[expatpat]

Indeed, they were very happy when Clinton was bombing the Yogoslavs without permission from the UN.

[rickmichaels]

Very true. None of these dirtbags protested when India and Pakistan were about to nuke each other recently. What about Mugabe killing farmers in Zimbabwe? Not a peep. What about Angola? El Salvador? East Timor? Colombia? Uganda? Rwanda? Nicaragua?

[geedee]

I would like to add one more category . . . pro-Saddam. These loonies never fail to amaze me. They always chant about the "innocents" who will be killed? What about the "innocents" who have ALREADY been killed and WILL be killed in the future if So-Damn-Dumb-Saddam is allowed to stay? Nary a whisper about them at any of these protests.

[JeeperFreeper]

Yep. On the money. People are starting to figure it out, too. The main stream linberal/progressive media won't, but thanks to media like this one, the word gets out.

[TShaunK]

That is the truth, thats all it is.You wouldn't hear any bitching at all if this was the war heros idea,if Clinton initiated this they would be naming airports after him.
The thing about it is the left and the dems are petrified at the thought of GW being successful, and rather see harm come to our country than to see GW sccessful and thats the truth,they will put politics in front of security.

[Dr. Frank fan]

Basically, I agree with you. The vast majority of protesters cannot logically explain why they are so against this war. It doesn't add up. You can't even explain it by saying that "they're leftists", because true leftists would be holding signs saying "Liberate Iraq!" Something else is going on and I'm afraid it's very basic: they hate Bush, Bush wants war, therefore war bad.

The only other possible factor I can think of is that being "anti-war", in and of itself, is a pleasant moral posture which allows these people to stroke their own egos with no personal sacrifice, or even thought. By this view, some of the protesters went and stood on the streets holding signs because it made them feel good about themselves, and allowed them to feel superior to other people.

I'm not sure which impulse was more prevalent. Also, both impulses (anti-Bush, and Ego Trip) are probably present in a significant number of "anti-war" folks.

[finnman69]

People who burn flags are Anti-American and America Haters. There were lots of burning US flags last Saturday.

[TheDon]

I've noticed they don't seem to be behaving in manner consistent with peace, but rather seem to be trying to foment hate.

[DownWithGreenspan]

Right on the money! What we need is a war against THEM. Exterminate the scum who live INSIDE our borders before we worry about exterminating the scum outside.

DWG

[RugerM77]

In that James Moran town meeting on Iraq about a week ago with Victoria Clarke and a Marine General being inundated with anti-war stuff-One of the protestors referenced the supposed battle plan that involves 800 cruise missiles and all the civilians that will kill.
I wonder if she knows or cares that Clinton used 450 cruise missiles on Iraq in 1998-(I have seen that number here many times)-Really, other than incrementally what is the difference between 450 and 800?

[GOP_1900AD]

Beyond that, these groups are overtly supported by the still-vigorous Communist movement. Granted, not all the protestors are Communists themselves, but at best, they are useful idiots and dupes.

As for the response, thus far, to these borderline revolutionary outpourings attempting to create fervor for a Marxist putsch (e.g. "We need a regime change") I am very concerned that our current structures of AUTHORITY (now THERE is a word that the Baby Boomers hate!...) are inherently timid and conservative in their approach. It seems that COINTELPRO was so badly critiqued by the Left, and so badly defended by the Right; that our current governing institutions are incapable of leveraging anything from that experience. In truth, during the 1960s and 1970s, it is quite true (as proven by the Venona papers and other sources) that the KGB and other forces of anti-Westernism were in fact the underpinning of our youth explosion and massive "anti-war" protests. Therefore, COINTELPRO was well justified, and, if anything, insufficient in both scope and action. Unfortunately, instead of coming to grips with this reality, public discourse avoids it, and therefore, investigation and prosecution of the current traitors and those promoting the overthrow of what is left of our governing institutions is not done for fear of being labelled "fascist." Naturally, it does not help that most currently in positions of leadership in both the public and private sectors are themselves products of the 1960s and 1970s campus environments. Even those nomimally on "the Right" by current standards seem to be prone to taking a Flower Child approach to things rather than a more energetic approach that might have been taken by our leadership if similar things were occuring, say, 100 years ago!

[Uncle Miltie]

What we have is two civil wars with a mis-identification of the primary enemy.

First, Islamofascists and regular muslims should be warring, but cannot because every country in which they co-exist is a totalitarian dictatorship of one over the other. Being unable to confront each other directly due to the tanks down the street, Islamofascism confronts the soft underbelly of the West, its secondary enemy.

Second, Western Civilization and its leftist opponents are intellectually warring, but do not break out into physical violence due to the police and the voting booths. This severe disagreement over the legitimacy of Western Civilization is being manifested via the secondary conflict with Islamofascism. The left is just unwilling to defend the security of civilization.

The bulk of people in Islam are not Islamofascists. The bulk of people in Western Civilization are not Utopian Leftists. So, the minority Islamofascists and Utopian Leftists make common cause because they cannot win their own civil wars.

The only common thread between Leftists and Islamofascists is that the destruction of Western Civilization would be useful to their cause. Islamofascists require our destruction in order to bring Allah's rule to the world. Leftist must destroy civilization in order to remake it in Marx's vision. If it weren't for this confluence of interest, they would philosophically hate each other.

Pundits who make nice-nice ignore the essence of the anti-war movement: It seeks to destroy Western Civilization. The punditry assumes that the exercise of freedom in anti-war protest is legitimate, even when its real goal is the destruction of precisely that freedom. We cannot be allowed to look behind the curtain and see the Workers World Party coordinating the protests.

If the anti-war protests were lead by Quakers, attended by blue collar union Democrats, and funded by small businessmen, I would believe in their honesty and legitimacy. But the anti-war crowd is lead by communists, attended by anarchists, and rhetorically supports mass murderers.

I conclude the anti-war movement makes common cause with Islamofascists in order to destroy Western Civilization.

[savedbygrace]

Well, you don't have to get snippy about it.

(LOL)

[Southack]

You know that they are actually "anti-Bush" instead of "anti-war" because NONE of the protestors at the last rally demanded that Iraq disarm.

Gee, wouldn't that be the BEST way to insure "peace"?!

So no, these agitators are not peace-supporters. They've simply hi-jacked that moniker in order to help conceal their real motivations and ideologies...

[mabelkitty]

They are anti-Soldier and anti-Military.

When they say they support the Soldiers but are against the war, that inane remark is meant to take the Vietnam sting out of their protests. Images of spit upon soliders and unemployed Vets seal the left's fate.

Ask them, "Can you be pro-Al Quada but anti-Terrorism? No, of course not. You cannot seperate the act from the person. Therefore, you can't be pro-Soldier and anti-War. You are either pro or anti both. Which is it?"

Next time you hear a Leftist use the above-mentioned Clinton phrase to justify their stance, ask them how that is logically possible using the above example.

They can't.

[Steve_Seattle]

Seeing the demonstrations on tv, the speeches, the placards, and reading about it, convinced me that the demonstrations were indeed an anti-Bush and anti-American hatefest.

Bush is despised (hated with a passion) by the Left in America and Europe because he is: a Republican, a (sort of) conservative, a born-again Christian, a Texan, and a staunch defender of American sovereignty, unwilling to yield our independence to left-wing international bodies based in Europe.

If the war in Iraq were being spearheaded by Clinton or Gore, 90% of the opposition would melt away. How do we know? Because of Kosovo, where the U.S. and NATO intervened - with only token opposition from the Left - in a civil war in a small country that posed no security threat to the U.S. or greater Europe, an intervention that had no clear exit strategy (we are still there), which involved us in a conflict between ancient enemies, which antagonized Russia and China, and which was intended primarily to displace the elected leader of a sovereign nation. In other words, although the war in Kosovo failed nearly all of the "just war" tests that are now being applied to Iraq, opposition was minimal. Indeed, the fact that Serbia/Kosovo posed no strategic threat to the U.S. was hailed as a reason FOR the war - remember how supporters called it (incorrectly) "the first humanitarian war"?

[MJM59]

The problem with going to war with Iraq is that we can go in there and level the whole place. Put Saddam on a spit and roast him. Cover all of his portraits with the American flag. In spite of whatever victory we may win in Iraq, to think that this is going to stop terrorism is naive. The very next day after we declare victory, some fundamentalist knuclehead can drive through the Lincoln tunnel with a McVeigh style bomb and blow the whole thing to hell.

9/11 was perpetrated not with WMD, but with civilian aircraft. If anyone thinks that we as a nation can sleep soundly after Iraq is defeated, you better give it some more thought.

BTW, Saddam should be taken out. But, that should have been done the last time we went to war with these idiots. Mr. "I Just Had An Aircraft Carrier Named After Me" blew that one in the very same manner that allowed Nazi Germany to rise to power after WWI.

[PLOM...NOT!]

I agree 100% with you, but we have the naivety factor that plays into this.
Listening to coworkers in the halls, or less-than-informed in-laws, the Oprah crowd, they believe that "it's all about oil", W is going to war to enhance his wealth. Now you can and should explain the truth, but they are just as happy to live with this simple little lie and not hurt their brain too much and go about their lives. They just don't care.

[MJM59]

As much as I do not like the idea of war with Iraq, I am afraid that the die has been cast and it is only a matter of time. For one, to back down now would make the U.S. look like a lame paper tiger. All talk and no action.

My opposition to the war is simply that Iraq does not scare me that much. As a child of the Cold War, the idea of nuclear war with the Soviet Union scared the pants off of me. So forgive me if I do not get too upset with the likes of Iraq or North Korea. Just how afraid are we supposed to be of every country that is now nuclear capable? Heck, they don't even have to be capable, what if they just buy the technology.

Right now our own government has people scared enough to go out and buy duct tape and plastic by the gross. Last week, you had the CIA, the FBI and Tom Ridge come on TV and tell us that something terrible is going to happen, buy these items they will protect you. Then we learn that Iran is starting up a nuclear program. Welcome to The Fear Factor, the national game. The real terrorists have to be rolling on the floor laughing their collective a$$e$ off at us. They don't have to do a thing and we as a nation jump at every little shadow.

Saddam Hussein is a thirdrate dictator and we have him elevated to the likes of Ghengis Khan. Personally, I would tell him and Kim Jong Il to go ahead and build all the WMD they want. But don;'t even look at the U.S. sideway because we have more and we will use them to flatten your little p!$$ @$$ countries.

[cloud8]

Answer them back! These time-worn platitudes do not hold up!! Here are some suggestions:

Give peace a chance

Get real, Flower Child. This lunatic Saddam has had more than a decade to disarm peacefully. Now it's time to give war a chance. We need to rid the world of Saddam and his arsenal of anthrax, chemicals and nukes before he uses it.

Let the inspectors have more time

That's what people were saying when Saddam threw the inspectors out in 1997. The inspectors can have another 20 years, but they're not going to find anything as long as Saddam plays his shell game.

Blix says he's making progress

Hans Blix was hand-picked by Saddam.

A war will make us more enemies

A war will show the world that America means what it says.

It's all about oil

If we had wanted the oil, we easily could have taken it in the first Gulf War. It's France & Russia who have billions at stake over Iraq oil deals. Setting up a stable democracy in the mid-East is what it's about.