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By Joe Biles
War is an ugly thing," English philosopher John Stuart Mill once observed. "But not the ugliest of things."
Mill saw war in all its horror with his own eyes, during his four years spent in Virginia during the American Civil War. He saw firsthand the trenches, lines of battle and cemeteries filled with tens of thousands of young men who gave everything in defense of their home.
This was not the ugliest of things, by far.
"The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse," Mill tells us. "The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
In 77 simple but eloquent words, Mill accurately described the evil personified by the group that gathered outside the Student Union on Friday to protest the liberation of Iraq. Calling itself the Student Coalition Against the War, this group attracted the attention of both the news media and a large number of counter protesters, while evidently generating a rather pathetic turnout of its own membership.
What did they do with this platform? Spew just about the biggest pack of lies assembled since Iraq's 12,000-page weapons "declaration" late last year.
One protester, Blue Brazelton, was quoted in The University Daily as saying he opposes the impending war because he values "human life over oil," repeating the claim made by previous troublemakers at previous demonstrations that George W. Bush created this whole crisis for protection of Middle Eastern petroleum.
What Brazelton isn't telling you is if the United States really wanted Iraq's oil, all we'd have to do is push to end the U.N. economic sanctions placed on Iraq after the last war. Then we could buy all the oil we wanted and for much cheaper than the cost of fighting a war.
We wouldn't be the only one. France and Germany want badly to normalize relations with Saddam Hussein.
That's why they oppose freeing Iraq. France has been colluding with Hussein for years, in fact. It was French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac who, occupying the same office in 1975, sold Iraq a nuclear power plant. This was the power plant at Osirak that the Israelis destroyed in a 1981 act of pre-emption. The Israelis jokingly called it O-Chirac.
Chirac also can't wait to end the sanctions on Iraq because the French will then be able to collect on the debt Iraq owes them for years of military and technological aid.
Brazelton also chimed in to add that those sanctions have killed a half-million innocent Iraqis through starvation. This is nothing but a bald-faced and long-refuted lie put out by Hussein's propaganda machine. As The Observer (UK) broke last summer, Hussein's regime perpetuates this myth and reinforces it by staging mass burials of dead babies featuring long processions of as many as 60 coffins decorated with photos of the deceased.
The United States and the international community have gone to great lengths to insure economic sanctions do not hurt Iraqi families with the U.N. Oil-for-Food program.
What has Hussein done in response? Sell the food and keep the money for himself, building 48 new presidential palaces during the last 12 years. Those loyal to his regime are rewarded with expensive medical care and surgeries with modern equipment, while the average Iraqi can't even buy medicine.
Sorry, Brazelton, the only one responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people is Hussein. The only thing that can end their suffering is his removal.
The UD also heard from Meghan McDonald, who at a previous protest was quoted as saying, "I don't believe in the war because I think that killing is wrong." She should tell that to Hussein. This time around, she said war for any reason was wrong (Translation: There is nothing worth fighting for.) and that President George W. Bush was getting us into a war unilaterally with no evidence.
First, Hussein started this, not Bush. Furthermore, what the heck does McDonald mean about "no evidence"? Where was she during the State of the Union address and Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N?
Lastly, the Bush administration has never at any time said anything about invading Iraq unilaterally. We always intended to at least go in as part of a coalition of the willing, even if that meant only the British Commonwealth.
To describe anything less than U.N. sanction as unilateral is not only deceptive but surrenders our own right to self-defense and international sovereignty to the same group that made Libya head of a human rights panel. It would, in essence, make the U.N. a world government. And to do this because of just three countries- France, Germany and Russia- when we have more than two dozen others backing us up would be the height of folly.
However, the biggest lie uttered Friday had to be the idea that this was all somehow patriotic. Graduate student Trevor Smith stood up and told the members of the crowd not to be ashamed of their position.
"It is the right of the American people to say no," he said.
Smith is wrong. They are and ought to be ashamed. It's time for the so-called "anti-war movement" to admit to the fact that when they say war for any reason is wrong, they mean that appeasing dictators like Hussein is OK.
Why are they ashamed to state that Hussein's mass murders and imperialism can be tolerated as long as no Americans get hurt? That's what they truly believe, after all. Of course Hussein is trying, as we speak, to produce the weapons and delivery systems capable of gassing, poisoning and/or nuking America, so that also begs another question.
Why aren't these protestors afraid to admit they hate America?
Reasonable people know reasonable dissent is necessary in a democracy. It's even patriotic. But in this day and age of political correctness gone wrong, we often forget that not all dissent is reasonable dissent- that the lies these radicals preach are indeed harmful to our way of life, helpful to the enemy and at their core, un-American.
Obviously, I'm very angry about what Smith, McDonald, Brazelton and company said on Friday. The freedom to shoot their mouths off that they take for granted was paid for by the blood of men like my great-great-great-great grandfather, who was killed defending Vicksburg, and all those who have died protecting this great country in war. The flag they love to burn is the one that draped the grave of my father, a veteran of Korea.
So while I hate what those misguided people said, I will still defend to my death their right to say it. Just don't ask them to return the favor.
The University Daily
February 13, 2003
War Protesters Should Support U.S.
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