Posted on 02/20/2003 12:01:06 PM PST by wimpycat
As a pseudo-Libertarian who opposed the draft and considers war the ultimate in coercive government action, I’m about as anti-war as you can get. So when millions of self-described “anti-war protestors” packed city streets from London to Los Angeles, I decided this was one right-winger’s chance to join the peace movement.
By happy coincidence, I happened to be doing a talk show on WLW, a 100,000-watt AM station in Cincinnati, Ohio, this weekend. The station’s signal reaches more than 30 states. I began the show by acknowledging the vast, right-wing media conspiracy that was keeping the peace movement’s message off the air.
Oh, sure, the right-wingers who run CBS and CNN will broadcast sound bites from peace marchers attacking President Bush or praising the French, but in all the hours of media coverage I’ve seen and heard, not once was a war protester given an opportunity to explain the movement’s plan to actually achieve peace.
This must be a conspiracy, I said. Out of 500,000 people marching for peace in New York City and San Francisco, surely somebody must have a peace plan — a way of achieving peace without bombing Iraq. And, I happily told the listeners, I am ready to sign up for it. So just call me and tell me your plan for peace that leaves Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq, and I’ll finally get to be baptized into the wonderful world of peace.
The phones rang off the hook.
My first caller, a very nice lady from a small town in Ohio, said that attacking Saddam was wrong, and that her plan for peace was to pray. That’s it, I asked? “Just ... pray.”
The second caller, from Cincinnati, Ohio, agreed. She had family in the military and they didn’t deserve to die in a war for oil. Prayer was her plan, too.
I started to get nervous — perhaps we had accidentally crossed frequencies with the Bible Broadcasting Network.
The third caller, Steve from Dayton, Ohio, was cursing, not praying. “President Bush is a [expletive deleted], he’s just fighting his daddy’s war, and he has no right to overrule the United Nations!”
OK, I said, great — George W. Bush sucks. Got that message. Checked it off. Now, what’s the plan for peace, Steve?
Silence. “Uh, I just don’t think we should go to war.”
But Steve, we’re at war now. What’s your plan to end the war?
More silence. “I don’t know what you ... ”
The war? You know, the one that started in 1993 with the first attack on the World Trade Center? The war with 3,000 American civilian casualties in one day? The war that is targeting American civilians here at home, American journalists in Pakistan, American soldiers in Kuwait and American diplomats in Jordan? That war. You’ve heard something about it, I hope?
“Yeah, I mean, right,” Steve stammered. “All we can really do about that is ... ”
If you say “pray,” I interrupted, I’m going to become the first peace activist to kill someone with his bare hands.
“No, we can hope for new leadership in the Middle East that will change their attitudes about us.”
Yeah. Right.
Twenty phone calls later, here is the entire list of “peace plans” suggested by “peace activists”: pray; pray; hope the Islamo-fascists just stop killing us; negotiate with Osama bin Laden, then pray; close our borders to “bad” immigrants (caller wasn’t sure how to find the “bad” ones, but didn’t want to stop Arabs from coming to the United States); surrender — and no, the caller did not have a French accent; fly every world leader to Baghdad to ask Saddam to leave; focus our mental energies on peace as we enter the “Year of the Sheep” (I swear I’m not making that up); and finally, invade Israel and force them to accept whatever the Arabs demand in order to stop terrorism.
In other words — no peace. I’ve read all the op-eds, I’ve listened to all the “Make Tea, Not War” slogans, I’ve even talked to the folks at “Food Not Bombs.” And not one person in the so-called peace movement has given me a single plan to end the war of terror through peace. In fact, except for the woman who wanted to invade Israel, nobody had any serious plan at all.
And how interesting that a peace lover finds a military invasion of a democracy acceptable while blasting a violent, anti-Semitic dictator out of power is an offense. Maybe that explains all those “Free Palestine” banners at this weekend’s rallies.
At least that would give their actions some purpose. Because whatever it is these people are demanding, it clearly isn’t peace itself. They’re perfectly content with the war that is targeting you and me right now. Have you ever seen one of these people marching against Osama?
What they can’t seem to grasp is that not bombing Saddam doesn’t equal “peace.” Leaving him in power will do nothing to end the terror war and will likely make it worse.
So why do we use the term “peace advocates” to describe those who advocate allowing the war to continue? That’s blatantly untrue. They’re not peaceniks. They’re “Saddamites.”
There is only one group of Americans I’ve seen who have a reasonable, though imperfect, plan for peace. They wear matching uniforms, carry guns, and when they march, it’s under an American flag.
Millions of Iraqi citizens and I anxiously await their upcoming march through the streets of Baghdad.
Twenty phone calls later, here is the entire list of “peace plans” suggested by “peace activists”: pray; pray; hope the Islamo-fascists just stop killing us; negotiate with Osama bin Laden, then pray; close our borders to “bad” immigrants (caller wasn’t sure how to find the “bad” ones, but didn’t want to stop Arabs from coming to the United States); surrender — and no, the caller did not have a French accent; fly every world leader to Baghdad to ask Saddam to leave; focus our mental energies on peace as we enter the “Year of the Sheep” (I swear I’m not making that up); and finally, invade Israel and force them to accept whatever the Arabs demand in order to stop terrorism.
Yep, they have the best, most time-tested, most practical and most realistic plan for peace.
And check out his book Redneck Nation: How the South Really Won the War, if you think your sinuses can stand it.
MKM
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