The pro-war folk have been consistently more dishonest – in many cases, I’m sure, not deliberately and with malicious intent – than anyone else. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Saddam Hussein – yes, we know, he was horrible – posed no clear and present military danger to the U.S. (His armed forces were crushed in two weeks, for pete’s sake!) Most importantly, there was no connection between Iraq and Sept. 11. None. Nada. Zip. Iraq is this century‘s biggest, fattest and smelliest red herring, and the justifications for going to war and staying there remain nebulous. We keep hearing about how there’s “progress,” yet news from around the world shows otherwise. Ultimately, having an unwanted presence in a country that needs to rebuild itself from the inside-out instead of the outside-in is like teaching a pig to sing.
Rhetorical Shredding
But setting aside the pesky issue of facts, there’s rhetoric to consider. The pro-war camp perpetrated many falsehoods throughout the course of their rhetorical shredding of the anti-war crowd. For example: This whole anti-war thing is yet another attempt by treasonous liberals to make sure that America is defeated. How that accusation even makes sense, I don’t know. Then there’s this moaning and groaning about anti-war military veterans who don’t support the troops. How people who actually served in wartime get less respect and consideration than a President who never fought, a Vice-President who never served, and a staff whose only combat experience comes from oil companies’ boardrooms, is just plain baffling. I guess we’re back to spearing any and all sacred cows to bully people who don’t tow the line.
Tellingly, beneath the issue of “liberals vs. conservatives” lurks another big lie. That lie is that conservatives are actually united, of one mind, all in the same boat. The American Conservative, behind which is none other than Mr. Conservative himself, Patrick Buchanan? Opposed to the war. Libertarians, who certainly are no lefties? Anti-war.com and other websites show that they’re opposed, too. So much for the great clash of unified ideologies: Pop-conservatism and pop-liberalism are as fragmented as broken glasses of milk. The sad thing is that both (loose) ideologies have ideas and principles worth paying attention to, but all that gets lost in the yelling.
Democrats and the Semblance of a Spine
To get back to the protesters, though, I have to say that their protesting is unimpressive considering what they’re up against. Not only has protesting the war and the President been diluted past its ability to be effective, but it now reinforces, well, nothing in particular. At least, nothing new, which is no way to persuade one’s debating opponents. Then again, perhaps the problem lies less with the grassroots expressing their opinions with sincerity than with a Democratic Party unable to line up its principles and act accordingly. Non-binding resolutions, symbolic gestures, strange spending requirements on a bill that should be about the troops – no wonder they don’t get any respect. If they were all like, say, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, their ideological opposition might reject what they stand for, but at least they’d have to be respected as people who don’t equivocate, waffle and roll over the moment someone starts calling them names and getting nasty. As it stands, we have earnest but ineffective grassroots and a wobbly political party that ostensibly won control of the House and Senate on the basis of representing the grassroots. Maybe if the protesters planted themselves outside Democrats’ offices, the politicians would actually grow the rest of their spines in and get something done.
Note: There is something to be said for the Democrats’ willingness to provoke a confrontation with Bush over this whole timetable thing. Where there’s scrappiness, there’s hope?