Icky Anti-War Movement

I'm feeling guilty still about the post below, about how distasteful I find much of the pro-life movement. Not the movement's goals, mind you, but the movement's members.

So I want to plug into the discussion here my distaste for many in the anti-war crowd as well. Again, I believe in an anti-war movement, but I don't necessarily see a good one most days in the one we've got.

I absolutely fundamentally opposed going into Iraq, don't get me wrong. I wasn't much broke up about going into Afghanistan, I suppose, but I wasn't especially thrilled about it either. But Iraq? No way.

And then to have fucked up the whole Iraq thing before, during, and after? Unforgivable.

But.

Ah, yes. But. What do we do now?

I don't support then the wholesale withdrawal of American troops, to leave a basket case and/or power vacuum. If anything, we need more troops. Maybe not more American troops, but definitely more Saudi troops, more Egyptian troops.

Similar to Nixon's Vietnamization policy, this President seems to be heading down an Iraqization policy road, saying we'll stand down when the Iraqi troops stand up. I'll believe that when I see it, but what I see now is this President just laying the groundwork for pullout, eventually leaving behind basket case or whatever.

So, anyway, back to the anti-war crowd. Mostly they seem to call for bringing the American soldiers home for the sake of bringing the soldiers home. The political message is the message, is all I see.

Powell seems to have been right, yet again. First with the Powell Doctrine, which is to have great public support to begin with, then to go in with overwhelming force, and to have a strict military objective which, when achieved, allows going back out again. This President didn't have any of this going to Iraq, the dolt. Then Powell's second point was the Pottery Barn Rule, meaning you break it, you bought it. We broke Iraq, so we now own it, and we don't seem to be able to handle the caretaking. No wonder he bolted for the second term.

So, again, sorry for the digressions, but back to the icky anti-war crowd. By icky, though, I most certainly do not mean Michael Moore, who remains a great hero to me to this day. Admittedly I read Ben Hamper's Rivethead before I saw Roger & Me, so I was maybe a little late to join the crowd, but I think Moore is a great humanist, a great humorist, and especially a great polemicist, and Roger & Me will always be on my Top Ten List. Oh, and Ted Rall is great as well.

But them A.N.S.W.E.R. Stalinists or whatever they are? Feh. With friends like these...