Liberation tastes like crow to anti-war crowd

[George]

Liberation tastes like crow to anti-war crowd

What was that whimpering sound? Oh that. It's just the "Yes, but" crowd formerly known as the "anti-war pundits." Ignore them.

Saddam's statue had barely hit the ground in central Baghdad before America's armchair doomsayers began harrumphing a new caveat in which to couch this unseemly turn of events. One might almost think they didn't want Saddam to fall.

You couldn't help noticing the careful balance the antis tried to strike between reluctant admission and preachy admonition. The formula goes something like this: "Yes, we defeated Iraq, BUT . let's not get too carried away, it ain't over yet."

No one exercised this template better - or more oddly - than New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Here are a couple of snippets from her column the day Baghdad collapsed:

"Victory in Iraq will be a truly historic event, BUT (my emphasis) it will be exceedingly weird and dangerous if this administration turns America into Sparta."

And this: "There remains the unfinished business of Osama bin Laden. BUT (my emphasis) the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom should not mark the beginning of Operation Eternal War."

Hardly anything to argue with there. But, Sparta?

Reading the myriad yes-butters, I keep free-associating to the final scene of "Sleeping With the Enemy," after actress Julia Roberts has shot her loathsome, raping, tyrannical husband. The audience titters in dread, hoping he's truly dead but suspecting a final terrifying lurch from near-death to unleash a fatal blow.

Here's the connection: While those who supported the coalition assault on Iraq really do hope Saddam is dead and cautiously celebrate the demise of his regime, the anti-war gang, we suspect, is tittering hopefully that he will yet spring again from near-death and make us wrong after all.

Nah, no one really wants Saddam to return to power. He was, to mimic Dowd's vernacular, such a meanie-weanie. Still, the Bush-bashers have plenty of reason to wish for something less spectacular than a free and happy Iraq festooned with flowers and sloppy with kisses for trench-scented soldiers. It's hard to admit you were flat wrong.

It's also hard to be humble when you're right, but guess who is both? Guess who first cautioned against glibness, hubris, immodesty and arrogance? Those mean men Dowd can never bring herself to address as adults: her Bushy, Rummy and Wolfie. The lead players in this epochal drama have spoken with the restraint and authority of grown-ups undistracted by childish antics, either from the pacifist nursery or from exuberant Iraqis tasting freedom, in some cases for the first time. "Let them rant" or "Let them loot," as the case may be, is an attitude of tolerance born of higher sights.

The media are having a little more fun. The conservative Media Research Center, which monitors liberal slant in the media, quickly posted a special "Gloat and Quote" edition, showcasing the predictions and news analyses proved ridiculous by recent events. Various bloggers and Web sites, including National Review Online and Andrew Sullivan, did the same, providing amusing anecdotes for dull parties.

Meanwhile, it's a good idea to stay focused, as Bush has urged without the prompting of pundits. There's hard work ahead, though Operation Eternal War isn't likely part of the plan. As in all wars, there are no guarantees, no certainties, even though Dowd now asserts: "We were always going to win the war with Iraq."

Who says girls can't keep secrets? Here's what we really do know: Coalition forces have gotten this far in "the game," as Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, churlishly put it, through gritty determination and the unflinching conviction that we were doing the right thing.

Those who supported the war policy had no special sixth sense, no claim to revelation or prescience. Rather they possessed an unambiguous moral clarity. As journalist Christopher Hitchens put it during a television interview - and I paraphrase wildly from memory - "There's just no way that allowing Saddam to continue butchering innocents and potentially threatening the rest of the world can be viewed as a morally superior position."

No doubt the antis and naysayers, who seem to favor any old status quo to the frightening prospect of upheaval, will lurch again from whimpering near-death to unleash new protestations. Little matter. They have proven themselves irrelevant to today's reality, which includes a freed Iraqi people for whom the operative conjunctive phrase isn't "Yes, but" but "Yes, and."

Source: Liberation tastes like crow to anti-war crowd

What are your thoughts on the Anti-War protest?

Your brother in Christ with much agape love,

George

[Brad]

I would say that the anti-war protesters are willing to just stand and watch the evil regime torture and kill anyone who apposes them. The love of God would go to war against thoughs who enslave people to worship a false god like Saddam.

[followerofjesus]

I believe the minority of anti-war protests will fall on deaf ears to the majority.

We shall see when the presidential election takes place. The current actions have neutralized hopefully the next decade from evil people deciding to kill innocent people out of a false religion. The perils the sworn enemies wish to lay on us are from an evil intention. We were a peaceful country until innocent blood was shed.

[Guest shiloh357]

What I got a kick out of, was how that so many of the anti-war crowd volunteered to be "human shields" until they found out that Sadaam did not want them standing in front of hospitals, and orphanages. They wanted to "protect" the buildings that they were pretty sure America would not hit.

Sadaam, wanted them to stand in front of oil factories and ammunition dumps, armories and other legitimate military targets.

Also many of them were shocked when the Iraqis told them that they wanted America there, and related to them, the horrors of the Sadaam regime. There was one in particular, his name escapes me but he was a pastor's son, and actually published his experiences on the intertnet. After visiting Iraq, he became an avid war supporter. He discussed how decieved, and misinformed the anti-war crowd has been

[OneAccord]

I think rather than dismissing the 'anti-war crowd' as a bunch of lunatics, you might do well to actually listen to what they have to say. And also to remember that there are a good number of Christians standing with them, more than you probably realize.

[Guest shiloh357]

I think rather than dismissing the 'anti-war crowd' as a bunch of lunatics, you might do well to actually listen to what they have to say. And also to remember that there are a good number of Christians standing with them, more than you probably realize.

Yeah, I've listened to them, and even they proved themselves wrong when a bunch of them got over in Iraq and found out that they didn't know as much they thought. They discovered some people really do want to be liberated from the Hell they live in. So now, instead listening to those of their crowd who actually learned the truth about life Iraq they prefer stick their head in the sand and continue to say that the war was wrong.

Furthermore, they defend a bunch of thugs like Hussein, Castro and Arafat who have caused so much death and pain, and turmoil in the earth. If the anti-war crowd is all about peace, let them visit their perfectionism on these creeps, or stick a sock in it. When they want to condemn the immorality of these dictators that make war necessary in the first place, then maybe they have something to say that the rest of us would give a hoot about. Otherwise they wasting their time with their bleeding-heart, liberal rot.

Most of these people just spin a bunch of conspiracy theories that have no baisis in fact, anyway;they lack practical credibility.

[OneAccord]

And you are an expert on credibility?

[Guest shiloh357]

Doesnt' really matter if I am or not. It is the anti-war crowd that was discredited when a bunch of them went over to Iraq and learned that they had been duped by the media over here.

Nothing the anti-war crowd predicted would happen as a result of this war, happened. Such as terrorists bombing us over here, or the stock market crashing, or George Bush installing Marshall Law or any of that garbage. So they have lost a lot.

[OneAccord]

Apparently if they agree with you, they are credible, that seems to be your citeria for determining your sources. I, for one, tend to disagree with you on most points regarding the world stage and therefore I think your sources are not credible. So therefore credibility seems to be relative as is the truth, which is the first casualty in war.

[Guest shiloh357]

Apparently if they agree with you, they are credible, that seems to be your citeria for determining your sources.

No, that is not my source for crediblity. I can look at actual factual events. I use facts. The fact is they were wrong before the war, and they have not gained any ground since the war. None of the doom and gloom they predicted came true, and many came home from Iraq much more sober and with a better grasp on reality than when they left.

It has nothing to do with agreeing with me. It is about looking at the facts and looking at reality and not the carnival mirror you seem to want to employ.