“Where are the peaceniks? Why aren’t they marching on Capitol Hill to protest President Barack Obama’s use of military force in Syria and Iraq?”, Debra Saunders asks at Real Clear Politics:
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Kevin Fagan interviewed peace activists who told him that their ranks are numb, in part because America has been at war for more than a decade. Some even wonder whether the Islamic State is so barbaric as to merit airstrikes.
“People are war-weary and have already been very disappointed in President Obama for some time,” Peaceworkers Executive Director David Hartsough said. That’s right; they’re disappointed. After GOP President George W. Bush sent U.S. troops into Iraq with congressional authorization in 2002, activists took to the streets, but after a Democrat ordered airstrikes over Syria without explicit authorization, they’ve been subdued.
“It’s early still, and for the moment, this is an air war and not a ground war,” another progressive told Fagan.
I understand. Partisans on both sides of the aisle like to think that if they were in charge, the world would be a safer place. For eight years, Democrats indulged in the seductive conceit that if they were in charge, the world couldn’t be worse than it was with the bumbling Bush as commander in chief. As Secretary of State John Kerry scoffed as a senator in 2004, Bush ran “the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of this country.”
Which is a curious admission, since it was merely an extension of the policies of the Democratic administration that preceded it, whose chief architects may well return to power in 2017:
[jwplayer player=”1″ mediaid=”74878″]
Former actress and comedienne Janeane Garofalo (who incidentally turned 50 today) gave the game away in 2003, as to why when Al Gore was calling for regime change in Iraq and Bill Clinton was bombing , the left was so quiet:
Comedienne-turned-peace-activist Janeane Garofalo offered a stunning admission on Sunday, explaining that she and her fellow anti-war protesters didn’t stage huge demonstrations when President Clinton launched attacks on Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan and the Sudan because “it wasn’t very hip” to protest the former president.
Asked by “Fox News Sunday’s” Tony Snow why peace protesters like herself didn’t object to Clinton’s wars, Garofalo explained:
“I absolutely did. I did not support Operation Desert Fox. It’s just that you didn’t know me very well back then. Nobody really was interested in listening to me back then.”
Then she added, by way of explaining why the anti-Clinton protests never gelled, “It wasn’t very hip.”
Why, it’s as if most “anti-war” groups are in reality “on the other side” or “Just Democratic Party Tools,” — or both.
Update: It looks like we’re going to need a lot more milk cartons:
The Anti-War Movement What the Hell Happened? http://t.co/EFee9T1CDF #Libertarian #tlot pic.twitter.com/UcLjwWIZOG
— Libertarian Nation (@LibertarianWing) September 29, 2014
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