Found this at Johnny B's blog, and decided it was good fodder for the mind. I think the title ought to be changed to "Top reasons to not hate celebrities when they voice opposition to war", but it's close enough for *ahem* hand grenades or horseshoes. As a side note, can anyone confirm that all the statements made in this list are true?
Can't get away from the war. I've mostly stopped watching TV news because of it. It's hard to watch those "embedded" reporters going on and on with nothing to report on except "It's hot" or "It's cold" or "We got caught in a sandstorm". And I haven't seen any real news about the war in some time. Where is Saddam? Where are the weapons of mass destruction he was hiding? I don't expect (or want) to hear about troops movements, and I'm slightly surprised we aren't getting more actual news.
Then there's this other side. Salam Pax is gone. Perhaps he's dead. Perhaps he never really existed. We may never know. But there hasn't been a new post since the 24th of March. I hope that, if he is real, he's just lying low somewhere until this whole thing is over.
Another point of view came from a friend who visited on Monday. Her husband is in the Gulf. She had been given strict instructions to not reveal his location to ANYONE for security purposes, so she was more than a little surprised to see his unit on TV, with all that secure and secret information being given out by an embedded reporter. Both herself and her husband had serious doubts about the "justness" of the war, but her husband went to do his job anyway. As she told me, we may have our doubts about Bush's agenda, but how much harder must it be for a soldier with doubts to go and fight and possibly die for something they don't truly believe in? In any case, that had changed with her last letter from her husband. He was in Southern Iraq somewhere helping to distribute food and water, and the relief and thanks from the people made him, for the first time, feel good about what he was doing.
Then there are the pro-war "protesters". I see them every time I see anti-war folk. The pro-war folk hold up signs with a radio station's logo front and center, and around it are the words "Free Iraq" or something. It's hard to tell what they say. The radio station logo is so large, while the supposed message is so small. I can only wonder why they don't go make their own signs.
Many of the "No Iraq War" signs are changing, too, I notice. More people are holding up signs that say "Support Our Troops, Bring 'Em Home" instead.
I suspect most people who are opposed to the war are like me. I think we went in wrong, I think Bush is working very hard to make himself a war criminal in the eyes of most of the world, but I don't want our soldiers dying and hated. While I wish we could pull out, I'm realistic enough to know that we'd better finish what we started this time, or the consequences will be even worse for the citizens of Baghdad. I blame Bush Sr for this mess, for not finishing the job when he should have. That time we would have been completely justified in going against the UN. Because he didn't, because he stopped short, the Iraqis lived through twelve years of hell on Earth. But that doesn't make Bush Jr's little crusade right. The UN stopped us last time, the UN should have been the ones to go in. Jr Bush's determination to go in without them has only made a bad situation even worse, and painted the Americans as the bad guys, when the only bad guy should have been Saddam himself.
Bah. I'm getting myself depressed, and babbling on. Time to go finish getting ready for work.
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