March 21, 2003
Anti-war protests
Diana West
In the tense hours before military action, as the countdown clock was ticking, eyes turned to the Persian Gulf and all the world held its breath. Too bad some people kept on talking.
There was Sen. Tom Daschle, standing by this week's "saddened, saddened" soliloquy in which he declared President Bush had "failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war." And to think, he might as well have added, after all that Iraq and France have done for us.
This "saddened, saddened" speech, by the way, is not to be confused with last fall's "outrageous, outrageous" address in which Mr. Daschle accused President Bush of politicizing the debate over Iraq. (Which, of course, was — give it a whispery sibilance — "outrageous, outrageous.") By now, it seems, the Senate minority leader has passed the point of outrage, outrage. And he is additionally, but singly "saddened," as he said, that "we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country."
What hateful, shameful words. Mr. Daschle articulated neither strategic disagreement, nor respectable political dissent. Instead, he baselessly accused an American president of compromising the lives of American military men and women on the very brink — then — of battle.
Mr. Daschle also made no sense. The diplomacy that "failed" was designed to swell the ranks, via the U.N. Security Council, of the international coalition arrayed against Saddam Hussein. France will be France, of course, and U.N. solidarity against the Iraqi despot crumbled like some of the cheeses I'm not buying these days. Which leaves us with a measly 35 nations supporting our "unilateral" war effort against Iraq. If it gets any more unilateral than that, Mr. Daschle will probably say we're piling on.
Then there was Bill Clinton, arguing last week that weapons inspections never had a chance. I would agree, only not for the same reasons. These latest inspections were doomed from the start, the ex-president said, not because of Saddam Hussein's obstructionism and deception — or France's, for that matter — but because of the United States. Sending troops to the Gulf after the U.N. Security Council passed the 17th resolution in 12 years requiring Iraq to disarm "convinced everybody we weren't serious about U.N. inspections," Mr. Clinton concluded. "That's how we got into this political mess."
Right. Too bad we didn't follow Mr. Clinton's strategy — and see the weapons inspectors ejected from the country again, just as they were in 1998. Meanwhile, wasn't it Hans Blix himself who credited this same troop presence with pumping a little iron into recent inspection efforts?
Not that you want to place much stock in Hans' hunches. After all, here's a man who told MTV he was "more worried about global warming" than war. Just this week, he declared that Saddam Hussein would never actually use weapons of mass destruction because that might damage his — Saddam Hussein's — reputation. According to Mr. Blix's reasoning, Saddam Hussein would lose the public relations war if he threw chemical or biological weapons into battle against U.S.-led troops in Iraq. Even if facing certain death, he went on to say, Saddam Hussein would never resort to such weapons. "Some people," Mr. Blix said, "care about their reputations even after death."
But, why wait? I'm wondering about the reputations of the anti-war protesters. With the terror threat level back up to Code Orange, the government has beefed- up security at federal buildings, military compounds, power plants, reservoirs, oil companies, stock exchanges — all likely targets of terrorist sympathizers with Iraq, al Qaeda and other jihadist groups. Funny thing, or, maybe, not-so-funny thing: These are the same targets of the anti-war left.
As the anti-war strategy shifts "from protest to resistance," as one protester put it, Fox News reported on a list of "70 economic and other targets in [San Francisco] alone, including power plants, water systems, the Federal Reserve, oil companies, the Pacific Exchange and the Transamerica Building." The plan, organizers said, is to "shut down the financial district of San Francisco."
This couldn't please America's enemies more. And why not? Many antiwar groups are funded by foes of the U.S. government. Not in Our Name is financed by a group that not only supports Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, but, as Fox News also reported, once sponsored a group headed by Sami Al-Arian, the Florida professor recently charged with terrorist activities. A.N.S.W.E.R., another prominent coordinating anti-war organization, is a front group for the Workers World Party, a Marxist booster of North Korea's mad dictatorship. Suddenly, reports of protesters' plans to disrupt U.S. military installations, for example, fall into sinister, political place.
At Camp Vandenburg Air Force Base in California, authorities have already said they would use deadly force, if necessary, to protect the base. Deadly force, if necessary, in deadly times.
Diana West is a syndicated columnist. Her column appears on Fridays.
URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/west.htm |
