They Won't Care, Because They Don't Care

And I won't have to prove it: they will.

The Christian Science Monitor published an anonymous op-ed piece today, by an expatriate Iraqi:

Since Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, started warning that a US invasion of Iraq would "open the gates of hell," the retort that has been flying around Iraqi exiles' websites is, "Good! We'd like to get out!"

It got me wondering: What if you antiwar protesters and politicians succeed in stopping a US-led war to change the regime in Baghdad? What then will you do?

Will you also demonstrate and demand "peaceful" actions to cure the abysmal human rights violations of the Iraqi people under the rule of Saddam Hussein?

Or, will you simply forget about us Iraqis once you discredit George W. Bush?...

Will you vigorously demand an international tribunal to indict Hussein's regime for crimes against humanity? Or will you simply dismiss him as "another" dictator of a "sovereign" country?

Will you question why Hussein builds lavish palaces while his people are suffering? Or will you simply blame it all on UN sanctions and US "hegemony?"

Will you decry the hypocritical oil and arms commerce of France, Germany, Russia, and China with the butcher of Baghdad? Or are you only against US interests in Iraqi oil?...

Will you hear the cries of Iraqis executed in acid tanks in Baghdad? the Iraqi women raped in front of their husbands and fathers to extract confessions? Or of children tortured in front of their parents? Or of families billed for the bullets used to execute military "deserters" in front of their own homes?

No. I suspect that most of you will simply retire to your cappucino cafes to brainstorm the next hot topic to protest, and that you will simply forget about us Iraqis, once you succeed in discrediting President Bush.

Please, prove me wrong.

I think he hits the bull's-eye, but of the wrong target. President Bush isn't going to be discredited. The pro-Saddam "anti-war" protestors aren't going to succeed in stopping the war; I believe, indeed, that they are not even delaying it in the slightest, no matter what appearances may be. The preparations for the liberation of Iraq and the defeat of Saddam Hussein are proceeding: those who think it should have been done already may very well be right; I just think the administration disagrees with them, and is going ahead, step by step, at a pace and in a manner it deems to be suitable.

No, the author posited the wrong scenario: he should have asked, not if they will care if they succeed in keeping Saddam Hussein in power, but if they will care that the Iraqi people will have been liberated from brutal tyranny. As I have written already:

.... Second, most of those participating in the recent "peace" marches will not care that Iraqis have been freed from the brutal rule of a monstrous tyrant. You got that right: they will not care. Let me say it again: they will not care....

I do not make such claims lightly. I have no X-ray vision with which to detect their real (rather than claimed) motivations or their thoughts and feelings. I can only go by what I see. I see that the "anti-war" movement in America is made up almost entirely of Democrats and those to their left. I see that military action — instigated by a Democrat — of a similar kind in recent years (Bosnia, Kosovo) was not protested by them. I see that their anger is directed, not at the tyrant Saddam Hussein, but at the "tyrant" George Bush.

IOW, this is about American politics, not about the Iraqi people.

"Please, prove me wrong."

I will be proven wrong when the same celebrities who vilify George Bush turn out to celebrate the liberation of Iraq. I will be proven wrong when mainstream media spends as much time and effort and ink and pixels and airtime showing America what Iraq has been through, and how much Iraq is grateful for its liberation, as they have trying to show... oh, how simply horrible we are for planning to massacre impoverished brown-skinned innocents because we're white capitalist chauvinists.

Alas. I will not be proven wrong.

(Thanks, James.)

P.S. I know there are honest, sincere folks among the "anti-war" crowd, who do care. But they aren't among the leadership and the organizers and the spokesmen. I doubt that they are even among the majority.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 02/26/03 06:32:40 PM
Categorized as Most Notable & Political.