Anti-war Protests Anger U.S. Troops Inside Kuwait

Campujairi, Kuwait – The peace protesters might as well be marching right under the tank barrels.

U.S. troops amassed in the Kuwaiti desert couldn’t avoid news of anti-war protests that swept the globe over the weekend, and it is making some angry, defensive, fired-up and anxious.

They see scattered news reports of opposition to a possible war against Iraq, but the hardest-hitting bulletins come in phone calls home to worried wives and loved ones, said Sgt. 1st Class Victor Oravec, 41, of Fort Knox, Ky., of the U.S. Army’s 3-7 Cavalry.

“They’re saying, ‘Why are we over here when everyone’s over here saying we shouldn’t be?’” Oravec said.

“They hear it. They bring it up to me, and I squash it by keeping them busy, reminding them why they’re here,” Oravec said, just before leading his tank maintenance unit in an all-night training exercise across the Kuwaiti desert.

Many of the soldiers who might be called to fight against Iraq were too young to remember the emotional protests that marked the end of the Vietnam War. Many had not even been born.

Still, some say they take the anti-war protests personally – questioning the jobs they do and their boss, President Bush.

“They get down,” said Oravec, a veteran of the 1991 war against Iraq. “That’s when I come around, try to get them work to do. That’s the only thing I can think of to keep their minds off home and what their wives are telling them.”

Capt. John Turner, 26, of Colonial Heights, Va., whose father was a med-evac pilot for the Army in Vietnam, said soldiers are not decision-makers and can’t afford to get distracted from their training.

“I’m not in this line of work for political reasons. I didn’t come here to be a politician,” Turner said.

Still, he’s especially angry about opposition at the United Nations from France, a NATO ally.

“How would they feel if it was the Eiffel Tower that got hit into (on Sept. 11)?” he asked.

The troops see a possible war against Iraq as part of the ongoing war on terrorism, as the Bush administration targets alleged weapons of mass destruction that could fall into the hands of terrorists.

Protesters call that an unfounded or unproven claim being used to justify a war to control more of the Middle East’s vast oil reserves.

The “No blood for oil” slogan was used in opposition to the 1991 war, too. But back then, in the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi invaders, the protests did not seem as widespread and the troops did not take them so personally, Gulf War veterans said.

“That’s their right to protest as long as they know that’s their opinion, not ours,” said 1st Sgt. Stephen Edgerton, 36, a Gulf War veteran from Blackshear, Ga.

“When you’re younger, you’re a little more eager to go out and pick a fight with somebody,” Edgerton said. “With age, you’re not as quick to jump into things without thinking them out first.”

But for soldiers, he said, the bottom line is simple: “I support my Commander in Chief. That’s my job.”

Pvt. Wesley Carr, 23, of Virginia Beach, Va., said soldiers are the last ones who want to rush into unnecessary wars.

“I can understand why they want to protest, because they don’t want any harm to come to us. But a lot of them don’t understand,” Carr said. “I hope, like everyone else, that it does end peacefully. But if it doesn’t and we have to go to war, we have to think of the safety of the United States and all these people here.”

Privately, some soldiers wonder if the patriotic mood and pro-military spirit in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks has evaporated.

With all its soldiers and high-tech war fighting machines, the U.S. military would not have had all its recent success if the soldiers didn’t get so much support from the public, Edgerton said.

“They don’t have to support what’s happening,” he said, “but at least support the soldiers”

Iraq Update
1st U-2 Mission: Iraq reported the first flight by an American U-2 surveillance plane Monday in support of the U.N. inspection mission, marking another concession by the Baghdad government in hopes of staving off a U.S. –led attack. The flight lasted four hours.

Turkey Delays:
Turkey’s prime minister on Monday ruled out a parliamentary vote to allow tens of thousands of U.S. combat troops on its territory until Turkish and U.S. officials agree on the conditions of the deployment.

They are worried. They are nervous.
Their angst these days borders on full-scale panic.
Who's 'they?' The throngs of "anti-war" protesters who hit the streets over the weekend, that's who. Beneath the sign-waving and chanting, the roaring cheers as blustery speakers denounce the U.S. and Bush's threat to topple Iraqi military dictator Saddam Hussein, was fear -- mind-numbing fear.
The numbness had little to do with sub-freezing temperatures which swept cities and towns across the mid-Atlantic states, the Northeast and beyond, dumping mounds of snow.
No, the numbness was fright -- not Mother Nature.
"Peace" protesters curl up in horror at the thought of yet another successful U.S. war of liberation, a la Afghanistan (A.N.S.W.E.R. and other groups behind the rallies vehemently opposed ousting the Taliban after 9/11.)
They know Saddam's forces are no match against the greatest -- and most lethal -- fighting force ever known to man -- the U.S. Military. They realize Saddam's army, against computerized tanks and smart munitions, against highly motivated, exceptionally trained men-at-arms, doesn't have a snowball's chance in hades. Saddam's forces -- scruffy, ragged, bedraggled and demoralized -- will be crushed.
That's what scares the hell out of the Left. Without the hope of massive U.S. casualties quelling their anguish, they know U.S. victory is all but certain, that Saddam's days are numbered. It's why those crowds clogging the streets of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit, chanting anti-U.S. slogans, so vehemently oppose the war.
Take Mary Baxter, 31, of Cambridge, Mass. The software company employee joined anti-U.S. protesters at a rally near U.N. headquarters Saturday. But don't expect her to attend any Big Apple ticker-tape parades welcoming returning U.S. soldiers flush with victory from Baghdad.
"I came to go to the rally and be a part of a global voice against going to war against Iraq," she told New York Times reporter Robert D. McFadden, whose piece, From New York to Melbourne, Protest Against War on Iraq, reads like something straight out of the Iraqi Ministry of Information.
Ms. Baxter, Bush-hater, added that "the current administration has been escalating and destabilizing things. I'm disappointed that Colin Powell is going along with Bush, Cheney and the rest of them." The problem is evil Bush, you see, not peace-loving "president" Saddam Hussein -- no way.
Then there's Angela Tsang, another one who won't be attending Welcome Home victory parades for U.S. warriors, also quoted in McFadden's report.
"We see the war against Iraq as unjust," she tells McFadden, adding, "we don't believe Bush's rhetoric." Saddam, not Bush, is a "president" we can trust, you see.
Tara Good, 21, a university Student, told the New York Post how her "mother was an active peace campaigner in the past, and she would be ashamed if I didn't turn up today."
Will Ms. Good -- or any of these "protesters" -- "turn up" at victory rallies on the streets of New York, flashing 'Welcome Home' signs in a national outpouring of celebration, honoring returning U.S. troops after Desert Storm II? Er, don't go betting the farm on it.
Mike Lamson, 33, of Alameda, Calif., couldn't wait to vent his anti-U.S. spleen on the streets of downtown San Francisco Sunday, scene of yet more anti-U.S. demonstrations. "I am honestly not sure how much it does to stop a war, but at the very least it makes you feel like you are speaking your voice," he told the New York Times.
The protesters were peaceful, however. In New York, they blocked intersections, clashed with police, kicking one in the head, bashing another in the face. A total of 8 NYPD cops were injured at the hands of "peaceful" protesters. Hundreds were arrested.

The campaign to oust Saddam, a fascist dictator who gasses women and children for sport, galvanizes the Left like nothing seen since the days of Vietnam.
New York Times writer Patrick E. Tyler sees in the "new power in the streets" a reflection of public opinion, insinuating overwhelming sentiment opposing the removal of Iraqi strong-man Saddam Hussein.
The media calls groups like A.N.S.W.E.R. a portrait of middle America, as mainstream as it gets -- but is it? Well, you be the judge:
-- A.N.S.W.E.R and its allies dismiss as 'fiction' charges that military dictator Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. Americans, by overwhelming majorities, believe the opposite.
-- Favor lifting U.N. sanctions against Saddam's repressive regime without conditions -- again, a proposition only a tiny fraction of Americans would agree with.
-- Holds Bush to be illegitimate -- a thief who cheated Al Gore from the presidency -- and that Bush's real motive is to rule the world. Oh, and oil. Polls again show the fringe-of-the-fringe believe this sort of thing, but no one else.
-- Denounces the U.S. as a murderous, imperialist power, comparing it to NAZI Germany. Can't say I've seen any polls, but my gut tells me most Americans don't see their country as a murderous, imperialist power, nor draw comparisons to NAZI Germany.
-- Praises the "great Marxists of the twentieth Century" (their words). Need I say more?
Don't take my word for it. For details, check out David Horowitz's FrontPageMagazine, which Monday posted full-text a copy of a statement distributed at each demonstration. The statement originates from the World Socialist and the Socialist Equality Party.
So, how many people you know believe Saddam is innocent, want sanctions lifted without conditions, calls Bush a murderous thug out to rule the world, calls their country a murderous, imperialist power out to rule the world and lavishes praise on the great humanitarian works of Lenin and Stalin? Patrick Tyler's buddies may talk like that, but I suspect not many of yours.
In short, A.N.S.W.E.R. and affiliates -- the main organizers of these events -- are no more "mainstream" than the Ku Klux Klan.
Besides, unlike his predecessor, this President doesn't conduct foreign policy based on the latest Gallup poll. Bush doesn't follow public opinion, he shapes it.
That's what leadership is made of, that's what George W. Bush is made of.
God bless our President, God bless our Troops, and God bless the United States of America!
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"

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