherent plan for what should happen if the US were to withdraw. They may just want to register their disaproval. Good for them-- they should shout it from the rooftops. But I think their cause would be better served by focusing on the war as the only issue, and stop the Bush = Saddam symbolism (eg, toppling of a Bush statue).

I honestly think this is a good question, despite some of the things said in the OP. I’d like to point out that despite Stop the War’s suggestive name, it’s not just about the Iraqi War.

More generally speaking, even without specific demands, demonstrations are an important form of expression. I’m sure that people marching in a Gay Pride parade would like certain legislation enacted, but mostly they just want to increase awareness.

I think what at least some of the protesters would like is to hear GWB admit:[ul]
[li]that he had absolutely no rational reason for going to war against Iraq;[/li][li]that the U.S. government lied about the evidence it had for doing so;[/li][li]that doing so squandered the good will the U.S. received from almost every other nation on earth after 9/11;[/li][li]that doing so has given cover to any other nation that wants to commit aggression against another nation, simply by citing the notion that preemptive unilateralism is now a valid tool of statecraft;[/li][li]that doing so has diverted resources away from fighting Al-Qaeda (a worthy cause, by contrast to the war on Iraq);[/li][li]that doing so has effectively meant that Afghanistan has been ignored, and is in danger of sinking back into the Taliban-induced morass;[/li][li]that doing so has taken billions of dollars that could have been used more productively (take your pick: health care, education, mass transit, scientific research, etc., etc.);[/li][li]that doing so has taken the U.S. from a surplus to the biggest deficits in history;[/li][li]that doing so has made the world a much more dangerous place than it was before.[/li][/ul]In other words, come clean. Too much to ask, ya’ think?

Let me elaborate. I wasn’t speaking of ALL anti-war protestors - I was thinking specifically of the protests in the U.K, by non-U.S. citizens. And in that bunch, I do think there is a whole lot of reflexive anti-U.S., anti-Israel sentiment. And George Bush is a lightning rod.

No. Out of the personal fortunes of folks such as George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, Robert KaganBruce P. Jackson, in short, this group* and their financial backers. And no fair recouping the cost from the public treasury.

*Warning: link leads directly to the headquarters of pure evil.

I think this is part of what is so strange about the protests. They potentially legitimate beefs that people have against Bush are things that are already over and done with. But these people seem to be protesting as if they want something major to change in policy. But… what are these radically important new policy ideas? Are there any that really make sense and are that different than what Bush is doing? Things like “well, the UN should take more of a role” seem woefully naive. It’s not like Bush wouldn’t welcome the UN taking on moe burdens. But they also have plausible reasons that stand in the way of this happening, such as UN demands they think are unacceptable.

A primarily military war on terrorism is, at this point, the only realistic option. We aren’t even dealing, apparently, with a single coherent group that we even COULD negotiate with, even if we thought they would keep their promises any better than the Israelis, Palestinians, North Koreans, or us, all of whom break promises more than enough to make real trust impossible. It’s legitimate to claim that this situation is in part Bush’s fault. But it’s hard to fault the idea that we should build democracy in Iraq, and smash terrorist cells that are at this point going to keep bombing things no matter what: they will never be satisfied at this point.

The anti-Vietnam-War movement peaked about three years before the war ended. No American antiwar movement has ever succeeded in persuading the administration to stop a war until it was damned good and ready.

On the other hand, it is not irrational to expect that antiwar protests will seriously hurt Bush’s re-election chances in 2004. That alone makes them worth doing.

Well, I suppose if he loses the country’s money… should a president keep the money he/she earns it?

It simply doesn’t, and shouldn’t, work that way.

BTW, the money being spent there is creating jobs here.

Ya think?

Of course there is. But that doesn’t change the fact that there is a lot of anti-war sentiment as well. Are you claiming that these protests are somehow not legitimate?

BTW, I don’t recall what the protest leaders predicted the turn-out would be, but what I heard on the news today was:

NPR: Scotland Yard estimated the size of the crowd at 70k. Protest organizers claimed 3-4x that amount.

FOX: about 100k.

I tuned into CNN and MSNBC, but they were too busy reporting on Michael Jackson.

I think it’s the other way around. As far as I can tell, protests these days are expertly spun and handled by those on the right to work against the left and the protestors. When a big goofy puppet parade happens, I bet more money goes into the Bush war chest than to a Democrat or anyone with a chance of unseating Bush and affecting policy. And I bet the right wins over more people to the view that being anti-war is silly, unrealistic, and motivated more by being anti-Bush than anything else.

Whenever you try to say that a group of more than, say, 2 people, is all thinking the same thing you are wrong pretty much by definition.

However, I would suggest that one of the things the protesters are trying to get across is “we told you so.” Which is not a pointless remark in this case, since if the American people accept that the administration was wrong (or lying) it might affect the future.

Fifteen Iguana

At a cost of how many dollars, and how many lives, and how many maimings, per job?

Strictly in terms of dollars, military spending is one of the least efficient ways to create jobs. A highway spending bill (for example) does much better at turning dollars into jobs than defense spending generally does. And in this instance, we also have the very real human cost. American soldiers are coming home without their full complement of limbs, and of course some are coming home without the breath of life in them. I think we can create jobs some other way.

I don’t know what the protesters want, since I don’t know any of them. I know what I want. Like Early Out, I’d like GWB to come clean about the recent past that got us into this mess. I’d like to see the war become less of a piggybank for Halliburton and Bechtel, and have contracts instead going directly to Iraqis wherever possible, instead of them being the sub-sub-sub-subcontractors. I’d like to see the Chalabi-and-other-exiles-dominated Iraqi “Governing” Council dispensed with, in favor of representatives of the “representative local governments” that Bush says Iraqis now have. I’d like to see us find an honorable way out of a land where American troops have to live behind massive fortifications, which is an indication that we really can’t do much good there.

I’d like to see some suggestions, some models from the Bush administration of just what sort of governmental structure might have a prayer of working in Iraq, because I don’t think they know, themselves. I’d like to see them admit that this war has actually been counterproductive in the war on terrorism, in that Iraq hadn’t been somewhere terrorists could operate, but it is now. And as I’ve pointed out in another thread, it doesn’t seem to be impeding their ability to operate elsewhere. I’d like to see them publicly thank their lucky stars that there have been no WMDs to speak of in Iraq, for if there had actually been WMDs there, they likely would be in the hands of terrorists by now, on account of Rumsfeld’s brilliant war plan that didn’t allow for enough troops to guard WMD sites, once the Wall of Steel had chased Saddam’s troops away, then moved on up the road.

I’d like to see the Bushies admit that there may be no good path to a united, democratic Iraq; that partition or some other solution (such as letting the Saudis annex Iraq, if they’re willing) might be the only answer. But ‘Iraq’ isn’t a real nation; it’s Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds living between some lines drawn by Europeans shortly after WWI. I’d like to see somebody in the Admin admit that, and publicly wrestle with its consequences.

There’s more, but that’ll have to do for now.

Non US citizens protesting the war in the UK??? WTF???

You already know that the UK are/were the major partner in this war and also that Blair has got major criticism over being Bushes poodle so why say that?

As John Mace has said there are protesters that will march against any war/ any anti US deal. But over 1 million marched against the war in London before the action and this protest is close if not the biggest non-weekend march in the history of the UK. Not a small matter at all.

A lot of normal people marched to show their disapproval. That is why I marched in Dublin in one of my states biggest protests, before the war. I knew nothing would change but I wanted to do it anyway. It is their/my right. Why do you have a problem with it?

IMO and the opinion of a LOT of people the American and the UK Administrations lied about the reason for going to war. If people can’t voice their anger and frustration about something that important what the fuck can they protest about?

I am sure that one or two of the bongo-beaters actually has an idea of what they would like actually like to see changed. The other ~49,999 are ‘demonstrating’ nothing but their willingness to follow their own smelly herd. Certainly no rational person expects the protests to accomplish anything. (Apart from costing the city however much money in police overtime and cleanup costs.)