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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (14033)	10/27/2003 7:17:59 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793745

Sullivan and InstaPundit back atcha. The Demonstrations over the weekend. __________________________ SPEAKING OF FOOLS: There were so few "anti-war" demonstrators in DC this weekend that I barely noticed any. I had one amusing exchange with a stereotypical aging hippie couple who were both wearing 'Free Iraq" t-shirts. As I walked past them with the beagle, I pointed at their t-shirts and said, "We just did." They scowled. The BBC did its best to pump up the demonstrations, of course: The march was thought to be smaller than the mass demonstrations before and during the war. But the BBC's Jon Leyne, who was at the Washington rally, said it was probably more in tune with the mood of Americans, who are increasingly concerned at the president's policy in Iraq. Notice the scientific reporting: the march "was thought" to be smaller than the pre-war ones (it was obviously not even in the same ball-park). And the rally - which was full of the usual anti-globalization Luddites and bitter anti-Semites - was "probably" in tune with American public opinion. They don't even make stuff up with real confidence any more. SO WHY CARE? So why bother with these extremists? Because it seems to me that the far left anti-war message, misguided before the war, is close to obscene today, and tells us something about what we're up against. Before the war, these people claimed they weren't pro-Saddam; they were just pro-peace. But now that the Iraqi people have the first chance in living memory to have a decent, pluralist and democratic country, these demonstrators want to abandon them to chaos, terror, civil war and a possible new dictatorship. The only connective thread in this movement is hatred of the United States. (Oh, and Israel. Some posters openly called for the eradication of the Jewish state.) They assail one of the biggest humanitarian efforts in recent history while Iranian Qaeda surrogates are busy locating synagogues in Britain for terrorist attacks; and while Iran itself may be preparing to become the nuclear-armed vanguard of Islamo-fascism. They march under these banners when polling suggests most Iraqis want to construct a viable democracy; and when even the New York Times concedes that Iraqis view their present as far preferable to their past. It's now that we can see what really lay behind the activist core of the "peace movement": not peace but hatred of the West; not democracy, but alliance with dictators, terrorists and Islamo-fascism. Here's a prediction: the fledgling links now forged between left-wing anti-war campaigners and Islamo-fascism will get stronger in the years ahead. The anti-globalization far left has nowhere else to go. Fanatical political Islam provides them with an over-arching structure for the loathing of the West. Now that Marxism is dead and post-modernism has shown itself inept as a basis for a real political movement, Islam will fill the void. - 12:10:51 AM andrewsullivan.com InstaPundit: But it's not just their numbers that are hollow -- it's their ideas. Having failed miserably to prevent the war, they're now calling for an "immediate withdrawal" from Iraq. That's a course of action that (as even antiwar folks like Howard Dean have noted) would surely be disastrous for the Iraqi people, and for America. Whose side are these people on? instapundit.com