Interesting Editiorial...

[Fittisize]

I didn't read much of the post...but I also came across an EDitorial (by Ed the Sock), made on Feb. 17. I don't agree with all of his opinions, but this is one of the better editorials or rants against a war on Iraq.

Like many other cities, Toronto was the site of a large anti-war rally on the weekend, and the fact that none of the protesters wound up in the grill of my car is a testament to how I’ve mellowed in my old age.

It’s not that I don’t share the general sentiment against an imminent war in Iraq – I just don’t think that anybody has the right to tie up traffic for miles in a self-important quest for expression. Protests of this sort, for any cause, pose a problem for police vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks, parents taking kids to doctors, people taking animals to the vet and TV people trying to make a 3:30 movie. All so a bunch of scruffy young people long on passion but short on perspective can try to capture some retro-60s feeling and try to pick-up loose hippy chicks.
I don’t know what it is about specifically anti-war protesters that sets my teeth on edge – but they do. Maybe it’s because they seem to be against not just this war, but every war, and carry on as if a knee-jerk opposition to military action makes them morally superior to the rest of us living in the real world.

I wonder if they would have demonstrated against our forces in World War Two, determining that engaging in military action was less moral than letting Hitler take over Europe and slaughter ethnic minorities? War is not always the right choice nor always the wrong choice – it depends on the circumstances. Yet I can’t remember a military action that the left hasn’t agitated against.

Or should I say, I can’t remember a western military action that the left hasn’t agitated against. They don’t seem to gather too often to protest the military actions of non-western countries. And they seem to share more sympathies with terrorists than with their victims.

No, this isn’t true of all the left, or all the people who protested on Saturday, but it’s true of enough of them for me to rant about it.

Western anti-war protesters only seem to get a bee in their bonnet on the occasions that the U.S. is involved in a conflict. If these people are so concerned with Iraqi civilians, where were they en masse when Saddam was gassing Iraqis, torturing them and starving them? Where are they every day when countries around the world torture and abuse their own citizens, or make war or terrorism against other countries’ citizens? I‘ll tell you where they are – sipping lattes, scribbling bad poems, sucking on bongs and having a kegger.

So far, I’m not convinced that a war on Iraq is a good idea – but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be convinced by decent evidence. Sometimes, the only moral choice is to wage war instead of letting injustices continue. Do we have the right to interfere in how sovereign nations treat their own people? Damn right we do. Do we have the resources to address every nation that’s hurting it’s people? Not a chance. So when we do take a risk on deposing a dictator, people concerned with suffering should be glad – not scribbling placards at Starbucks.

The real debate should be over the best way to make life better for Iraqi citizens and the rest of the region, not whether or not it’s right to kick Saddam Hussein’s ass.

When you only have a problem with war, and not with the injustices that can be remedied through military action, the moral high ground can get a bit slippery under your Birkenstocks.

I'm Ed the Sock.

A refreshing Canadian perspective about the war.

More EDitorials here.