I'm sorry, but this has to be said

[siercia]

I'm trying to avoid war talk here, since it's everywhere right now, but I can't NOT say this. (If you're avoiding war talk, scroll on. But I don't want to hide this behind a cut tag)

Now, I am, in general, against war, on general principle. To me, it goes without saying that you try every other means possible before resorting to war. That's a big part of why I opposed the current action in Iraq - I didn't think we'd done that, and the case for why the Bushies thought we had weren't convincing. I realize this makes me somewhat different than some anti-war folks, because I pragmatically accept that sometimes, it is necessary. HOWEVER.

We're in it now, and the people who are continuing to protest the war are starting to PISS ME OFF. We lost. There's a war on, whether you agree with it or not. Accept it, be horrified by it, but for God's sake, move on.(see footnote) Blocking traffic in major cities, throwing blood on pretend dead people, and screaming your fool heads off is accomplishing nothing except making the entire against-the-war side look like wingnuts and idiots. The majority of the American people already KNOW that people die in war, that war is bad, and yes, even that the innocents sometimes die in war. We already KNOW that. We don't need your theatrical play acting to remind us.

And really, what good comes of stopping the bombing now? Yes, we would spare the lives of civilians who might perish, certainly. But what else? We would leave ourselves without a shred of credibility in the world community - at least if we "finish" the job, we may be able to show proof that we were right about Saddam, and the UN should have listened to us. We look like bomb-happy bullies to the rest of the world, but of the worst kind - the kind that is unwilling to follow through on its threats. Most importantly, and worst of all, we leave Saddam in power, angrier and full of even more hatred than he has now, so that we can repeat the entire exercise in another ten years. As well, we remove the possibility of our ability to do ANY good in the country - rebuilding it, helping the survivors, using the rebuilding time as a way of showing the entire world, and particularly the Middle East that we are as willing to help the people as we were to remove their government (whether we are or not is a question up for debate, and I'm getting to it).

So what should we be doing instead? First and foremost, organize NOW to get the wheels in motion to do everything we can to ensure our government follows through on its vague promises of aid to the Iraqi people once this is over, assuming we win. Treating the people as humanely and magnanimously as possible will do more to ensure a friendly-to-America Iraq than any rah-rah government we can install. Start addressing NOW (or trying to) how we will install a government in Iraq, again, assuming we win - if you're a voting Democrat, try to give your Congress critter a backbone - insist that we take into account what the Iraqi people want - after all, we should be instilling democratic freedoms there, not our own flavor of dictator. Start donating to the Red Cross and the other organizations that will be going in to do the humanitarian work once the bombing is over, or if you can, volunteer yourself. Go. Do what you can to fix what we've done. Prove to the people there that we're not all monsters. (Seriously, if you have enough time to organize and participate in pointless protests, you have the time to do these things.) For God's sake, VOTE in the next election. Vote for politicians who opposed the war. Anyone at ANY protest of any kind who didn't vote deserves a sharp stick in the eye. Send care packages to our troops who are over there. Even if you don't approve of their being there, they are, at the behest of YOUR government. We should respect that they are putting their own lives on the line for us. Do some of this, do all of it, I don't care. But please do something constructive instead of destructive. Stand behind your ideals in more ways than the easy ones.

FOOTNOTE: I will say that the one exception I would make to any call for stopping the protests is if there is any evidence that our troops are in any way deliberately hurting, terrorizing or killing non-combatant Iraqis on a hand-to-hand level. This is so clearly different than the collateral damage of war that we should NOT stand for it. Protest it, demand that the perpetrators be punished as war criminals, and do everything we can to make that happen.

Comments

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Not that I disagree that the anti-war movement should be morphing into something different, but consider this - to stop the protesting would be to grant the warhawks the moral victory, giving the impression that it's okay, they can proceed to war over the wishes of the citizenry and thereafter present it as a fait accompli and everyone will rally behind the flag, proving that they weren't serious about the protests in the first place.

Maybe people should keep reminding them that there are people against the war and who are still against the war. Supporting the troops - well, that's a whole other issue.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I agree.

I think it's counter-productive for protestors to use tactics that piss off lots of people, especially people who agree with them. I think there are more effective ways to get one's point across, and you're more likely to have someone listen to you if they're not wanting to beat you over the head and shoulders.

But if the protests stop, what does that accomplish? Coverage of protests, acknowledgment of protests, information about protests - these things show the world that not everyone is behind this war. It is a continual reminder that this action is not okay to a lot of people. If all of the protestors went away, it would be far too easy for it to be portrayed that the anti-war effort is all washed up.

Just because they declared war anyway doesn't mean it's time to give up. People protested for years and years and YEARS during the Vietnam war, and as the war dredged on, more and more and more and more and more people protested until there was little doubt that something had to change. What would have happened if all of those protestors had just stopped the minute war was declared?

I agree with you though, siercia, that we need to support our troops. And I will do so, but not without continuing to remind people that I am against this war and all wars, and the fact that we've started bombing the shit out of Baghdad only reinforces this in me.

[senchen.livejournal.com]

Are you certain it was the protests that guided our hand in withdrawing from Vietnam, and not the increasingly obvious fact that even if we killed a thousand of them for each of us, there were still so many of them that a victory there would be nominal at best? Not to mention that they had nothing we particularly wanted, and our whole reason for being there was on ideological grounds which looked increasingly shaky as the cost of pursuing them increased?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I'm not foolish enough to think that the protestors guided anyone's hands, but it makes me smile to think that after all of those years, they kept persisting instead of saying, "Oh, who cares, they don't even listen to us anyway."

[senchen.livejournal.com]

I'm torn on that myself.

On the one hand I have to have respect for ordinary people of strong conviction who take a stand for what they believe is right and refuse to back down from it.
That should apply to anyone no matter what that stand is; it's just so unusual to see, and I think it's worth cultivating. You have to have people of ethics and conviction in any healthy society. They don't have to be reasonable people, or realistic people, because they're not people who are likely to ever come to power anyhow, but you need them to provide a moral compass even if that compass isn't going to be followed directly.

But on the other hand I suspect the vast majority of protesters aren't genuinely passionate and unshakeable in their convictions, they're just dabblers in dissent.
People who DRIVE to the peace rally in their SUV, for instance, make me ill to the same degree that some of my passionate, strident, radical friends make me smile.
The protesters who are only waving signs and making noise for the sake of assuaging their own guilty consciences about benefiting from the inherent brutality of capitalism, or because it's a fun and exciting thing to do which gives them street cred among their antiestablishment friends, or because it lets them feel like they've got some degree of control over the situation, or any one of a thousand insufficient and dishonest reasons why someone who really doesn't care at all would go a-marching.
THOSE people should be ashamed to even associate themselves with the great ethical figures of history who preceded the current batch of poseurs to outrage, and helped to make their sorry imitation of concern possible.

[asmodel.livejournal.com]

To add my thoughts to those listed above:

From a US standpoint, the protests may appear to have failed, but from an international standpoint, they were a partial success at least. The initial war against terrorism had the US with far more international support. This one has about 2 or 3 allies with it. France, Germany, Canada, the Security council, and the rest refusing to help with the war would have in part occured because 100s of thousands of people took to the streets world wide, saying 'no, this is not okay'. If we continue to protest, then it is possible that the US goverment may decide to be more amenable to negotiating an end to this stupidity, before they completely raze Baghdad to the ground.

As per the rebuilding of Iraq, that's another thing that the protests are addressing - that we shouldn't replace Saddam with a US military occupation/dictatorship. We need to do things on a practical level to ensure this, but that doesn't mean we can stop sending out the message to the governments worldwide that Iraq must choose it's own destiny after the war.

And I was actually thinking yesterday, hrm... would they need any computer geeks in the rebuilding process? Although I don't think I'll have enough money to volunteer. I've looked into it before.

And in regards to how we'd look if we stopped now:
No one expects the US to suddenly stop bombing out of the blue. We're now protesting for the above mentioned reasons. But I think the lives and safety of people are more important than how the US appears in the world arena, which when you think about it, is a pretty shocking image anyway.

Is this comment long enough?

[senchen.livejournal.com]

I have to take issue with your reasoning here. I suggest that the initial war on terrorism, that against Afghanistan, wasn't opposed because nobody had a compelling reason to oppose it.

If you want to know why France, Germany and Russia are disagreeing with our choice of action now, simply follow the money and discover that they have vested interests in Iraq which will be disrupted or destroyed if we install a regime which no longer looks to France, Germany, and Russia for its weapons, technologies, infrastructure, and other supplies.

Nobody particularly cared about Afghanistan. In fact it was a thorn in their collective side; its only significant export is heroin. On the other hand if we invade Iraq, our opponents in the UN lose money. A lot of money. That's why they're opposed.

As for trying to salvage something diplomatic from the UNSC, that became pointless as soon as France declared that they would use their veto power to block ANY resolution which authorized the use of force to enforce the disarmament process. Since it should be obvious that a command to with no penalties for failure to obey is NOT a command at all, France themselves made the UNSC useless in dealing with Iraq.

Razing Baghdad is not one of our goals. If we were going to do so it would already have been done. In fact it would be much cheaper and easier to simply mass up the heavy high-altitude bombers and firebomb the whole place, as was done on all sides in WWII. The use of our high technology is not for OUR sake. We go to all this trouble and expense and apply our innovation for the protection of the Iraqis. A barrage of general-purpose bombs is just as effective at demolishing a given target (not counting hardened underground bunkers) as a precision satellite-guided bomb is, and the GP bombs are cheaper too. The whole point of using smart weapons is that they only hit what you want them to, without your having to flatten the surrounding area. Really if one must be invaded, it's the best of all possible scenarios to be invaded by the Americans; our obsession with mitigating loss of life on both sides should be legendary by now.

It's also worth noting that technically we don't even have to justify this as a war against terror; this war never ended, remember? We came to a cease-fire with Iraq in GWI on the grounds that they would disarm, and levelled sanctions against them to make them hurry it up. Not realizing of course that Saddam didn't care one whit how long his people suffered under the sanctions; he was content to endure them until everyone had forgotten that we were at war. With the exception of course of the Iraqis themselves and all the soldiers in the Gulf who have remained there, continuing patrols and bombing raids for the last twelve years of cease-fire while we waited for the disarmament to happen. But the rest of the world has a short memory. The war never went away! It just wasn't particularly newsworthy.

[asmodel.livejournal.com]

Canada on the other hand, doesn't have monetary interests in no war in Iraq. In fact, Canada's economy is dependant on the US's, so is set to gain a lot by US taking control of the oil. We're loosing much in the way of diplomatic relations with the US by not joining the war. Cretien declared that Canada would not join in, because it was the right thing to do, and because the Canadian population was so overwhealmingly against it.

Much of Europe would loose money from the US taking control of Iraq. But not wanting to go against the will of the people also has to be factored into why they refused to go to war. In Australia for instance, John Howard will likely be voted out of power for his decision to go to war, next election. So many staunch, life-long Liberal voters have declared they will not vote for Howard next election. Blair is likely to do the same.

Razing Baghdad is not one of our goals.
I think the people of Baghdad would have to beg to differ. How many people in the first week? something like 80? I don't have the figure from the paper this morning in front of me. The world shut down for a couple of days over the Columbia incident. Yet when they're Iraqi lives, they aren't as important it seems. The missiles may be set to target specific military and government buildings, but they are not 100% accurate, only 90%. That's not good enough for the people who die from the 10% which miss.

Loss of life aside. Even if you do not live in downtown Baghdad, your life is completely altered just by being near Baghdad. The ground is shaking due to explosions. You can't get access to the centre of your city. No access to food or water. Power is cut off. You live in constant fear. The Iraqis are not being protected from this war.

[biophile6.livejournal.com]

There was an interesting thing on NYC public radio this afternoon; they had two Iraqi American exiles on. Their opinion?

They were sad that the focus of all the protests were focused on US, on what WE were doing. They were distraught that no one was interested in the Iraqi people. As if the whole point was our image, our ideals, not the people's lives there. And this is what clinched it for me: the woman on (who incidentally had better English grammar than nearly anyone I know):

"These people who protest--they have no idea what its been like for us, its on a comPLETEly different and more horriffic level than their morality."


What do you say to that??

[asmodel.livejournal.com]

And what does the US plan on replacing Saddam's regime with? A US military occupation? And how long will that stick around before a proper Iraqi government is elected?