By Paul A. Anthony, Editor in Chief
Millions of people worldwide united last weekend to voice their objection to war with Iraq and showed the world once and for all that they were absolutely wrong.
It’s possible that never before in the history of civilization has such a large protest been planned. Hundreds of thousands of people each jammed the streets of Paris, Berlin and London. Thousands marched in New York and Washington. And many marched because of reasons that either make no sense or have been proven false.
The show was quite breathtaking. It hit the evening news in every major city that night, the front pages of every major paper the next day. But while all the protesters wanted the same thing, they wanted it for different reasons. And some of those reasons had nothing to do with war in Iraq.
For example, one of the organizers of the rallies, ANSWER, is an anti-America, anti-Israel, anti-democracy group whose roots are solidly entrenched in the World Workers Party.
In France and Germany, most protesters were anti-American. Many all over the world were simply anti-war. They all spouted different reasons against war with Iraq, whatever their background, from the far-left intelligencia down to the middle-class soccer moms.
And most of them were preposterous.
Among the most common was “No blood for oil,” or another rendition of the accusation that America wanted to invade Iraq to take control of its oil. No one with any knowledge of the situation in the Middle East considers this a realistic possibility.
America has pledged to put the oil in trust for the citizens of a post-Saddam Iraq. Attacking a country for its natural resources is so vile, even Great Britain wouldn’t stand with Washington if that were the case.
Should one wish to point fingers at who’s using oil in this international debate, let’s look at France. Could the fact that France is such a staunch opponent to toppling Saddam Hussein be related to the cheaper oil Saddam provides the French? No blood for oil.
The idea that U.N. support is needed for a war is also short-sighted and patently false. If the five nations on the Security Council agree to war, then it may happen. That’s a smaller coalition than America already has-18 European countries, plus Israel, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar. Jordan and Saudi Arabia are offering quiet support, and Turkey is bargaining for more post-war aid.
Those countries number five times the size of the Security Council. Yet somehow people argue that going to war with the support of Iraq’s neighbors is not as ethical as war with the support of hypocritical, anti-American France and pacifistic, anti-American Germany.
The argument against the United States attacking Iraq rests solely on whether Saddam Hussein poses a large or imminent enough threat to the U.S. or its allies. President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have laid out their proof without damaging intelligence sources. Powell’s address to the Security Council was quite close to Adlai Stevenson’s Cuban Missile Crisis evidence, and it has convinced more than 60 percent of America.
And that’s why last weekend’s protests were all bark and no bite. Because the arguments against war with Iraq are hollow now, eroded by radicals, hypocrites and contradictions.
