Letter from a reader about the Congress vote for war
This thoughful email from kosmo -at- hotpop dot com refers to our posting on the 30% NO vote in the House for an Iraq War. His comments are in italics.
You said:
“30% is way more NO’s than I expected. Plus, 30% opposed in the House is more than we had for years during the Vietnam war protest days.”
I’d love to join you in your optimism but I can’t. The Establishment knows that it’s going to get lots of cheap oil so they’re happy. And a few of us realize that it’s really Act II in Bushboy’s plan to return to the Golden Days of Colonialism. But nobody in Congress actually *believes* Bushboy’s line about self defense.
Then let’s throw the rascals out! More to the point, in this anti-war movement as in the 60’s, who cares what the alleged odds are. Let’s just organize and get the word out. The public at large will come around. Yes, I really do believe that.
The pundits talk of “house-to-house” fighting in Baghdad but actual street fighting that would cause high number’s of Americans casualties is simply not going to happen. The military won’t *ever* let that happen again. They’ll level Baghdad first.
Our own CIA predicts Iraq would then use whatever they have at their disposal to stop us - poison gas, biological agents, whatever. Not to mention the entire Mideast becoming hugely destabilized and even more hostile to the US. If we destroyed Baghdad to save it, I doubt the Bush Administration would have any legitimacy left at home (it would certainly have none left abroad).
The other obstacle to building an effective anti-war movement is that the “press” has been *completely* taken over in the last 40 yrs. The overwhelming majority of Americans *do not know* about about the demonstrations that happened last weekend in 22 American cities.
Then, as in the 60’s during the Civil Rights and Antiwar movements, we make the demonstrations so large they can not be ignored.
Karl Rove and his disciples understand that Middle America doesn’t read the “fine print”. But they do remember the keywords: “War on Terror”, “Homeland Security”, “Axis of Evil”, “Faith Based”, etc.
I subscribe to ‘The Emperor has no Clothes” school of thought. I see the Bushies as an incompetent batch of ignorant provincials. Testosterone fueled to be sure. But don’t confuse testosterone poisoning with competence. Karl Rove is a political hack. Dick Cheney has a bad heart. Bush can’t give a speech without fumbling. Look behind the curtain!
And let’s not forget, the rest of the world really is in our corner on this. Aside from Tony Blair, no one else wants this war.
