Posted by Dan Ewert : 2/20/2003 11:53:00 PM (Archive Link)
On to war matters. I’m sure you are familiar with the anti-war demonstrations that occurred last weekend. Earlier today, I was watching on C-SPAN recordings of some speakers at the London rally. It was interesting because it was one long stream of speakers who were playing to people’s emotions, issuing poor arguments (if issuing an argument at all), throwing out wild unsupportable figures, and using a great deal of Marxist rhetoric. Something I’ve noticed about these people is that many of them are incapable of putting forth cogent arguments in favor of their position. They instead bleat tired old slogans or call Bush a fascist without having a clue what it means. If challenged with reason and logic, they will resort to a safety position by accusing you of being a corporate stooge or the like. As the uninformed will do, they smack on a label that elevates them and their opinions by no virtue except that the label has been placed.

Among the oft said slogans is “No Blood For Oil.” This is the notion that the U.S. wants to attack Iraq only to secure its oil supplies. Of all the arguments to make against the war, this is probably the absolute worst for several reasons. First, Iraqi oil makes up only 2% of America’s usage. That’s not too much. We seem to have pretty stable gas prices with very little Iraqi oil. Second, with more oil supplies coming online in Russia and South America, the importance of Middle Eastern oil has slackened considerably. Third, if all America was interested in was oil, we could get at it a lot more easily than war. Long ago, we could have told Saddam we’d support the lifting of UN sanctions if we get fat oil contracts. Fourth, world oil prices are at good levels right now and have been (the current price spike is due to striking Venezuelan oil workers, not Iraq). Good prices mean good profits for American oil companies. If more oil comes into the market, prices and profits go down. Fifth, an attack on Iraq will probably result in Saddam torching the oil fields and the infrastructure which will require billions and years to rebuild and that’s not all that appealing to many companies. And finally, sixth, if we only wanted Iraq’s oil, then we would have taken over the oil fields in the first Gulf War. People conveniently forget that.

Another aspect of the protests that you can read about here and here on TheNation.com is that the antiwar crowd is of the opinion that the demonstrations were of monumental, historical importance and that practically the whole world is against an Iraq war and that makes them right. A few million folks getting together and chanting does not make a majority. What’s also frustrating is that these demonstrators are all full of moral self-righteousness and they think they’re being courageous by opposing their government’s view. These are people who are protesting in a free and democratic country where such things are allowed and encouraged. It doesn’t take courage to pick up a sign and walk a few miles while yelling and then go home again. I can’t help but wonder if anybody at the rallies took the time to consider what would have happened to Iraqi crowd protesting against Saddam Hussein’s policies. They most definitely would not be peacefully going home at the end of it all. The demonstrators also believe that rallies indicate that they are right. They would never entertain the idea that so many people could actually be wrong even though it’s happened in the past. I do wonder, however, when years from now after Iraq has been liberated, the Iraqi people are happy, and all of Saddam’s evil-doing is brought to the light of day, if these people will admit to their children that they protested to keep the man in power.