I Guess I Owe An Apology To The People Who Were Pro-War in 2002/3

[stopbush]

I always believed - and believed strongly - that had the country taken to the streets en masse to protest bush's Iraq War
that it might have been stopped (by en masse, I mean 10 times the amount of people who did take to the streets). I firmly
believed that if the polls had shown that more than half the country was against bush's war it might have stopped it.

But I was wrong.

Today, 80% of the US population is strongly against bush's escalation of the war. Congress is against it. The military is
against it. And still, bush sez "fuck ya'll" and moves forward with this "deciding for death" policies. It's clear to me now that
had 100% of the country been against bush's war back in 2003, that he would have still gone ahead and launched it, claiming
that he had inherent powers to do so as CiC because he is a fucked up megalomaniac.

So, sorry everyone who I railed against...or maybe, not?

BTW - I am getting many e-mails from friends who in the past said that i was "overreacting" to bush and that the facism and
Constitution shredding of which I spoke "could never happen here." Guess what? They're all on my side now, and many of them
with fervent apologies for not being able to see even dimly what I saw as plain as day. It doesn't make me feel any better to know
that, but at least the gild is off the lily.

[Webster Green]

1. 80% in the streets would get their attention..

I'm ready.

[coalition_unwilling]

17. 80% on general strike would get their attention. I'm ready. During the

first installment back in 1990, I took an unpaid leave of absence from work so that none of my labor was going to support ongoing combat operations. Having watched that attempt fail to spark any similar moves from any of my co-workers, this time around I've confined myself to two weekly peace vigils (one going on now for close to six years).

But I still think the "general strike" would bring them to their knees quickest.

[WI_DEM]

2. you don't owe anybody an apology

It was clear to me that Bush wanted a rush to war and clear to several members of congress. The wimps who voted for it did so, I think, because it was an election year and they didn't want to get labeled "soft on terrorism."

[BuyingThyme]

3. Actually, the "polls" always sided with the UN over Bush

(before he went in and murdered all of those innocent people).

[Virginia Dare]

4. We need a national strike...

it's the best shot we've got imo. Saturday street protests aren't going to do it.

[Lost4words]

6. Sadly, I think you are correct in that assumption. n/t

[flyingfysh]

5. I was out in the streets then

along with a considerable part of the population of Boston.

I was in multiple peace marches, and one demonstration filled the Boston Common. They were barely reported.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, like that of Iran and Syria, has been planned

for and dreamed about for a decade. The only people that stand with Bush are the NeoCon rif-raft of the American Enterprise Institute. Their plan for the 'New American Century' and destruction of our military, crushing of our rights, and bankrupting the US are the only things Bush takes seriously.

[Lucky Luciano]

8. The Divine right of *

"had 100% of the country been against bush's war back in 2003, that he would have still gone ahead and launched it, claiming
that he had inherent powers to do so as CiC because he is a fucked up megalomaniac."

I believe Charles I of Britain and his "Divine Right of Kings" philosophy caused him some trouble down the road...

[coalition_unwilling]

20. Actually "Divine Right of Kings" originated with James I of England

(James VI of Scotland) who succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603. You are correct that it caused Charles I some "problems" (to put it mildly). And then there was Louis XVI of France and his illustrious queen Marie Antoinette, although I am not sure how much an ideology like DROK fed into the events that led to 1789.

[mntleo2]

9. We DID Take To The Streets

...and got the same treatment as you describe. In my home town (Seattle), the demonstration was so huge that it went for blocks, waves of people that pretty much took up the whole downtown core. But who did the local news focus in upon? The five, yes 5 so-called "pro-troops" standing on the sidewalk. I was kind of funny/sad to watch l;ater on the teevee as the news people were interviewing these 5 measley people, that hidden from the camera right behind them, at least 50,000 people were passing by. But you would not have known it from the "news".

Still, I will not be very easy on the pro-war troops. I would like to ask them, "Why were you so ignorant when I knew? I am just a little person, a low income working single mom, one of the so-called "ignorant masses" yet I knew. was it a case that "if you don't see it, it did not exsit? This intentional ignorance is not being the American our grandparents taught us to be ..."

My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle

[gratuitous]

11. Yeah, Portland got the same treatment

All the television footage focused on the pro-war counterdemonstrators and the phone booth they were meeting in. Well, that's not 100% true, there were lots of shots of guys in rainbow fright wigs and other visually stunning attire, as if those 10 people were representative of the entire crowd. The local newspaper, after calling the protestors "naive," went so far as to hire aerial photography done for the sole purpose of disputing the numbers of marchers, and pretending that it wasn't still a fuck of a lot of people marching in sub-freezing temperatures.

But shee-yit, wasn't havin' a big ol' war good for ratings and bidness?

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Were there people here who were pro-war then?

I thought this site was started up precisely because of opposition to the war.

I knew there were people who were pro Afghan war - get Bin Laden - but everyone I know saw Iraq as a distraction, at best.

[charlie]

14. There were regulars

who argued that it was racist to think that Iraqis wouldn't spontaneously organize into a stable democracy if we blew up their country. Others claimed Iraqis wanted us to invade, and by gum, they had friends from Iraq who said so. Then there was the Saddam's Gotta Go and how do you expect to do that without siccing the army on him contingent. Yeah, we had them.

This site began because of the 2000 SCOTUS debacle, not the war.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. My mistake. i was a latecomer here, and came in because of the

war. Guess I thought that because in late 2003, when I first lurked, that was the main topic.

[indepat]

12. Don't need 80%, just 67% in the Senate to put an end to the delusional madness

[bobbolink]

13. Sometimes "I told you so" just doesn't satisfy, does it?

:cry:

Are you now able to discuss with these same people just how to look at history, and to get it through their noggins that we MUST change as people, or lose the whole shebang called the USofA?

Oh, and no, I don't agree with your initial premise. If this country had REALLY been solidly against invasion (it wasn't a "war".... it was imperialistic invasion!), it couldn't have happened.

* would have been stowed away in the Hague L-O-N-G ago if citizens had been awake.

:(

[deutsey]

16. Things are a heckuva lot easier in a dictatorship, as Bush once "joked"

Just so long as he's the dictator.

:evilfrown:

[coalition_unwilling]

18. Why do you owe an apology to the people who were por-war? If

anything, they owe you and me an apology, and a craven one at that. They have the blood of 650,000+ Iraqis on their hands and no amount of Johnny Come Lately anti-warism will remove one ounce of it. That includes Dem luminaries like Hilary Clinton and John Edwards.

[bluewave]

If 80% were against it, we would have had Kerry rather than Chimpy

It would have made a difference.

[coalition_unwilling]

19. Why do you owe an apology to the people who were pro-war? If

anything, they owe you and me an apology, and a craven one at that. They have the blood of 650,000+ Iraqis on their hands and no amount of Johnny Come Lately anti-warism will remove one ounce of it. That includes Dem luminaries like Hilary Clinton and John Edwards.

[n2doc]

21. Yeah but if they had come to their senses in 2004....

Things would be quite different. So Screw em, they were wrong then and stuck their heads in the sand until it was too late to do much about Bushco.