CNN reports that up to 100,000 people have converged on Washington in protest of the Iraq War (just what is the official name for this?).
The rally, which passed by the White House, stretched through the day and into the night. CNN called it "a marathon of music, speechmaking, and dissent on the National Mall." It was the largest anti-war protest in the U.S. capital since the US-led invasion of Iraq.
According to CNN, the rally included young activists, nuns whose anti-war activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children in uniform lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest.
One Republican, who claims he still supports Bush except for the war, told CNN: "President Bush needs to admit he made a mistake in the war and bring the troops home, and let's move on."
His wife called the removal of Saddam Hussein "a noble mission" but said U.S. troops should have left when claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction proved unfounded.
"Bush Lied, Thousands Died," said one sign. "End the Occupation," said another. More than 1,900 members of the U.S. armed forces have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003.
A few hundred people in a counter demonstration in support of Bush's Iraq policy lined the protest route near the FBI building. The two groups shouted at each other, a police line keeping them apart. Organizers of a pro-military rally Sunday hoped for 10,000 people.
Guess which side of this issue I'm on.
제 블로그는 재미 없습니까?
ReplyDelete재미있어 보이는데요....
ReplyDeleteIt may be too late for troops to be withdrawn now, it looks like the point of no return has been passed.
kfaction, is this a legitimate post or is this blog-spam?
ReplyDeleteSan Nakji, I think you may be right. We're sort of in a "you broke it, you bought it" situation.
I wonder, though, if it wouldn't be better for us to withdraw and pay the cost of having UN troops there (as long as there is some teeth to their deployment).
I'm not sure, though, how much of the insurgency is terrorism directed at the US and its allies (terrorism that WASN'T THERE before the invasion) and how much of it is a pro-Saddam or pro-Sunni insurgency designed to put the Sunnis back in power. If it's a lot of the latter (and Time Magazine suggests it is), then the US military presence would be better than a UN presence.
I believe that troops need to stay until the situation is stable. To leave things in the mess their in would be morally repugnant. But I think Bush also needs to come clean and admit that he made serious errors in judgment, both on the reasons to go to war and how the war was (mis)managed. I would have a lot more faith in a continued presence (which I feel is necessary) if I knew that he realized how much he has fucked things up.
Good question. Would the 'terrorism' still be there if the yanks left? I think it would be. The invasion tipped the balance of power over to the Shi'ites and the Sunnis are being left out in the cold. Saddam managed to contain them all, but now it is all coming out. Kind of like Tito's Yugoslavia. It's a long hall thing and I doubt the UN wants to clear up the mess...
ReplyDeleteThe power struggle would definitely still be there. I'm not sure if the terrorism still would be. The Islamists hate the West, but they also hate secular Muslim governments, too. Maybe they would stay around and cause trouble.
ReplyDeleteWe definitely opened up a Pandora's box, but I'm not sure if the Tito comparison is appropriate. Tito was a harsh communist leader who kept ethnic tensions under wraps and encouraged ethnic mixing, but I don't think he ever approached the kind of wholesale slaughter of people that Saddam Hussein did.
Humanitarian reasons were tertiary among Bush43's three reasons for removing Saddam (WMD threat way out in front, the threat to his neighbors a distant second, and his atrocious human rights record a half-hearted mention). To me, though, they were the only justification, because for every year we went by with Saddam Hussein in power, ten or twenty thousand Iraqis might likely die.
The problem is that the numbers aren't much improved with the situation as it is now. We have BOTCHED this (with a capital B, O, T, C, H). But we are responsible for the mess.
I don't know, despite the mess, we eventually withdrew from vietnam..
ReplyDeleteOk, we can blame in on the french for the vietnam mess as if they hadn't surrendered..anyway the fact of the matter is the situation in iraq isn't getting better..I've noticed how the media stopped mentioning the green zone in baghdad as there's no safe or "green" zone in iraq..
Curzon wrote:
ReplyDeleteGuess which side? That I can...
Just so you know who you're in league with:
http://www.zombietime.com/sf_rally_september_24_2005/
Sorry, Curzon. Wrong guess. Thanks for playing. :)
Maybe you didn't read the comments before you wrote yours, but this paragraph of mine in the comments section gave it away (bold added for emphasis):
I believe that troops need to stay until the situation is stable. To leave things in the mess their in would be morally repugnant. But I think Bush also needs to come clean and admit that he made serious errors in judgment, both on the reasons to go to war and how the war was (mis)managed. I would have a lot more faith in a continued presence (which I feel is necessary) if I knew that he realized how much he has fucked things up.