One, two, three, four, we chant the chants we used before
As war looms closer with Iraq, anxious Americans lifts up their heads unto the Lord and cry, “Where, O Lord, where is thy servant, the Reverend Jesse Jackson?”
In front of the cameras, naturally. There was a march in D.C. today to protest our war in Iraq, though there is no war yet — call it a pre-emptive demonstration — and the Hymietown Rhymer was there to lead the way, along with Susan Sarandon and other perpetual protestors. There was a bunch of people dressed as the ghosts of dead Iraqis, but they looked a lot like Klansmen, which must have displeased Jesse.
There were some counterdemonstrators who looked suspiciously Middle Eastern, possibly even Iraqi, who want to see Saddam ousted. Mostly there were anti-Bush slogans:
The protesters brandished signs reading: “No Proof, No War,” “Bush Sucks” and “Pre-emptive Impeachment.” Some protesters carried Iraqi flags. “No war, no way,” shouted a protester wearing a mask of Bush with horns and a pitchfork.
“George Bush, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide!” chanted the demonstrators, who were escorted by mounted U.S. Park Police and watched by 600 police officers along the route in the heart of the nation’s capital.
It might be impolitic to say this to the protestors, and in any case they wouldn’t listen, but the last war the U.S. started was the Spanish-American War. (Athat time most people thought we were avenging the Maine’s sinking in Havana harbor, which was later proven to be from a boiler explosion, not Spanish malfeasance.) Since then, every time we’ve gotten involved in a war, we’ve joined a war already in progress (WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War.) This would be the first time we’ve actually initiated the hostilities, if you want to say that — though since this is just a continuation of the Gulf War, you could make the case that it was Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait that started it, not to mention his possession of those nasty weapons we keep hearing about.
Reasonable people can differ on the question of war with Iraq. You could make a good prudential argument against it on several grounds: because attacking Iraq makes it likely that Saddam will use his dirty tools of death; because it could provoke a regional war; because it would inflame anti-American sentiment among countries that already harbor hostile terrorists. Personally, I am convinced that ridding Iraq of Saddam will be a boon for humanity. I don’t think he’s trying to get nukes so he can murder Iraqi Kurds and Shiites more efficiently, but so he can dominate the region and live out his fantasy of uniting all Arabs under his uncomfortably firm leadership.
Nevertheless, notice how unserious and unoriginal the protestors are. Unserious, because they don’t want to engage the Iraqi question head-on by providing alternative plans, or making the kind of serious-minded objections I list above. They leave that to the sober sell-out liberals who have day jobs and probably don’t have pictures of Che above their beds. Every U.S. action is an opportunity for them to question American motives and tell the world what a rotten country we are (“One million Iraqi children are dead because of sanctions! I know because Iraq says so!”) It’s a shame that the more responsible war opponents are tainted by these folks. I mean, “Bush Sucks”? Iraqi flags? Who do these people imagine they are convincing?
Unoriginal, because “No Blood For Oil” is vintage 1990-91, and their various other chants and slogans are of older provenance, circa 1966-70. It’s like all you have to do is wave a possible war in front of these protestors, and they have a collective Pavlovian response. “Give peace a chance!” “Stop the war machine!”
Their nemesis in the White House has revised longstanding postwar U.S. doctrine, re-oriented foreign policy, cajoled the U.N. into living up to its charter, and completely re-thought his own political view of the world. The protestors show no sign that they live in a post-September 11 reality, and try to fit every conflict into their neat, pre-defined ideological template, where the U.S. is always the racist agressor, and the enemy is always the helpless victim. And they accuse the military of being conformist reactionaries.