Encounter with an Anti-war activist

Anti-war activists are pretty scary people. They are blind ideologues who care for nothing but their own narcissistic desire to be right. They will misquote anyone and everyone they can find to advance their cause for tyranny. At the loyola site slashdog, which is supposed to be non-partisan but is really just a forum for liberal extremism, I encountered just such a wacko. Here is our conversation.

The poor soul:

From what I understand of the Maryland Day festivities, the actual ceremony begins at 3PM. So this candlelight vigis does not intefer with the day's activities. As for "Some politically motivated demonstration", I counter witht he motives for the war in iraq. Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)??? Better yet, where is Osama and those responsible for the terror attacks on New York, Washington, and Madrid? This war was "some politically motivated demonstration." As Americans, we have a RIGHT to protest (see 1st Amendment). And as tuition paying students, we have a RIGHT to use our quad for a student-ran club activity. No one stopped the SGA, Lax Teams, Spectrum, etc from using the quad. As long as the JUSTICE club holds a peaceful protest that does not intefer with the mass, then I fail to see why this is a big deal.

Me:

"I counter witht he motives for the war in iraq. Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)??? Better yet, where is Osama and those responsible for the terror attacks on New York, Washington, and Madrid?"

Yawn. This is such a typical response from the anti-liberation left (and right). I take it you have read David Kay's report and testimony before congress. Well, if you had you wouldn't be saying "where is the WMD's." Kay has found ample evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program, the intent to develop and USE it further and the need to stop Saddam now. As Kay said, the war was probably EVEN MORE justified under the information he found than it was before. Iraq was disintegrating into anarchy, Saddam was desperate to attain weapons, he was silencing dissent, and he was butchering his own citizens. Perhaps you want your president of the United States to ignore a decades worth of evidence and countless numbers of experts (including David Kay). I don't

The U.S. is currently searching hard for Osama, I hope he is found soon. Yet your expression reveals a startling ignorance as to the real problem at hand. Even if we caught Bin Laden, the problem would still be serious and imminent. The US has been successful at dismantling much the Al Qaeda's original top brass (Where Kalid Mohammed, in a jail). But other officials are taking their posta and individual cells are taking their own initiative in fighting the infidel (ah, and we bring God in to justify tyranny!) Perhaps the problem is you believe that George Bush and John Ascroft are the problem, not the terrorists and the tyrannical states that are their mothers milk. Thank God your's is a fringe opinion

The poor soul responds: In a senate hearing, David Kay said (in reference to Iraq's WMD program) "Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript/

Saddam Hussien had a WMD program...10 years ago. Evidence shows that He was not able to rebuild it (although I'm sure he would have, given the opportunity). So, I'm not quite sure how Saddam's weapons program from the 1980's was a clear and present danger, much less a justification for war. I think your ignoring the bigger problem...the US intellegence community has had some blunders in the last 5 years (USS Cole, 9/11, Iraq), which have cost American lives. Instead of dumping millions into invading Iraq, I would have rather seen President Bush put those millions into better intellengce gathering so the aforementioned 'oversights' do not happen again.

Festa writes "Thank God your's is a fringe opinion "

I take offense at this...I think you will find that this nation is divided about this war. Look at the polls done by the New York Times, Fox News, or the Washington Post. They will show that a good number of Americans are not in favor of President Bush or the war. Not everyone shares your ideas on what is right and wrong, or where a UN mandate is needed. Liberating the Iraqi people was a good thing. I hope that Democracy will be successful in Iraq. But the fact that Iraq was invaded on questionable intellegence is disturbing (if the intellegence was not questionable, then the CIA would have known where the weapons were being stored). I hope your not so totally blinded that you miss that important fact. "

And I counter:

Ugh. I love selective quotations, love it. In that very very same article
"In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I reported to you in October, Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of [U.N.] Resolution 1441.

Resolution 1441 required that Iraq report all of its activities -- one last chance to come clean about what it had.

We have discovered hundreds of cases, based on both documents, physical evidence and the testimony of Iraqis, of activities that were prohibited under the initial U.N. Resolution 687 and that should have been reported under 1441, with Iraqi testimony that not only did they not tell the U.N. about this, they were instructed not to do it and they hid material"

Or how bout this

"With regard to biological warfare activities, which has been one of our two initial areas of focus, ISG teams are uncovering significant information - including research and development of BW-applicable organisms, the involvement of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) in possible BW activities, and deliberate concealment activities. All of this suggests Iraq after 1996 further compartmentalized its program and focused on maintaining smaller, covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the production of BW agents."

"A very large body of information has been developed through debriefings, site visits, and exploitation of captured Iraqi documents that confirms that Iraq concealed equipment and materials from UN inspectors when they returned in 2002. One noteworthy example is a collection of reference strains that ought to have been declared to the UN. Among them was a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced. This discovery - hidden in the home of a BW scientist - illustrates the point I made earlier about the difficulty of locating small stocks of material that can be used to covertly surge production of deadly weapons. The scientist who concealed the vials containing this agent has identified a large cache of agents that he was asked, but refused, to conceal. ISG is actively searching for this second cache."

I could go on, but whats the point? Iraq was desperately trying to break the sanctions. In order to continue some semblence of containment, we would have had to starve the Iraqi people to death and hope that Saddam, who was trying to reconstitute his weapons stock, did not find a way. This may be a risk you werewilling to take, but it is not a risk a responsible leader of the free world should take after terrorists declared war on us. You may also want to consider Kay's conclusion that the Iraq war was EVEN MORE justified under his findings. Intelligence always differs from reality, but its shocking how brutal, disgusting, and power hungry this man was. Plus, there were several other reasons for the Iraqi war, all of which have been validated, confirmed, or are in progress. The only reason you anti-liberation people focus on the WMD issue is because all your other arguments have been utterly decimated. (To be fair, I think Bush should have realized the media would never get the other reasons out why we were going and should have made a better case for the other reasons, which were justifiable. But thats crying over spilled milk. If you want to be an activist, you should at least educate yourself on them)

What you peace activists are saying is you want the status quo. You either want to keep starving the Iraqi people or youw ant to allow Iraq to reconstitute his weapons programs, and put millions of lives worldwide at risk. Hypocrisy at its worst.

"take offense at this...I think you will find that this nation is divided about this war. Look at the polls done by the New York Times, Fox News, or the Washington Post. They will show that a good number of Americans are not in favor of President Bush or the war. Not everyone shares your ideas on what is right and wrong, or where a UN mandate is needed. Liberating the Iraqi people was a good thing. I hope that Democracy will be successful in Iraq. But the fact that Iraq was invaded on questionable intellegence is disturbing (if the intellegence was not questionable, then the CIA would have known where the weapons were being stored). I hope your not so totally blinded that you miss that important fact."

Most polls show a majority of Americans support the effort in Iraq. There are people who oppose the war, but who are not active in supporting the regime of Saddam Hussein, which you have done implicitly with your protesting. Intelligence always differs from the reality on ground, it is not an exact science. Our intelligence needs to be improved, more spooks and agents are needed to get hands on intelligence. THanks to intelligence cuts congress and your favorite president passed after the cold war, this has become hard to do. What you are asking for is intelligence that is so tight and so irrefutable as to make the situation imminent. That will never happen. I hope you are not totally blinded that you miss this important fact.