InstaPundit links to this story, calling it "a clever and thoughful anti-war protest." I guess if you're determined to have an anti-war protest, this is better than the way they've been doing it in San Francisco, but I have a problem with the whole concept of protests like this. It's not that I begrudge anybody their right to march or speak out, it's just that they they simplify important issues into slogans. This protest was conducted by a " small anti-war group calling itself 'Think Different Anti-Censorship Collective''' This "affinity group," (is that anything like a "group") which is affliliated to a network called "Direct Action to Stop the War."

What I don't get is how this is thinking different. It's the same old thinking that my generation was doing when we were in our twenties, but it makes less sense now than it did then. At least in the 1970's it was possible to make a credible argument that we were wasting our time and blood in Vietnam, but that was then and this is now. All the old arguments have been made and found wanting.


The Think Different group says it is trying to "bring greater public awareness to the suffering of Iraqis due to the Persian Gulf War and subsequent international sanctions." Do we really need more awareness than we've had from the past two weeks that the Iraqis are suffering? The problem is not awareness, but the explanation they offer. All of the problems of the Iraqis aren't due to our kicking Saddam out of Kuwait. They just aren't. It could be argued that we're to blame for the sufferings caused by Saddam because we had the chance to destroy his power 12 years ago and we didn't or because we encouraged the Kurds and Shi'ites to rise up against him, and when they did, we didn't abandoned them to the tender mercies of his regime, but to blame the sanctions just shows a deliberate denseness or extreme lack of serious thought. We allowed Iraq to sell oil through the U.N. to raise money for food and medicine for this people, but where did the money go? Saddam stole it and build up his military power and monuments to his own greatness. The suffering of the Iraqi people is due to the fact that they've been ruled by a fascist, totalitarian regime for the past 30 years. We tried other means, but after 12 years, we have recognized that the only way to help the Iraqis is to rid them of Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party. And, sadly, it's not going to happen through diplomacy or new elections. He is every bit as insane as Adolf Hitler, and he sees brutality as the key to his power and survival, although the present tense might not be appropriate for him any longer. degrading his army, but we underestimated his depravity. We've tried working throught the U.N. for the past twelve years, but he had bought off two of our most important (we thought) allies. We've been attacked repeatedly by apostate Muslims during those 12 years, and we tried ignoring them and, ahem, protesting. All it did was embolden them, and what we got was 9/11.

I'm sure that you can pull out your copy of Noam Chomsky's screeds and tell us how we deserve all this for our sins, but that just doesn't resonate with most Americans, because it denies every other source of evil in the world. To make his claims work, you have to believe that our system is evil and exploits everybody else. That is just not something people who can see the benefits of freedom and democracy in their own living rooms and driveways are going to take seriously.

Then there's the argument that war never solved anything. I would counter that it solved the Nazis and the Japanese empire in Asia. Did it deliver a world free of agression, pain and suffering? No. But, considering how the countries we have conquered are doing today, you could make a pretty good argument that conquering more countries would be better for them in the long run. Just ask the Kurds and the Shi'ites in Iraq, whether war has accomplished anything for them. Ask them again in a week or two.

I'm taking a lot of space to say that reality is not as simple as your placards and slogans, but it isn't something that one can put on a sign or a tee shirt. The point is that demonstrating doesn't really demonstrate anything, except that you oppose current policy. But in arguments of this kind, that isn't enough. You need debates, not marches. Protesting isn't enough. You have to make a persuasive case. That's because people can vote, and your basic arguments are being disproved graphically on all of our media right now.

If you were what I think of as clever and thoughtful, you wouldn't be wasting your time