Reply #8: No One to Demonize - Harold Meyerson WAPO [View All]

[kliljedahl]

In the absence of an antiwar movement, the American people have turned against the war in Iraq. Those two facts, I suspect, are connected.

There was a very real antiwar movement early on. In the months before, during and immediately after our invasion, hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets to oppose the intervention. Then chaos, followed by insurgency, enveloped Iraq, and the need for a constable to restore some order became indisputable. Those who had opposed the war -- this columnist included -- argued that the occupation would be less of a lightning rod if conducted by an international force under U.N. aegis. But the Bush administration insisted on U.S. control (a decision that grows less explicable with each passing day), and other nations with real armies made clear that they wanted no part of what was becoming a bloody occupation.


Confronted with a choice between U.S. occupation and chaos, millions of Americans -- chiefly liberals and Democrats -- who'd been against the war decided to give occupation a chance. In the streets, demonstrations dwindled; in Congress, Democrats (save for a handful) did not call for withdrawal. With unprecedented discipline, Democrats who had opposed the war lined up behind the candidacy of John Kerry, whose position on the war was muddled at best. The question of the occupation fell off the liberal agenda. At the Take Back America conference, a national gathering of liberals held this month, the issue barely came up at all.

In Iraq, however, the situation clarified. What had looked like a choice between occupation and mayhem was something even grimmer: The mayhem proceeds, and will proceed, occupation or no. It will doubtless grow worse if we pull up stakes, but our presence has failed to guarantee stability in politics or daily life. More than two years after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled, the drive from downtown Baghdad to the airport is still a crapshoot with death.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101361.html


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